I would like to draw your attention to a few of the sessions I attended which I found particularly interesting so here goes :
Mary
Antonesa and Claire McAvinia (National University of Ireland Maynooth)
Information
Literacy and the case of the “natives”
The
concept of the Digital Native started with Marc Prensky et al and encouraged
librarians to do new things in order to connect with them. There has been a lot
of cold water poured on this over recent years and the general consensus is
that it is much more complex than this!
This presentation
based on research being done for a PhD at University of Sheffield is looking at
IL and its evolving relationship with literacy, the learning environment and
the creation of knowledge by students. This is very much the same ground that I
was looking at it
our new
book so I was eager to see if her findings based on focus groups of all
concerned, student observation and interviews were going to chime with what I
have written.
Emerging
findings emphasised :
-the
importance of the transition from school to HE and the intimidating nature of
online material after the transition;
-the
challenge of referencing and the lack of understanding of its value ;
-in terms
of teaching : dont tell us show us;
-they may
think they should know and therefore do not ask.
-Library
instruction is more about knowledge
construction.
-Literacy
development is progressive not sequential.
-It is
socially negotiated.
-It depends
on context.
-Need to
focus on the person’s interest.
-Cannot
be learned once for all time.
Amen to
all these!
The second
study is on the use of vles by students.
This has
begun with a survey of use of undergraduate language students. The kind of use was
disappointing to me (but not surprising!) L they saw it as a place to get lecture
notes, the place to keep up to date with room changes etc. Lecturers were
enthusiastic and later beginning to use
e-lng tools, aaaand also giving tasters of secondary sources that opened up reading
lists.
This was one of the most interesting sessions and more time was needed to follow up these
interim conclusions.
Maria Savova (Claremont Colleges Library)
Robin Canuel (McGill University)and Chad Crichton (University of Toronto)
Mobile
Technology and Information Literacy instruction ; the McGill Library
experience.
This was
one of the most useful sessions I attended and is the kind of thing that all HE
institutions should be tackling if not now, then soon!!
The
workshop “McGill Library from the palm of your hand” was given to library staff
first.It covered E- content issues ; whether to download or use online ; Issues
of direct online ; direct download and can be used offline ; download to pc and
transfer. Current catalogue records do not clarify which type it is and therefore
users need to be aware of these format issues. Html versus pdf has issues for 6
inch screen. Digital rights management and the problems this raises. Full
versus mobile library web sites.
How to manage
e content on mobiles and on ipads
What application
will students use to download their stuff onto?
This is a big area for development and becoming part of what it will mean to be
information literate.
Andrew Walsh (University of Huddersfield)
Playing games and growing trees...not sucking lemons
How Lemon
Tree, a social online game based on use of library resources has been developed at Huddersfield. Works rather like Foursquare.
Here is a link to Lemon Tree
Students register with Lemon Tree and are awarded points for use of library and comments.
Started in Nov 2011 and already 500-600
signed up exceeding expectations!
For further details strongly recommend you look at this article in the University repository.
For further details strongly recommend you look at this article in the University repository.
Gwnneth Price (Institute of Education)
Digital literacies as a postgraduate attribute
This very interesting project is part of the JISC "Developing digital literacies" band. see here.
Staring in July 2011 it runs for 2 years. It will describe what pg students think about use of digital tool.Different groups will have different experiences.
The next
stage is to give all students an ipod touch to use for
making journal of how they study.
This sounds fascinating as I believe librarians should be assisting students to gather, manipulate, synthesise digitally across platforms and devices. This project will help us to understand what is already happening and how we can tackle this in the future.
