I've been on a blogging hiatus of sorts lately. It's more by circumstance than design. We've been gearing up for the new semester and I've been trying to get things ready before I leave on vacation. Several things in particular have been occupying my attention, including the rollout of a project I've been working on: the library's fancy new website. We still have a few things to work out, but it's pretty nice. The other big thing is the new responsibility I recently inherited. For this year, I'll be coordinating the library outreach instruction, and I have a lot to figure out in a short amount of time. That goes double because I'm still figuring out how to do my primary job.
Classes start in the morning, and I'm pretty excited to see all the students come to campus. Summer's been great, but fall has always been my favorite time of year. Of course, it's not quite fall yet, and I'm not used to the semester system. Personally, I think it's cruel to make kids start school before labor day weekend, but then, I'm not in charge. In any case, I'm only going to be at work for a couple of days before heading back to Seattle to get my Bumbershoot on; I start driving on Wednesday and should roll into town late Thursday night. It might be an awkward time for a vacation, but I don't anticipate BIs to start heating up until I'm back. So, I'll have four action-packed days at home before driving back here in my new car. It will be nice to actually get to use the vehicle I've been making payments on for the past few months. Plus, having a working radio will make the 1300 mile trip home a bit more fun.
If you're one of my hometown people, I can't wait to see you!
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
New ideas
A couple of weeks after the all-day planning session at work, I'm still dealing with too many ideas all at once and haven't had time to process much. That might be why I haven't been posting here, but the other strong possibility is that I've just been busy during the days and lazy when I get home from work.
One idea that came up and that I'm very interested in is creating web-based tutorials. My gut instinct is to go with short bits of streaming audio and/or video, rather than using any sort of sophisticated software. I'm hoping to invest some time to go over various options soon. In the meantime, it was a pleasant surprise to come across a post at The Ubiquitous Librarian about using YouTube to create a video channel, rather than just individual tutorials. I'll definitely revisit this post when I start exploring more in-depth.
The other big idea, which is way overdue, is to start offering IM reference at the desk. I'm in the process of pulling together a quick overview of the various IM clients and the multi-network clients like Trillian and Meebo. Again, right when I was thinking about the subject, I read a couple of posts about the new Meebo Me widget that can be embedded in a webpage. I posted about it and added the widget to my other blog. I haven't figured out if the widget could be useful for the department as a whole just yet. I might look into adding it to the library blog, but we'll see.
One idea that came up and that I'm very interested in is creating web-based tutorials. My gut instinct is to go with short bits of streaming audio and/or video, rather than using any sort of sophisticated software. I'm hoping to invest some time to go over various options soon. In the meantime, it was a pleasant surprise to come across a post at The Ubiquitous Librarian about using YouTube to create a video channel, rather than just individual tutorials. I'll definitely revisit this post when I start exploring more in-depth.
The other big idea, which is way overdue, is to start offering IM reference at the desk. I'm in the process of pulling together a quick overview of the various IM clients and the multi-network clients like Trillian and Meebo. Again, right when I was thinking about the subject, I read a couple of posts about the new Meebo Me widget that can be embedded in a webpage. I posted about it and added the widget to my other blog. I haven't figured out if the widget could be useful for the department as a whole just yet. I might look into adding it to the library blog, but we'll see.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Summer Slowdown
I realize I never posted about the second day of the colloquium, but time got away from me. It was great, and I learned about some interesting approaches faculty are taking in their classes.
On another instruction topic, I'm kind of kicking myself for not going to LOEX of the West. I thought it would be too much to try to travel right after starting the new position, but from all reports from current and former colleagues who attended it, the conference was excellent and well worth the time. Vegas in 2008 is already on my calendar. I heard the O.G. LOEX was good, too. I just looked through the links to the conference presentations and handouts and I can see that I would have had plenty of great sessions to choose from.
There hasn't been much instruction for me to do this summer, so I've been taking advantage of the time to read as much as I can on the subject. Two new books on my desk right now are Information Literacy Assessment: Standards-Based Tools and Assignments (Neely, 2006) and the new edition of A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students: English and American Literature, 6th ed. (Baker & Huling, 2006). I'm familiar with the latter from previous editions, and I'm sure it will come in handy now that I'm an English librarian.
I've had more time to delve into Neely's book, and I'm really impressed. She's the first author I've encountered who shows such detailed links between assignments and the ACRL IL standards. The assessment queries include skills/understanding testing and questions about how students feel about IL concepts, both of which are important measurements about how they're going to internalize what they're learning. It will be interesting to see to what extent I can incorporate these ideas into my classes this fall.
On another instruction topic, I'm kind of kicking myself for not going to LOEX of the West. I thought it would be too much to try to travel right after starting the new position, but from all reports from current and former colleagues who attended it, the conference was excellent and well worth the time. Vegas in 2008 is already on my calendar. I heard the O.G. LOEX was good, too. I just looked through the links to the conference presentations and handouts and I can see that I would have had plenty of great sessions to choose from.
There hasn't been much instruction for me to do this summer, so I've been taking advantage of the time to read as much as I can on the subject. Two new books on my desk right now are Information Literacy Assessment: Standards-Based Tools and Assignments (Neely, 2006) and the new edition of A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students: English and American Literature, 6th ed. (Baker & Huling, 2006). I'm familiar with the latter from previous editions, and I'm sure it will come in handy now that I'm an English librarian.
I've had more time to delve into Neely's book, and I'm really impressed. She's the first author I've encountered who shows such detailed links between assignments and the ACRL IL standards. The assessment queries include skills/understanding testing and questions about how students feel about IL concepts, both of which are important measurements about how they're going to internalize what they're learning. It will be interesting to see to what extent I can incorporate these ideas into my classes this fall.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Colloquium day 1
I spent the day at the spring teaching colloquium offered by my university's teaching and learning center. The program concludes tomorrow, so there's more in store. This year's events are centered around our keynote speaker Ken Bain's book, What the Best College Teachers Do. The book is a good and fast read that brings up lots of best-practice ideas, but isn't a how-to guide. I'm glad the ctl folks included book discussion time in the program because I think I got more out of that session than the other sessions (which were also quite good) because it was less structured and more of a conversation. It's not often that I get to talk to faculty across several disciplines, and it was also a great chance for me to introduce myself to the English and first-year folks and foist my card on them.
As library faculty, I always like to be at the table for university-wide discussions about teaching and learning, but my experiences and opportunities in instruction are quite different than those of classroom faculty. A lot of the practices we discussed are really closely tied to the ongoing teaching/learning that happens in a semester-long course, rather than a one or two hour IL session. I kept thinking how great it was to be kind of embedded in a program core course at my last institution because I got to develop a relationship with the students throughout the quarter and they started to trust me. They asked me more questions and shared more with me about their research (and sometimes themselves) than students in my one or two-shot sessions seemed to be comfortable doing.
The small group session was a rare opportunity for me to hear what, for example, botany or math faculty are doing in class because I never get a chance to see that in action. The session was also a chance for me to reiterate that while I have teaching and learning goals (aka information literacy), they aren't separate from the wider goals for the class.
I haven't had time to think deeply about how I can apply what I've heard and learned in the colloquium to my own teaching; that will come soon.
As library faculty, I always like to be at the table for university-wide discussions about teaching and learning, but my experiences and opportunities in instruction are quite different than those of classroom faculty. A lot of the practices we discussed are really closely tied to the ongoing teaching/learning that happens in a semester-long course, rather than a one or two hour IL session. I kept thinking how great it was to be kind of embedded in a program core course at my last institution because I got to develop a relationship with the students throughout the quarter and they started to trust me. They asked me more questions and shared more with me about their research (and sometimes themselves) than students in my one or two-shot sessions seemed to be comfortable doing.
The small group session was a rare opportunity for me to hear what, for example, botany or math faculty are doing in class because I never get a chance to see that in action. The session was also a chance for me to reiterate that while I have teaching and learning goals (aka information literacy), they aren't separate from the wider goals for the class.
I haven't had time to think deeply about how I can apply what I've heard and learned in the colloquium to my own teaching; that will come soon.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Best Practices workshop
The last session of the TLT/ACRL Best Practices in Information Literacy webcast was yesterday afternoon, and I'm still kind of thinking over the content. This session focused on writing an IL plan and the types of assessment to consider. The series repeated a lot of what I learned in Immersion last year, but it was a useful review and the presenters pointed to lots of useful resources.
As a department, we're going to be doing some strategic planning this summer and I'm really hoping we can do some curriculum mapping and write an IL plan. To prepare for our planning, I'm reviewing my Immersion binder and reading a couple of books I just got--one on standards-based instruction and one on assessment for IL. I'm not sure how ambitious I want to be right off the bat, but I'm hoping to have at least a modest plan drafted before I start meeting with the English department in August. I'll need discipline faculty input and collaboration to make anything work, so I'm just getting familiar with the curriculum and getting settled until I can get some face time with them.
As a department, we're going to be doing some strategic planning this summer and I'm really hoping we can do some curriculum mapping and write an IL plan. To prepare for our planning, I'm reviewing my Immersion binder and reading a couple of books I just got--one on standards-based instruction and one on assessment for IL. I'm not sure how ambitious I want to be right off the bat, but I'm hoping to have at least a modest plan drafted before I start meeting with the English department in August. I'll need discipline faculty input and collaboration to make anything work, so I'm just getting familiar with the curriculum and getting settled until I can get some face time with them.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Welcome
This is my new space for all things IL. My current plan is to use this blog to focus on information literacy and, more broadly, instruction. It will probably take a while for me to get going on this, but I expect to be posting regularly by fall semester.
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