Information Literacy

test

Gaming in libraries

libraries / skills as games

Improving cat records by games?

(turn online conf talk into game? Power up?)

Sandwell – brought people into gaming in libraries , bring kit into libraries. Xbox, ps3, etc. Also are youth workers in, behaviour improving.

Public network not being used for network gaming. Why not? Outside normal hours? Leagues between libraries? Fearit is seen as violent? Senior management stopping it?

So what evidence can be collected to show it makes a difference?

Protein folding example.

Libraries are addictive? libraries have been levelling up for years (summer book challenge)

Death in tge library…

Virtual library of brum in 2nd life – bringing in games.

Perception of games? Will we design them at the riggt level?

Igfest (intelligent game festival)…

Bringing cding backinto libraries?

Kids just look things upon wikipedia – should be taught how to edit the pages…

Tagging objects in libraries.. And museums / crowdsourcing

Wii games for rehabilitation

Movement in games to helplearning

Learning by stealth ~ people learn better by playing games.

Mentoning lemon tree.

Dedicated learning network…

Simulations .. Not just games…

Games are about fun?

Stackoverflow allow ‘owerup’ , new abilities as you score points…

Gamification of ARUP knowledge management. Fill ariud ge basic info to get points and status.

Different games… For different groups of pwople

If we need to bring gamification then we need toevidence it.

Ave gamer is 34…

Fake websites or spoof websites. Examples of false sites to aid in evaluating internet resources / Phil Bradley

http://www.philb.com/fakesites.htm – scientific and commercial

http://www.philb.com/fakesites2.htm – social, political, religious, tourism and more

I attended this lively one day event aimed at School, College and University Librarians which was a good mix of presentations and group activities. The first speakers of the day were two librarians from the north east, Ann-Marie Laws, Librarian at Ponteland High School and Jackie Dunn, Senior Library Assistant at Newcastle University. Ann-Marie and Jackie showcased their project, ‘Bridging the Divide-Information Literacy the forgotten link’. Their ultimate aim is to develop an online teaching resource toolkit that can be used by librarians in all sectors to support students in the development of good research skills earlier in their studies (before they get to University?), thus enabling smooth transition. Much of what they talked about wasn’t anything new (asking the right questions, not making assumptions etc) and I would have liked a bit more information regarding what they include in lessons and how they collaborate but it was very inspiring to see two people so enthusiastic about the work they do and keen to share what they’re doing with others.

After the first talk we were asked to get into small groups and asked ‘how in an ideal world, would the transition from school to HE, in regard to information literacy, be handled? Clearly spurred on by Ann-Marie and Jackie, collaboration between schools, colleges and universities was on every wish list as was allowing schools access to HE resources (legally of course) so they have an idea of what is available and how to use it. Other interesting points made included: skills lessons for younger children (get them early!), developing an information literacy programme as part of staff development for teachers/lecturers, auditing the skills of new HE students to inform school/college provision, using student reflection on learning and skills progression to inform joint sessions.
Our second speaker was Nikki Heath, Librarian at Werneth School, Stockport. Anyone who heard Nikki’s keynote speech at LILAC this year will know what great things she’s doing to improve use of the library at her school. The main focus of her presentation was on her work done promoting ‘Reading for Pleasure’ at Werneth. This was a school that had a poor reading record prior to Nikki taking up her post a record now much improved as a direct result of the activities she has organized. These activities included teachers promoting books they had enjoyed to students and vice versa, a summer challenge where forms complete reading related challenges for a super prize (sounds like the school were willing to hand over a not insignificant sum of money as previous prizes sounded pretty spectacular trips to bowling alleys, trips to cinema with popcorn, a Wii fit-I just hope in the current climate they are able to keep it up), Lego club to get pupils into the library which then encourages them to read (they are currently looking at sets of Lego architecture and books on architects to go with them). I got talking to someone on the way home who commented that they were disappointed Nikki hadn’t talked more about the work she did to promote information literacy but for me this talk was refreshing and I think encouraging children to read (for pleasure) at an early age is one of the first steps to becoming information literate (having seen firsthand how students will read an abstract, and no more, for their essay rather than the whole of the article). It also served as a reminder (for me anyway) not to assume that only the FE/HE sector is doing anything to improve information literacy standards, lots of good work is being done with kids before they get to us.

After a tasty lunch and a chance to chat with other attendees the final presentation was ‘What do we expect of first years in HE: an evidence-based practice perspective from Hannah Spring, Senior Lecturer – Research and Evidence Based Practice Support, York St John University. Hannah’s background is as a clinical librarian and in her present post she leads on information literacy issues for evidence based health practice, teaches research methods and supports research development. Hannah peppered her talk with small group activities, asking us to define what evidence based practice was, and a thought provoking YouTube video on the challenges faced by modern day students. Her talk highlighted the challenges we, as librarians for the ‘Google Generation’(those born after 1993…with little or no recollection of life before the web), face. There is a common misconception that the Google Generation is better skilled at searching for and using information (and they themselves think this) simply because access to information is so instant, easy and less of a problem than actually using the information (incidentally students don’t recognize that there is a problem). Hannah commented on student’s attitudes to information searching, they tend to search ‘horizontally’ rather than ‘vertically’ and use what Brabazon has termed a ‘smash and grab’ method when searching for and using information. They navigate but don’t use information. In our teaching these are the issues we need to be aware of and think of ways to tackle them and promote a better understanding of the different information sources that are available and how to use them to good effect.

After the presentations delegates were given the opportunity to showcase anything they were doing with regards to smoothing the transition to HE. There were some great initiatives including a workbook being developed at the University of Birmingham that can be given to schools so they can teach some of the skills sessions offered in their increasingly popular school activities. All in all it was a day well spent and I came away (as is often the case) feeling enthused and inspired. Many thanks to CILIP UC&R Yorks & Humberside.

Bridging the Divide

Prof Martin Hall 1st Keynote.

The importance of “openness” in education. What would an open access uni look like?
Openness – the qualities of knowledge:
Intangible; Non-excludable (i.e. can use it many time, is not used up); Impossible to contain (spills over to new areas whatever people try to do); from tacit to coded (knowledge starts as tacit and turns into a codified form, such as books, which makes it available for the masses); cumulative (builds on prior knowledge – moving exponentially).

Knowledge systems have traditionally been open – Entertainment industry (Disney) has changed a lot of this. Idea of closure rather than openness is relatively new.

Stressing scandal of susbcription charges by publishers. But this is copyright abuse – copyright should be protecting the rights of the author, not publishers.
Current system is a massive, voluntary and unpaid contribution by publicly funded institutions to ensure continuing profits for private shareholders…

open access – Repositories are key; does not mean giving away IP. The future for publishers? Add value, rather than extracting rent.

Open Access Uni – at its core, a repository of open access, open learning, open innovation.
Driving force of academic life is giving away knowledge in return for reputational capital.

Kate Davies talking about Wicked problems- really good – tweeted lots on this… need to pull my tweets intgo proper notes!

Virginia Wilson, Sasjarcgewan: Formalised curiosity: Reflecting on the librarian researcher. Quote on slide: “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose” – Zora Neale Hurston.
Important point – whether or not you are really a researcher practitioner is not to do with running formal projects and publishing, but whether we try to embed the research process into our work. Just realised why this talk is boring me a bit – she is reading out her note verbatim, no eye contact, no enthusiastic diversions, no real oomph! Also whole talk seems to amount to ‘practioner researchers exist’.

Ross Todd up now as a keynote: Information literacy to inquiry: presenting a holistic model of evidence based practice in school libraries.
From CISSL – did some early work on EBP, in context of school librarianship. Sees school librarianship as being at confluence of education and librarianship.
Thinking about randomised controlled trials in education – is this relevant? Can there be distinct and standardized ‘treatments’ in education? US has been thinking along these “scientific” ways rather than contextual ways. “What works clearinghouse” in US (Dept of Education) is meant to be place to find these rigourous studies – but not a lot meet these “scientific” requirements.
School librarianship has forsaken 2 tenets of EBP:

Been concentrating on why school libraries are ace cf the proper ‘rules’ of EBP. Too much documenting how school libraries contribute to schools, not enough trying and testing rigourous methods.

Australia did proper govt enquiry into school libraries in Australian schools. Lots of submissions – testament to importance people place on this.This report included a statement conflating EBP with collecting examples of teacher librarians success in improving educational and community outcomes. Essentially says that more evidence and self promotion is needed in Australia for school librarians.

What is evidence based practice? To Ross it is practice that systematically uses evidence to inform peoples work, including advocacy and promotion. 3 areas:
Evidence for Practice (foundation – informational); Evidence in practice (Process – transformational); Eidence of practice (Outcomes – formational)

Lots of terms around the ideas of infolit. Multiple models of infolit that can compete or conflict. Many models not built on research. (He Talked abouit this at i3 conference last week – dig out notes?) Do we need a meta analysis of infolit models?

Big challenge / need – librarians need to be engage in practices that enable them to gain evidence of impacts. When school librarians and teachers asked to identify impact of Infolit instruction – limited articulation of outcomes, focus on what they did as instructors, but outcomes are implicit and mysterious. “Because of what I do, something good is happening, but I don’t know what it is”.

Big study in New Jersey – key question was “did they learn anything?” Answer was “not a lot”!

2 distinct approaches to knowledge construction – Addititive (squirrel stuff away) or integrative (transforming to deep knowledge)

Where interventions were about stockpiling facts – that is what improved. When interventions looked at using / transforming information, that is what improved.

Looking at Carol Kuhlthau’s information search process model to identify and plan best times for interventions. Doing lots of work on this in Australia at the moment.

Seem to remember the last time I heard Ross Todd talk I made very bad notes – same again. Lots of ideas, lots of detail – too much to take down, but loads to think about”

Independent searching during one-shot information literacy instruction sessions: does it prepare students for research?, Rebekah (Becky) Willson, Mount Royal University, Canada.
Do a lot of infolit sessions. Her uni really concentrates on “the scholarship of teaching & learning”. What she thinks is the same as EBP – bringing research into their own teaching.
Most sessions are “one shot”…
Wanted to increase students search time rather than covering lots of content. Had the assumption that independent search time is useful.
Research question set out to prove if this was the case. Did a questionnaire about experience and usefulness of items within the class. Also got them to fill out a research log to show what they did in the class to search for stuff. (what did you use, keywords, results, reflection). Also (after class), wanted to do some semi-structured interviews, but only got one. Real issues is that she needed to rely on student reported data, which she knows from observation wasn’t complete.
Most useful (reported) thing in the session was individual help from her, next was class discussion. Towards the end was independent working.
54% of people had no articulated focus -r eally couldn;t express what they wanted to find.
Real range of search complexity, lots doing boolean, truncation, etc – but this was covered in the class, so not surprising.

Highlights

Is this because they concentrate on skills rather than reflection – they are demonstrating what she teaches, but is the right thing being ou find taught?

Summer reading plus: reforming adolescent literacy development through evidence based practice, Carol Gordon, Rutgers University, United States.

How can librarians support the emerging literacy of adolescents? This is her research question that her Action Research was aimed to look at.

Reading is different, particularly in digital places you find text. More skimming, less deep reading and comprehension.

Why looking at summer reading? Should be more relaxed, more choice, more recreational… though often isn’t – summer reading programmes often reflect classroom reading prejudices.
Action research project was around a website with web 2.0 tools in to encourage sharing among peers (rather than from teachers / librarians).

End of the day…

Librarians as Teachers
Northumbria University, 20-06-2011

The following overview offers a brief glimpse of the Librarians as Teachers event that was organised by the Career Development Group (CDG). A summary of each of the sessions that was delivered on the day is provided in the order that they occurred. (NB, where references are made, no bibliographies were distributed, so I cannot provide any more accurate details. However if you interested, please contact me and I’ll get in touch with the relevant person and see if I can obtain the details.)

The presentations are now available online.

Joan O’Keefe
Joan O’Keefe delivered an impassioned and contemporary presentation from a non LIS perspective. Joan is an academic at the University of Sunderland, and she has done work with LIS professionals and students in order to try and improve communication and an understanding of practices across departments and institutions in order to try and unify procedures and produce a coherent and consistent voice that will benefit all at every stage.

The image of this ecological system was demonstrated through a child’s book called Fish is Fish which O’Keefe says acts as a metaphor for the university experience. Poor communication between academics and LIS professionals has created a situation where each separate section can only see the information world based on their experience and knowledge, and as such have a distorted view, which in turn is passed to students.

O’Keefe then presented a Pecha Kucha on how to resolve this issue and provided anecdotal stories from her experience. There was a keen emphasis on improving connections between academics and LIS staff, and that this should be led through a strategic approach. This would help to share information between academics and LIS, and ultimately filter through to the student; the intimidation of the library for the google generation has, O’Keefe suggested, been underestimated.

The huge convergence of words and concepts used to explain the information environment by academics and LIS is causing confusion, and again, O’Keefe strongly encourages collaboration between academics and LIS to ensure that the “higher part of Higher Education is provided”. An emphasis on team work would break the ‘relationship of inconvenience’ which some academic staff perceive. This synergy would also influence practice between library staff and scholars to improve teaching, learning technology use and pedagogical understanding.

As education is a prime aspect of all academic and LIS roles, there is a need to make everything explicit for students. Krause (2005; 2007) suggests that we need “a sense of university ‘connectedness’” and this was advocated by O’Keefe.

There needs to be a distillation of the process of student induction. This needs to move away from the information overload that institution’s tend to force on to students during the induction process, a move towards the consideration of ‘life-wide learning’ and ‘learning spaces’, and that such pedagogical and ‘androgogical’ emphases on learning (rather than on didactic teaching) could help to dispel the use of low quality resources. This, O’Keefe said would enable and indeed require students to become participatory agents in inquiry based learning.

Converging and closer faculties are helping institutions to work across disciplines and distribute information more accessibly across nascent networks and also enables people to experience and witness the opportunities and benefits of such methodologies. As communities form, practice will enable the collective to work in a more suitable manner; mindful not mindless (Claxton, 1999); Encouraging students to identify themselves as producers and consumers of information (Healy & Jenkins, 2009).

Helen Blanchett
Blanchett has been working for JISC Netskills for 13 years, and she gave a presentation on Making the Most of Peer Support.

In some research undertaken in 2004, it was discovered that when 476 librarians were asked how they acquired their teaching skills, 72% said that trial and error methods were used while 59% stated that and on-the-job learning was their main method of training. These figures swamp 31% and 30% that said they had gained their teaching skills from non-accredited and accredited courses respectively.

This demonstrates clear picture of peer support between LIS professionals. Blanchett wanted show that this more informal use of knowledge between professionals can work well in the contemporary environment.

Librarians as Teachers Network (http://latnetwork.spriz.com)
This network is an expanding virtual community with over 130 members already signed up and using. Information on upcoming events, resource sharing and a forum for discussion between members are the current main features of the network. However, as a participation is vital for the community to communicate and disperse new information, techniques and experiences, the network can grow and include the features as required and desired.

LibTeachMeet
(examples include http://camlibtm.info/ and http://toonlibtm.wordpress.com)
Developing out of the success of the TeachMeet communities which enabled teachers to meet in informal spaces, LibTeachMeet groups aim to fill a similar role. The ‘unconferences’ are optimised through local, brief and practically based focuses. However, a good cross sector mix is likely to enable up-skilling an improve wider teaching knowledges, pedagogies and practices.

Blanchett was keen to emphasise that we should build our own networks, and build across sectors and beyond libraries. Attending some TeachMeet conference may provide some further insight and help to learn from a greater pool of peer knowledge. Joan O’Keefe added that inviting academics into this domain may help to improve skills gaps on both sides.

Jackie Dunn
The presentation tracked Dunn’s experience of selecting formal training courses in teaching. These courses were not specific to librarians, but they offered fantastic skills for teaching a range of circumstances.

During chartership, where one picks their career apart and restitches in order produce new ideas, the need for new skills for teaching are often unearthed. This was the case for Dunn, and as such she looked in to the possibility of teaching qualification.

The first course that she undertook was the City & Guilds 7303 Preparing to teach in the life long learning sector. This course teaches an overview of everything from marketing to feedback and to assessment. The three key things the Dunn took from it were the foundations of sessions plans, where to put people when giving feedback and how to deal with late comers. These are all important skills in all environments, and are becoming more imperative as pressures increase in all aspects of workload management for both staff and users of libraries.

After enjoying the breadth of the course, some greater pedagogical understandings of specific elements may be desired in order to meet the demands of teaching in a particular environment. The Certificate in Advanced Studies in Academic Practice (CASAP) provided a HE focus, was more intensive than the City & Guilds course and included guest lectures, tips on behaviour for confidence and projection.

After completing the CASAP, Dunn had become so interested in the teaching and pedagogy that he had the confidence to take on a research project: Bridging the Divide Project. This is aims to provide an online tool kit for teachers, HE lecturers, librarians and more to provide continuity in service and language and aid the transitioning student acquire information literacy (IL) skills.

Professor Sheila Corrall
Pedagogical Development in the Library and Information Workforce: Current Provision and Future Needs

In an incredibly rigorous presentation, Corrall tied together the historic and ground breaking theoretical work in LIS and the working practices that we currently see by linking libraries, information and learning. This has moved librarians from ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘guide on the side’ (King, 1993) and to the current practices that see libraries as ‘learning centres’ for ‘study skills’.

Corrall reiterated the recurring theme of partnerships stating that they are critical across the institution for students. Indeed, this has helped from what we now think of as the “blended librarian” (Bell and Shank, 2007) and other merged responsibilities within LIS activity for all staff in libraries today. These enable us to “combine inter-professional skills and new ways of thinking” (Bell and Shank, 2007) to provide a ‘new’ service.

Embedding IL in subject curricula has been a successful enterprise when adopted at institutions such as Sheffield University. It helped to show the level of service, support an teaching experience available from LIS staff and was also efficient for academic staff. However, it also highlights the broad competency needs for teaching librarians; content knowledge, domain understanding, technical competency, forward planning, communication and teamwork strategic skill, learning theories, instructional design, teaching techniques (small or large groups, individuals or online), assessment methods and evaluation strategies are some of the techniques and knowledges that need to be in the grasp of the librarian.

Expanding the blended skill sets will be imperative in the remodelling of library competencies for the digital learning society. Identifying what skills front line staff need is an under researched area, especially in HE, and with paraprofessional and library assistant roles having developed so much, this is essential to get right, especially as ‘teachable moments’ are going to be under increased scrutiny in such a competitive market. Learner support and front line staff training programmes therefore seem to offer an excellent pedagogical shift in order to meet user needs with the available resources.

However, Corrall emphasised that pedagogical content on courses needs to be updated regularly. This has positive implications for life long learning for librarians and teaching staff as they will be able to refresh and build their skill sets as required.

Debbi Boden
Study Methods and Information Literacy Education (SMILE; an online training package)

Students need IL skills, academic writing skills and research skills. However, support for the disparate skills can be fragmented, which can cause frustration and people ‘slipping through the cracks’. Therefore, Boden suggests that a single point of access is desired.

Blended learning differentiates SMILE. Educators and experts came in to deliver how to tuition on the use of the various parts of the blended learning techniques. This helped to orchestrate different learning styles; web 2.0, classroom and assessment all posed challenges, but have since received excellent feedback from students who have completed the credited module.

Boden then moved on to the importance of teaching for librarians. Understanding the importance of enhanced credibility, institutionally and in the wider community, that quality teaching garners was a primary reason for librarians to perceive themselves as and be perceived by others as teachers. As possessing greater pedagogical knowledge and competencies would increase confidence, the stress levels for librarians could also be reduced if they were considered teachers. Sir LearnALot is an online module for librarians providing pedagogical training in order to improve the librarian’s skills at their own pace, and Boden was very positive about the use of this tool.

With graduate skills for the 21st century been shaped so rapidly, an opportunity is provided for librarians to collaborate with academic tutors and to design aspects in to curricula in order to aid students to build their skills progressively. Of course, the traditional librarian skills are still incredibly important, but it is also important to see the evolution of these traditional skills in the contemporary environment (Boden and Holloway, 2006).

Four key principles that Boden listed were:
service delivery and developments within IL
collaboration with academics and other members of the LIS community
say no to last minute sessions- provide online training modules, they may take time to set up but will create more time for librarians to assess student’s IL skills and thus can provide more accurate training and meet needs
evolution (e.g. the use of web 2.0 technologies and twitter to create dialogue with students)

Denise Turner
Great expectations: Librarians as teachers

Turner started out by positively stating that librarians should be considered as teachers and should aspire towards attaining teaching qualifications, even going as far as to suggest that it is possible that they shall become an essential attribute of the librarian’s arsenal.

Content knowledge, professionalism and technical competencies are all aspects that librarians as teachers require, and these are all elements, Turner stated, we have historically been far too reserved about. With current library performance and demand outstripping availability of hours and resources, we need to ensure that we can demonstrate our value explicitly. Some tips that were given for such behaviours were ensuring that we are practiced before sessions, speaking reflexively when describing experiences, to be aware of (your) teaching philosophy, be aware of your audience and avoid jargon where possible.

Andrew Walsh Update
Andrew informed us that this would be the last Information Skills meeting but that the group was being replaced with another Teaching and Learning Group. Terms of the group were passed around at the meeting and expressions of interest were requested.
Peer Observation of Teaching
The group looked at the forms and process of Peer Obs.
Suggestions:
Forms were approved by academic staff in the schools therefore the group felt that the forms did not need to be changed. Point to consider for next year:
Pairs were to be agreed ideally by mid August to plan teaching sessions and arrange changes/ swaps where necessary. Preferably we would be paired with people outside of the team. It would also be simpler if you observe whoever observes you.
Training was needed on the forms and on giving feedback in a positive way as sometimes it can feel uncomfortable. Perhaps a coaching session may be appropriate? Some feedback forms indicated that it was preferable to have the same teaching technique whereas it may be a good idea where possible to team up with someone who teaches differently. Possibly have training on using PowerPoint in a different way?
Peer obs to involve everybody who teaches
ZJ suggested a list of generic questions possibly to use with mobile devices e.g. Have you used the library before, Are you aware of what resources are available?
Subject Refresher sessions
Individual teams to arrange refresher sessions for their subjects especially with more cross teaching and team working.
CP has organised space on the M: Info Skills folder for everyone to put their teaching.
Harvard Guide
This is updated with Academic Skills Tutors feedback and has gone to Sue.
Collaborative Practice at Northampton University.
SM fed back on a session led by librarians at Northampton on how they made library skills integrated into the curriculum. SM has leaflets/ guides if anyone is interested.