Friday 27 April 2012

LILAC 2012 part 2

For the full list of sessions at LILAC 2012 complete with most of the Powerpoints click here

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. 



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.

LILAC 2012 part 1

This year our annual UK Information Literacy Conference LILAC was in Glasgow. Having been to Glasgow (the former 2nd city of the Empire) twice for conferences already, I knew that this would be a cracker and so it proved. Over 120 of the 350 delegates were international : a great sign of the success of this Conference.
The keynotes Megan Oakleaf (Syracuse University), Lord Puttnam, and Tara Brabazon (University of Ontario, Institute of Technolgy) were all inspiring and so all totally different in style. I shall not attempt to summarise in deatil, but just offer a few comments and try to give  the flavour.

Megan Oakleaf 
believes that we can show evidence of our library impact on studemt learning., correlate library interactions with other student success measures, and define the library's role in achieving strategic institutional goals.
How do we show our value?
What can we do differently?
Could we impact with students before they start?
Here is link to a free version of an article by Megan Oakleaf: "Are They Learning? Are We? Learning Outcomes and the Academic Library." The Library Quarterly, 81 (1), 61-82. http://www.meganoakleaf.info/aretheylearningoakleaf.pdf

Lord David Puttnam
spoke brilliantly (no powerpoints). I remember particularly :

The Far East are well ahead.streaming of video. This  can be done easily seamlessly in education and distance learning.
Voice recognition is going to big.The iPad 3 has voice recognition instilled.
Keyboards will be  less important in future. T
Oracy needs to be in the teachers ' curriculum.This means kids will need to  be better speakers, orators. Importance of social skills.
Compare a surgeon and teacher of 1912 operating now....The surgeon could not begin to cope  but the teacher would ......
If we are just using digital technologies to deliver the  same curriculum then its a waste of possibilities which are there. 
We need to learn about student ways of operating.
 Librarians are part of this imaginative change.
Teachers and librarians are the infantry for change!
Education can provide the means to survive, and provide social security and health systems required.
But our assessment processes are way way behind.

Librarians have a brand issue. It is like a millstone round our neck. The public doesn't understand our role. We are seen as custodians.....treasure keepers.
Companies have the same problems. 
But Dame Lynne Brindley  has succeeded brilliantly with the British Library.

Tara Brabazon
Using some Powerpoints, sound and her usual flambouyant acting style...
She spoke of the need for a Digital Detox. 
Google is like the McDonalds of information management.
We dont put words into Google that we dont know and we are too easily satisfied.
(As I have said so many times : they dont know what they dont know : or with incoming students they often think they do know how to search)
She suggests digital dieting which in practical terms could mean :
Pushing students away from Google toward Google Scholar (YES!!!!)
Reduce their speed pf search by putting in intellectua; obstacles like asking for annotated bibilograhphies.
Reduce use of textbooks.
Improve and widen their vocabulary.
Help them to know what they dont know by using the curriculum. 

More about LILAC in next post.