College Stuff

Teaching LIS Students to Teach

/ dwakimoto

“Unconference” style session (all materials will be available online–I’ll post link when we get it)
by Melissa Wong, Mega Oakleaf, and Jim Elmborg

“To Textbook or Not, That is the Question: Selecting Course Materials”
Jim Elmborg

Elmborg hasn’t seen a textbook that is great for his course–likes flexibility of using articles and book chapters. Librarians need to be teachers. The topic of instruction is very large and hard to wrap one’s head around. Trying to establish a mindset, ways of thinking about self and what the library is: a literacy activity, learning organizations. All library users are learners. Need to think about where course fits in the curriculum. Tries to sequence an extended argument in his course. Need to think about learning as a contextual activity.

“They Told Me I Should Learn to Teach: Addressing Student Anxiety”
Melissa Wong

Looking at student anxiety around learning to teach. Students know they should take the course, but are anxious about it. Reasons: students don’t see themselves as teachers, afraid of being bad teachers, students afraid that they don’t have “teacher traits,” but the main idea is that they don’t identify with being a teacher. So, how do we help students see themselves as teachers? Develop a personal style of teaching? Have confidence in their own efficacy?

“I Don’t Know if They Got It: Teaching Assessment and Evaluation”
Megan Oakleaf

Using questions by Understanding by Design: what do you want students to learn? What does learning look like? What activities will show learning? (make the assessment as part of your teaching activities= merge teaching activities with assessment) Satisfaction does not equal learning. Other facts can impact satisfaction: instruction enthusiasm, student expectations, and tendency to over-report satisfaction. Look at reflective learning/teaching (ILIAC, EBLIP, etc.). Talk about tools for assessing learning: teaching strategies that engage students, rubrics, classroom assessment techniques, tests, and self-report. Talk about problem of product versus process assessment. Look at good artifacts of student learning assessment. Then look at assessing teaching (CAT, videotape, and peer feedback). Uses for assessment data: improve instruction, improve the assessment, and/or throw a party.

Discussion
The lightening talks followed by group discussion. Looking at tensions between theory and practice in library school classes. Talking about how to operationalize everything that we are talking about–different in every context. Need to work to have relevance in each context. Internships for students in teaching are very important. Lots of different ways to inspire and teach instruction.

Thoughts on Education at the end of the Quarter

/ dwakimoto

Happy Wednesday! I’ve been thinking a lot about education lately, probably due to reflecting on my own teaching during the end of this term. I wanted to share some of the most interesting reads and tools I’ve seen lately on the topic of education.

Have you seen edmodo? It’s a way to create private social networking sites for your classes. Since Ning is now charging money, edmodo seems like a good option for educators. The entire look of edmodo is very similar to another large social networking site which should make it feel comfortable to students and edmodo is must more user friendly than most of the learning management systems I’ve seen. If you’ve used edmodo, I’d love to hear about your experiences. I may use it in the next class I teach as I’m always trying to facilitate more interaction and community.

Speaking of education, I highly suggest you read Anna’s post of her responses to questions about unschooling. It’s a fantastic read and will make you ponder (hopefully) your own educational journey and how you want to see education evolve. Like I wrote in a previous post, I firmly believe that there are multiple ways to gain information and create knowledge. Obviously I feel strongly that there is a place for higher education and am hopeful that I can make changes to the process of higher education that will benefit my students. (But going into details of how I envision higher education evolving is best left to another post.)

This post, “Why Design Education Must Change” is a fantastic read. Many of the suggestions for changing design education apply to education in general, in my opinion. For instance, I believe we need to do a better job educating students at all levels in scientific disciplines. And I say this not just because I have a degree in biology and grew up in a house where scientific proofs and logic were held as the standard to which everything was compared. Understanding science is important so you can discern medical flimflam from sound medical advice, figure out whether the statistics in an article are valid or a lot of hogwash, and logically plan and execute studies in the library. I am a huge proponent of a “well-rounded” and broad education, then drilling deeply into one or more areas for your specialties. But that’s just me. Even if you don’t agree, please check out the design education article, it really is fantastic.

I think that is enough seriousness for one blog post, so here is the winner of Unshelved’s Pimp My Bookcart contest. I had to share because University of San Francisco won and the entry is awesome.

Because it is rather dreary here today, I thought we should end with this lovely clip of the tenth Doctor. I don’t know about you, but watching the Doctor in action always makes my day a bit better and less dreary. If nothing else, the Time Lord knows how to give a good “rally the troops” style of speech.

Have a great rest of your Wednesday and I’ll be back soon with more tech and library fun. Allons-y!

Time, Education, Design, and Social Media

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! And it is a super-happy Friday on campus because classes are over and once we survive finals week (next week), we have holiday break! That is definitely cause for celebration. So in honor of surviving yet another quarter, let’s talk about time, education, design, and social media.

One seemingly cannot escape hearing about social media and social media marketing on a daily basis. WebWorkerDaily had a great article discussing How much time does social media marketing take? The answer is, of course, it depends on what you are doing and what you want to accomplish. I highly recommend keeping the graphics from this article on hand to explain social media marketing the next time someone brings it up in a meeting. It’s a nice graphic and it reminds people that, while you might not have to “pay” for accounts on a lot of social media sites, you have to invest time.

This discussion of social media marketing brings up another issue that I hear about a lot from my colleagues: how to learn to use social media. I don’t think I’ve quite gotten across the idea that one can’t just read about social media or take a course to understand how to use social media effectively in a library or academic setting. (I also have yet to convince some people that they shouldn’t wait for a journal article to tell you how to use social media; at that point it’s a little late. Go to the blogs and Twitter and everything will be okay.) It’s like trying to explain Twitter–doesn’t really make sense until you sign up and start tweeting with other people.

Design, like understanding social media, is learned by doing and not just reading about it (although studying successful examples is always a good thing too). It’s like archival processing. I can talk to you until my voice gives out about the standards and protocols for processing a collection, but you’ll only be able to truly understand once I sit you down with an unprocessed collection and let you muddle around for a bit. The lovely, tidy picture of archival processing that is written in the textbooks is nothing like the messy, sometimes moldy, collections you encounter in the archives. In all three cases, practice might not make perfect but it is the way you’ll actually be able to do anything useful with what you’ve read.

On that note, there have been some rather excellent posts and discussions lately on education and the necessity of higher education in particular. (But we are not, dear reader, going to contribute more to the messy dialog about the need for graduate level education in library and archival science. At least, not today.) I obviously believe in the value and importance of higher education since I work in academia. But I don’t believe that higher education is the only path, or even the best path, to take for acquiring knowledge in every instance. I find it especially interesting to read about what other people think about the necessity of higher education for careers in emerging and creative fields. I highly recommend this read on Design and Education, if nothing else, you should enjoy the clean design of the website and Harry’s lovely portfolio of work. Also, if you are interested in the process of design, I suggest reading the messiness of design. And when you get to actual design time for your website, check out what your web design says about you. Isn’t design fun?

I guess all I’m really trying to say is don’t be afraid of wandering a bit on your own and muddling through learning new things. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to learn about web design and social media marketing when there are so many awesome people online who share their work and expertise because sharing ideas generates more ideas (as yesterday’s This is Indexed showed us). So get out there and learn something new. Then be nice and share your knowledge and experience with others.

To end, we must have a video. Because Season 5 of the new Doctor Who is out on DVD (and I finally got to watch the first episodes), we need to end with the Doctor. This video is slightly spoiler-y for episode 1, so you have been warned. Enjoy some of the Doctor’s awesomeness.

Have a wonderful rest of your day and relaxing weekend. Don’t get too caught up in the holiday madness–save some time for reading. I’ll be back next week with more fun things to share.

Productivity, Hugs, and Communication

/ dwakimoto

Hi, all. I’d say, “Happy Monday,” but that seems a little cruel. (Although I do hope your Monday is going, and continues to go, well.) I thought to myself that to make Monday a little better we’d talk a bit about fun stuff, like hugs, and useful stuff, like productivity and communication. So grab a cup of tea and take a break to read some of the interesting stuff going around the web.

In keeping with Friday’s post about back-to-school or, more specifically, back-to-college, I have this New York Time’s article, Failure to Communicate. Unfortunately, I can completely relate to having students who are unable to deal with conflict and only want to communicate via text messaging. And, truly unfortunately, I have been called by parents who want their students to get into my department’s classes. Really, I’m not making it up. This would all be slightly amusing, like the Threadless shirt about the art of conversation, if it weren’t so true. So really, get off your computer today and actually have a conversation with someone. If you teach, actually have your students interact with each other. Remember to connect and communicate. That’s all I have to say about that (although I’m always happy to continue the conversation with you later).

You want to be productive, you really do, but it is just so difficult with all the fun and distracting stuff on the web. I understand, and so do the people at Lifehacker. Check out their article on How to Deal with Distractions in a Web Worker’s World. Great advice and tips, as always, from Lifehacker.

Now we get to the super fun stuff. (I know, you thought I had forgotten about the hugs, didn’t you? As if I would do that.) Check out this guest post on Zen Habits, How to be Insanely Productive and Keep Smiling. I love this post probably because I like being productive and like being in a place (and headspace) where I feel like smiling. Also, it probably has to do with the introduction to the post, “You can be insanely productive–and still smell the freesias, savor a Pinot Noir, or enjoy a languid hug.” I’m a big fan of hugs; there should be more hugs in every day (Pinot Noir isn’t bad either, but I’d like to swap the freesias for roses, thanks for asking.) The advice, or lessons, in this post is great. I am very lucky in that I love what I do and definitely have a lot more days when I’m truly thankful to be doing what I do than when I want to pull my hair out. Granted I still get stressed, and I haven’t achieved perfect patience, but overall I know I’m on the correct path for me. And that is where I hope (and wish) that all of us are at in our lives.

So get out there and enjoy your insanely productive week. Give someone a hug and tell them they’re awesome (extra karma points if you also give them cookies). Walk over and actually talk to your colleague whose office is next door instead of sending another email. And finally, get outside and enjoy some fresh air (preferable on a break, with a book). The Waki Librarian will be back with more goodies on Friday.

Tips for College in the Middle of Summer

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! I hope where you are living is having lovely weather and you will be able to enjoy it this weekend. The Bay Area is having fantastic weather and I am completely looking forward to the weekend. But first, we must get through Friday. I was walking into a store the other day and there were already back-to-school supplies out! It’s worse than having Christmas music being piped into the mall during October! (At least in my opinion, because I still feel my blood pressure rise every time I see stacks of back-to-school supplies, even though I’m on the other side of the student/faculty equation now.) Anyway, the blogs seem to be getting into the whole back-to-school thing too so I figured I’d post about some of the best tips. (And if you’re a student, feel free to ignore this post until it gets a little closer to the time you actually have to return to school.)

Some people worry about roommates, classes, and moving away from home when they go to college. Personally, I worried about technology. So for those of you who know someone going off to college, send them a link to Lifehacker’s Preparing for College: Tech Essentials for Your First Year. They’ll thank you for it. And if roommates will be involved, send them a guide on how to Hide Your Entire Operating System from Prying Eyes. Again, they’ll thank you.

Coffee and college students seem to be so enmeshed that you can’t walk through a campus without seeing at least 3 coffee carts and smelling coffee from one side of the campus to another. I mean, even libraries have gotten into the act and now have coffee shops. So why do you drink coffee? Do you even know what caffeine does to your brain/body? If you are a little fuzzy on the biochemistry of it all, check out: What Caffeine Actually Does to Your Brain. A nice, easy-to-understand overview.

Because everyone needs a break from studying once in a while, college students (and really anyone who uses Hulu) should appreciate: Top 10 Hulu Hacks and Power User Tips. Oh, Lifehacker, you make life so much easier.

Speaking of cool technology stuff, did you hear about Google App Inventor? It allows you to create Android apps without coding! This is just amazing–I love how one of the examples given is having students create quizzes to test their knowledge of course content. How geeky cool is that? Plus, with so many libraries without dedicated tech staff, this offers libraries a way to still get on the Android bandwagon and mobilize at least some part of the library’s services.

Finally, it is Friday, so we must end on something fun and slightly silly. Today’s video, which is now making its way through the bibliosphere, was brought to my attention by Megan, one of our former interns at the library. Thanks, Megan! So enjoy: “Study Like a Scholar, Scholar.”

If you aren’t smiling by now, go back and watch it again or take a nice, long vacation because you probably need and deserve it. So read a lot, enjoy your weekend, and the Waki Librarian will be back shortly with more technology and library fun.

Books, Data Usage, and other Random Stuff

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! I know, finally a post that is actually posted on Friday. I thought it would be a good idea to get back on schedule. So here is a Friday’s worth of random academic, library, and technology fun facts and tips. From textbook news to characters falling back into their books, it’s all here so let’s get going.

As an academic librarian (and a student myself), I’m super-excited about the news that universities receiving federal financial assistance must “provide students with accurate textbook information including retail price at the time a student registers for the course.” Read the full article on Campus Chatter. This should really help the students looking for textbook information and the librarians–maybe once students find out about this new requirement, there will be fewer panicking students at the reference desk during the first days of classes. (A librarian can always hope!)

If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you know how much I like productivity tips and articles about self-improvement. So obviously, I really like this article: Saying ‘I will do it in the future’ is an Excuse for Failure from the simple dollar. Great advice, and a kick in the pants, that should have you evaluating your to-do list and actually getting things done. (It also reminds me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon talks about his future self creating a time machine and giving it to him in the past so that it takes the pressure off working on the machine in the present. But really, I like the article because at it’s heart, it is simply and powerfully a call to just get started and then inertia will take over.)

My sister and I were discussing data plans for smartphones over dinner last night (yes, we are both geeks…moving on…) and it reminded me that I hadn’t shared this great Lifehacker article: how to keep track of your cellphone data usage. Check this out for simple ways to track your data usage so your carrier won’t have an excuse to slap you with data overage charges.

Also, speaking of Lifehacker and technology, check out this slightly older post on the top 10 privacy tweaks you should know about. You probably already know about some of these, but even so, the list is a great review and helpful for making sure you don’t overshare without knowing it and tips for keeping what you want to keep private. Very good information in this age of perpetual connection online.

If you haven’t seen this Flickr set by Lissy Elle yet, you really need to go see it now. Get Back in Your Book is a fantastic series of “a collection of characters who strive to stay in the real world,” but are falling back into their books. Really, the photographs are amazing so take a little break and thank me later.

Finally, let’s end with a fun Vlogbrothers video, Book Nerd PARADISE, from John’s time at ALA:

Have a lovely weekend full of reading and fun. The Waki Librarian will be back next week with more library and technology news.

P.S. I’ll be working on changing up the theme/layout of the blog over the weekend, so don’t get concerned if it looks a little bit strange for a bit. It will just be me and it will all be sorted out, promise.

Teachers

/ dwakimoto

Teachers, instructors, lecturers, professors, etc. don’t get a lot of respect. It seems like the respect level is at an historic low during this recession. The cuts to the education system, the massive number of pink slips, and the crowding of classrooms makes me feel that we, as a society, are severely undervaluing the teaching and learning process.

I include librarians and archivists in the teaching group. We teach at the reference desk, on the fly, online, and in the classroom. We are just as dedicated to the learning process and we are just as undervalued.

But I hate just complaining about how we are undervalued; I think we all should actually do something about it. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but something has got to change if we are going to continue to have an educated public and dedicated, professional, wonderful educators. I’m definitely not saying that the educational system is perfect, or that it doesn’t need some serious changes. I’m just saying that we need to first decide that we value education and then go forward from that standpoint rather than from the standpoint that teachers just teach because they can’t make it doing anything else.

There are plenty of great talks about education and the need for change over at the TED website. I’m especially enamored of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on schools killing creativity and Temple Grandin’s talk on how the world needs all kinds of minds.

However, the video that was featured on TED and was the best retort to those who say teachers are fairly worthless is Taylor Mali’s “What Teachers Make”

Go out and change the world, read some good books, and report back. The Waki Librarian will be back soon with some library, technology, and productivity tips.

Wild World of Information

/ dwakimoto

Today is a very exciting day for me (and I hope for you too, although probably for different reasons). Today is the kick-off event for the Faculty Learning Communities at my university and I’m facilitating the learning community on teaching with technology. It is exciting and anxiety-producing and all that other stuff. I’m also excited to talk, or I guess more accurately write, more about information today.

First up is this rather disturbing article: As the Internet Replaces Print Publishing, Urge to ‘Unpublish’ Means Censoring History. Archivists have to deal with issues like this all the time and they are only amplified with digital data. More information is being produced than ever before, but if it isn’t properly preserved and managed, all that digital information can be lost. On a positive note, at least this issue is getting more attention outside of library and archives journals. Hopefully this means we’ll actually make progress in preserving digital data and not “unpublish” the past.

Archivists will have no trouble identifying with the issues presented in this next article: Archives and electrons. It extends, yet again, the seemingly never-ending debate over history and digital sources versus traditional physical archival sources. That some historians stood up and testified that sources outside the archives are just as important, and sometimes make the researching and writing of history possible, was definitely a “Yes!” moment for those of us who work in archives and also in history. Again, like I’ve said before, the world is not binary (even if binary code is) and we don’t have to give up analog for digital or vice versa. Instead, we can use what makes sense for each project and program.

Not about “unpublishing” or debates over digital archives, but instead about finding fantastic, usable sources: 25 sources for Creative Commons content. I think anyone who has read posts on this blog understands how much I love Creative Commons and this list makes me happy. Now I have even more places to look for great Creative Commons content.

This article is just lovely: Students wary of sourcing Wikipedia from the Spartan Daily at San Jose State. As I teach information literacy to first year students and we often discuss Wikipedia, this article just made me smile. Wow, students acknowledging that Wikipedia may not be accurate, my teacher heart is happy. With that insight, we can move on to more interesting discussions about discernment, crowdsourcing content, and Web 2.0 conundrums.

In a different vein, I got asked yet again by a colleague if I sleep. Why do I get asked these questions? Do I really look that haggard? It is actually possible to be highly productive and also get enough hours of sleep so as to avoid all those nasty illnesses and health complications that come from not getting enough sleep. The real reason, I think people ask me if I sleep is because they can’t believe I don’t procrastinate and I must have to “burn the midnight oil” to get my work done. I contend that if you actually are passionate about your work, and really focus for 8-9 hours on work a day, you have more than enough time to sleep, eat, relax, meditate, and do whatever else you need or want to do. So I fully support Lifehacker’s It’s National Procrastination Week: Let’s Celebrate by not Honoring it. Just don’t procrastinate–it only hurts you.

And something else from Lifehacker that truly makes me smile: Naps can Seriously Improve All-Day Learning Abilities. Let’s hear it for nap time! This just supports my argument that I’ve been making since I got back from Bolivia that we really need to get the siesta mainstreamed in the United States.

Finally, something fun from The New Yorker The Subconscious Shelf. Check out the photographs of readers’ bookshelves and the analyses of what the shelves say about the readers.

Have a lovely day, a fantastic weekend, and don’t forget to read a lot. Because, as Seth Godin writes in his new book Linchpin “It’s not an accident that successful people read more books” (p. 126).

Friday's Bits and Bytes

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! Today’s post has the usual roundup of random library and technology goodies. Hopefully these links will help you in your work and play, or at least give you something to read when you need a break from work today.

When I was actually asked by someone at work how I get everything done and whether I actually sleep (Just for the record, I do sleep.), I decided it was probably time to take a look at my schedule and try pacing myself. I’ve never been really good at pacing myself or saying no to interesting projects or to people when they ask for help. But in the spirit of trying to improve, I checked out this post at WebWorkerDaily on the importance of creating buffers in your day and week. I quite like this idea and will try implementing it. I already create buffers when I go on vacation or travel for conferences, but I will have to try to create more buffers during my weekday. Now if only I could get people to stop scheduling back to back meetings…

On the topic of information overload, which I think strengthens the argument for buffers, have you seen this research that shows our brains can only handle managing approximately 150 friends? Interesting research that reminds me a lot of BJ Fogg’s research into persuasive technology and that while technology changes rapidly, basic human pyschology, or in this case the neocortex, does not. Thus another reason for not having thousands of “friends” on Facebook.

On a completely different subject, check out these 100 educational virtual tours. If you are going to be chained to your desk, you might as well go sightseeing virtually. I’m partial to the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History and the Rare Books Room.

Finally, check out the High Impact LIS Institutions based on citation ranking. Unfortunately my alma mater is not in the top 5, but unsurprising Harvard and University of Pittsburgh are number 1 and 2, respectively.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend full of time for reading. The Waki Librarian will be back next week with more library and technology fun.

Assumptions about Online Teaching

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Happy Friday! I thought today I’d take a little time to talk about online teaching. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because of the push at so many universities to make more and more programs and courses available online, as technology for holding synchronous and asynchronous sessions for students improves, and as more people seem to be espousing online education as a panacea in these rather lean budgetary times.

First, I have to say that I’m in no way against online teaching and education and am for really good online teaching. I work with faculty to help them increase their comfort level and use of technology in their teaching and support good teaching, period. However, I am worried a little that this exponentially increasing push towards online teaching, without the concurrent support for teachers on how to leverage online tools and focus on pedagogy and learning outcomes, is a case of following a trend because it is a trend and not because it is in the best interests of either the students or the teachers.

For an example of how to teach online not just well, but in an outstanding fashion, check out MPB Reflections. Michelle is an award-winning online teacher and her blog is filled with thoughtful posts and ideas for making online teaching effective, collaborative, and community-based. In the interest of full disclosure, I know Michelle and have worked with her which probably biases my opinion but that doesn’t mean she still isn’t a fantastic teacher and fount of knowledge when it comes to the online teaching world.

Michelle recently posted this video that shows what not to do in an online class. While I too would be really upset if my online class consisted just of reading chapters from a book with no interaction with my professor or fellow students, I think that this video misses a larger, systemic issue that affects the quality of online teaching: support for faculty.

Faculty need to use technology more effectively, but they also need support. No one wakes up one day and is a superb online instructor. Faculty need instruction as much as their students on how to use technology, if not more because the faculty are learning to translate their teaching to an online environment. Not only do faculty need support, but those who work in support services (like instructional design, LMS support, accessibility and student disability resource centers, and faculty development) need programmatic, consistent support from the institution in order to foster a thriving, innovative, and collaborative online learning program for both students and instructors.

So what does this have to do with the library and librarians? Librarians are often the unsung technology gurus of the institution. Many librarians are at the bleeding edge when it comes to technology and libraries have been using online databases and other resources for years. I think librarians are positioned well to support students and faculty in enjoying better online learning experiences.

This is, obviously, not news to most librarians. However, it is news to most other departments and people at your institutions I’m sure. Librarians need to get out of the library, as many have been calling for, and get some PR campaigns going so that we are central to online teaching and learning and not a dusty afterthought. And that’s my soapbox moment for the week.

Now to something that has nothing to do with pleading for libraries to become more visible to the campus community, check out the videos and information about the new iPad. It looks awesome. I know that some people say it is just an iTouch on steroids, but I don’t care–I want one when the iPad is released later this spring.

Have a great weekend, read lots, and the Waki Librarian will be back next week with more thoughts about technology and libraries.