For one, it utilizes technology really well. We begin by using mobile phone polling which allows students to begin thinking about their own information habits and preferences. We ask them questions about their habits and then they have to respond and ultimately explain why they chose what they did. This gets at the motivations behind why students prefer getting information from the web, or face to face from people. It also gets at the idea that in different situations you might want to consult different sources or types of information.

We then show the TED talk and have students quietly reflect on it for a couple minutes by writing down their reactions and thoughts about it. This allows them to develop coherent opinions about it, especially useful for reflective learners. Following this, we discuss as a group the video and it’s implications. Opinions and discussions have ranged widely in my different classes, but there were a lot of strong reactions (both positive and negative).

Since it’s an inquiry based session we explore a number of different questions and don’t always come to the same conclusion. In most of the sessions though, we have agreed that in order to grow as human beings we need to get outside of our comfort zones and learn about things that may challenge us or that may be outside our immediate interests. We also often come to the conclusion that Google is just a tool and that we probably shouldn’t rely only on it to make our information decisions for us. We need to be thoughtful, and take responsibility for the information we consume.

Overall it seems like students enjoy the lesson because it’s accessible and immediately relevant to their world. They may not all agree with Pariser’s points, but most of them come away with slightly shifted perspective on information; and I am guessing many of them will be more mindful of how they search and what they are getting (or not getting) when searching Google.

The lesson has a great balance of activities that appeal to all types of learners, and I think it uses tech in the classroom really successfully. And one of the cooler things is that I overheard a couple students talking before one of the sessions and one them said “my friend said that this is a really fun class.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before in reference to a library session, so we must be doing something right.

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

We’re using this for the first time this year as an introduction to using Google, the information landscape and getting students to question the gaps in their information. I’m really excited for this session and discussion.

Bing Commercial 2011 – Supermarket Food Fight (Animal House)

This one is quick, funny and would be perfect for a discussion either about search engines or more specifically on keywords and how a word can be interpreted a lot of different ways.

Obama Clinton Texas Debate Plagiarism “Silly Season”& Xerox

We’ve used this video for several years in a class about plagiarism and the ethical use of information. It works really great because it is a debate and it is not completely clear if it is plagiarism or not. It effectively demonstrates that there is a lot of grey areas in plagiarism. It’s a little dated, but still gets the message across well.

Jordan Paris – Australia’s Got Talent 2011 Comedian Scandal – Today Tonight Interview: Plagiarism

This is another great example of plagiarism. Though not as grey as the other, this one better depicts the consequences of stealing others ideas and passing them off as your own original material. Depending on your lesson, this one could work well for your class.

Et Plagieringseventyr

This is one of the most well produced videos on plagiarism I have ever seen. It’s from the University of Bergen in Norway so you’ll need to turn the closed captions on, and it could be a slightly risque for some American audiences. It could be a good, fun opening to a session on plagiarism though…and there’s a musical number.

I’m always looking for new ideas and I’d love to hear what other folks like to use in their classes. What are some of your favorite videos to use in the classroom for information literacy instruction?

image from Ars Electronica on Flickr

A study was recently published in Science Magazine called Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. It concluded that because of the ever present access to information via the web people are remembering less. The Ars Technica summary says “experiments suggest that people expect computerized information to be continuously available, and actually remember less when they know they’ll have access to it later. We also seem to remember where we can find information instead of the information itself.”

I have heard students say things like “I don’t have to know that, Google knows it for me.” It seems that we are increasingly outsourcing parts of memory to Google and the web. This is definitely a shift in how our minds work and how we think about information. What then, are the implications for information literacy and how we talk about accessing and recalling information?

For one thing our thinking about information is becoming increasingly meta. Instead of remembering actual information we remember where it was located. We no longer need to know as many facts since connectivity is seemingly ubiquitous now and we can access collective knowledge via the web with devices that are in our pocket. We now just remember bits and pieces of an article that we read, but we can remember who tweeted it or which email account it was sent to, and then access it again when we need it.

Is depending on the web for our memories a bad thing then? People have made arguments in the past against technologies ruining our memories. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates depicts the new technology of writing as a device that will ruin the memories of it’s users:

“ this discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

It seems that this did not happen, in fact writing was a great technology for spreading ideas across time and great distances. But what are some of the possible implications of outsourcing our memories to the web, and how can we talk with students about them?

Our presentation was about using technology in the classroom, specifically videos from YouTube and mobile polling via PollEverywhere. We have a lot of fun integrating these technologies, but we also realize they can be overused or used haphazardly.

In our information literacy sessions, we teach using the inquiry method. In designing our sessions then, we use technology as a jumping off point that allows students to start asking questions and struggling with real world situations. Technology isn’t the point of our sessions. Instead we use it in a way that sparks discussion and engagement that goes past the tech and into the minds of our students. Here are the slides from our presentation:

These content farms are things you have seen in search results before. They are sites like eHow, eZine Articles, HubPages, and Yahoo Answers among many others. And they are annoying as hell. I can’t remember ever finding a useful post on Yahoo Answers. Luckily, it seems that Google is finally trying to do something about it.

For some things, Google is great. I can type “Aljazeera” in and quickly find their English page without knowing the URL. For articles where I can’t remember who wrote them or where I read them, I can type a few keywords that I remember and retrieve them. But if I am doing any shopping I’m not going to Google. There is far too much spam and bias. I’ll go to Amazon or directly to a site. If I am looking for a somewhat credible answer to a not simply factual (Wikipedia) sort of question, I’m not likely going to search Google. Or if I do, I am often disappointed.

This was part of what I was trying to get at in my information landscape post earlier this month. Google is not magic and can’t do everything. It often fails us, and we lower our standards for it because we believe that it’s magic. It seems like these posts about lower quality search results could be used as teachable moments for students.

I observed another librarian teaching and she talked to students about sites like these. She pointed out things like the “belly fat” ads and how the content is normally pretty terrible. It seemed to work very well. Can we use this problem with search to help students become more discerning information consumers? Does anyone else talk about this?

Vermont landscape as opposed to information landscape (photo by Barb and Dean on Flickr)

The library doesn’t have everything. I know that for some things the web is way better. Like current information for example. While I was riding the bus the other day, I saw a number of police cars and flares out on the road near the Montpelier exit. I immediately searched “Montpelier” on Twitter and found out within a matter of seconds that a tractor/trailer had jackknifed and had the freeway closed. The web does current information very well. And the web has very different places to go. Twitter does some things best. Google does search pretty well. Yelp is great for recommendations of businesses.

The library does scholarly, reliable information well. You can get millions of hits on the web. With libraries you surely get less, but sometimes less is more. The resources within a library are often tailored to a community’s needs. The resources are curated and vetted for a specific group of people and often it is stuff you cannot freely get on the web. And in this age of information overload, sometimes a smaller pool of really quality information is just what we need.

When talking to students I don’t tell them that the library is the only place they should go for information. I’d be doing them a disservice. I talk instead about the idea of an information landscape. The library is just one piece of that landscape that also includes the web, and TV and newspapers and their friends and a lot of other stuff. The library can be a really useful piece of that landscape though, especially for the academic work they’re doing. As information users we need to choose the places we go for information based on their strengths and weaknesses. And the library does quality like few others.

CC image from naotakem on Flickr

Our institution was recently in the New York Times for the focus we are placing on financial literacy. We require students to attend multiple sessions about how to manage their money and make sound financial decisions. I think this is a forward thinking initiative, and wish that I had something like this when I was an undergraduate. What really struck me about the article, though, is the language that is used to describe what we’re teaching:

“Champlain… doesn’t actually use the term financial literacy. The opposite of literacy, after all, smacks of ignorance. Nobody wants to be ordered into a classroom for being illiterate. So the college speaks of its “financial sophistication” offerings…”

This is something I am going to begin adopting in the way I approach information literacy and teaching. As terms, I think ‘financial literacy’ or ‘information literacy’ are fine. People know what you are talking about. But they carry a lot of baggage, especially when used around students.

I almost never use the term ‘information literacy’ in the classroom, because I don’t want students thinking that I believe that they are information illiterate. If they think that, I’ve lost them. And in truth, I don’t think they’re information illiterate. I think they’re bright as hell and often they teach me things. They are really comfortable and adept at searching the web. I just think they’re not as sophisticated in their use and evaluation of information as they should be.

As part of our information literacy assessment, librarians got to look at annotated bibliographies handed in by first year students. In some of them there were rather questionable sources being used. Some included websites from high schools, some included only websites. People with a high level of information sophistication would include sources from a variety of formats. They would try to find sources that argued against their thesis, anticipating arguments. They would recognize bias and approach their problem with balance and objectivity.

I don’t believe that students are information illiterate, they simply need a higher level of information sophistication. At first students are only drinking the Pabst Blue Ribbons of the information world. These are things like Wikipedia and biased blog websites, and sites in the top five hits of a Google search. This is fine is many instances, but I want to help them develop more refined information palettes. I also want them to enjoy the Moët et Chandons of research articles, reports, and information presented in a scholarly, balanced way.

In this IL session we are looking at similar concepts in the context of information. We’re asking students to examine their own information seeking behaviors, habits and preferences. One way we’re doing this is by asking them questions using Poll Everywhere. The questions are about they prefer to get information, share information and search. Poll Everywhere is a web based technology that allows participants to vote in polls via text message, a web page, an embeddable widget, and even Twitter. The polls can be multiple choice, free response, or donation polls where people pledge money.

We’ve had a couple technical glitches, but from my experience so far it has been an overwhelming success. I think it works really well (especially with first years) for several reasons:

• It’s a technology that almost every student already has in their pocket - Purchasing clickers would not have been feasible for us due to the large number of sections we have to teach and because we have to go to a wide variety of different classrooms. Instead we are using a technology that students are comfortable with and use all the time.
• Everyone has a little bit of an ego – Students love seeing themselves reflected on the large screen. It gives people a sense of control and people appreciate when they are asked for their opinion. It’s not simply someone telling them what to think.
• It creates room for discussion – Students have to commit to a choice and then as a teacher you can give them an opportunity to justify or explain that choice and see how others might differ from them.
• It’s real time – The students got really excited when they saw the graphs move and change as their answers come in. It adds a bit of a wow factor.
• It’s novel – Most students haven’t used something like this and we catch them off guard. Librarians asking them to pull out their phones and vote with them can break down some stereotypes that first-years might have.

For it to work seamlessly, my colleague Sarah and I had to set up the polls and put them into PowerPoint presentations for the rest of the teaching librarians. It was kind of a large experiment (30+ sections is a lot) and it could have failed bigtime. But luckily our library and our crew of teaching librarians are a pretty adventurous bunch. We don’t mind experimenting and in this instance it paid off.

I’m one of three librarians at Champlain College teaching 21 sections of our CORE-210 classes. I have finished five so far and have five to go. In this session we are talking about plagiarism, and more broadly, the ethical use of information. Often sessions on plagiarism can be pretty boring and come off as preachy or authoritarian; but this session, with the help of some technology, elicits thoughtful discussion and is now probably my favorite session.

The technologies that we are using are a wiki,YouTube videos, and a digital projector (new school) and a white/blackboard and post it notes (old school). The videos that we show are examples of possible instances of plagiarism or possible unethical uses of information. After showing an example of possible plagiarism we draw a continuum on the board with one side being completely ethical and the other being completely unethical. Students then have to decide where they feel this situation falls on the continuum by placing a post it somewhere along it and then justifying their answer.

I see this as a perfect example of technology working well in accomplishing an educational goal. It works for several reasons:

• The technology isn’t the focus – We are not highlighting a database or our OPAC. We’re not teaching them a technology. The technology is an afterthought. We’re using a wiki, but simply as a place to embed multiple videos. We’re using videos, but thoughtfully. They’re not just haphazardly thrown in. We are using these technologies in the way they should be used – as tools. When you forget you are using technology is usually the time when it is most effective.
• A mix of old and new – We have some variety in the technology that we use. We don’t limit ourselves to only new shiny technology, nor do we eschew the new. We use the correct tools at the correct times. Using post its and the blackboard can be just as effective (if not more) than showing a video.
• Physical element – Having a student write their reasoning on a post it and then physically walk up to the board and place it somewhere works well pedagogically. It helps people who are kinesthetic learners. It also makes students commit to a position and then justify their reasoning behind it. They can’t hide. They have to put their brains on the board so others can see them. Humans are physical beings and because of this we need more than just a screen. We need to touch things, move, and interact with the real world.

This session works really well because it has variety, a physical element and uses technology in a purposeful way. When the teaching librarians here are designing information literacy sessions in the future I want to remember the lessons that we have learned from this CORE-210 session.

In Zen Buddhism a sesshin is a period of intense practice of Zen and meditation that typically last 5-7 days. This reminded me a lot of my Immersion experience this weekend. In Zen you are trying to maintain the utmost concentration on your practice, and the same is true with Immersion. Teaching librarians have the opportunity to concentrate on nothing but teaching and learning for 4.5 days.

Normally life consists of rushing from one thing to the next with little sustained focus, but at Immersion we got to concentrate solely on teaching. Even during the informal, social parts of Immersion we were jokingly refering to “teachable moments,” and “what lesson did we learn here?”

At sesshin there is also a significant amount of discomfort that occurs. Your legs and body can get very sore from doing extended sitting meditation, you can get completely exhausted doing all night meditation, and even get hit from monks using a flat wooden stick called a keisaku.

Now our amazing faculty members weren’t whacking us with sticks, but there is a certain amount of pain and dismofort at Immersion too. You can get really tired (I took a nap under my desk like George Constanza). You are required to prepare and deliver a short speech in front of your peers, which can make people very nervous. And you are constantly challenged in different types of less than confortable learning activities such as elevator pitches, skits, and even an addition of battledecks this year. But in both Zen and Immersion this discomfort is to serve a higher purpose. Getting out of your confort zone helps you improve and become a more successful person and teacher.

Finally in Zen there is sometimes an elightenment experience that occurs after all the intense practice and concentration and Immersion is similar. We discussed ”Aha!” moments, and I know I had a couple of those. I also heard several people saying (me included) that there were points later in the week when things started to all come together. Different pieces like assessment and learning styles began to make sense as a more coherent whole and we could see information literacy in a new light.

I do feel that I am more info lit enlightened and I’d recommend ACRL Immersion to librarian who has to do teaching in the classroom. It wasn’t all work. We had time to go out and blow of some steam too. I also made a lot of new friendships. It might not be for everyone but it is a great program if you’re serious about information literacy and want to push yourself to become better.