"Great Lakes, No Clouds" by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

This is the conference report submitted to my colleagues about the Great Lakes THATCamp I attended April 20-22, 2012 in London, Ontario.

A little background: THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) is, in their own words, “an open, inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot” (http://thatcamp.org/)  You can find a  nice overview of THATcamp and the concept of an unconference on this About page.

This was my first unconference and I’ll admit I went in with considerable curiosity. In the end, I was very impressed with how the event unfolded. Scheduled workshops ran on Friday, and Saturday was a full day of sessions which we scheduled on the spot in the morning based on the group’s ideas and expression of interest. The process by which this scheduling occurred was very effective, and I’d be happy to explain in more detail if anyone is interested.

Since the unconference is participant-driven, there is no passive attendance. In order to attend #glthatcamp, I submitted a topic proposal: “nature of community in online forums.” It turns out there was a substantial interest in this topic, so I loosely moderated a discussion in the afternoon. I was impressed by the mix of participants: there was substantial librarian representation, but also graduate students, faculty members, public librarians, and even a toy inventor.

Highlights & Take-aways:

At the Libraries as Hackerspaces workshop, there was a very engaging discussion around the role of public space, gender and technology, and the logistics of operating a hackerspace.

The Storyboards are Visual Writing workshop was run by James Caswell, a professional storyboard artist and instructor in the Sheridan animation program. I plan to apply his suggestions to future video/ screencast planning, and perhaps even get brave and attempt some animation. He insists what it really takes is practice, not talent.

In the What’s wrong with the Digital Humanities? session, there were interesting parallels to the discussion of e-learning and the fading ‘e’ (DH and the fading ‘D’?).

It was wonderful to share my fascination with the information behaviour happening in forums and hear other share their ideas, thoughts & experiences in the session on Nature of community in online forums.

The final session on digital literacy included mostly faculty talking about their challenges integrating digital literacy in the curriculum, and the need for digital competencies both for fellow faculty members and students. The role of the library and librarians was discussed, and the group was interested to hear about our faculty workshop offerings.

Read my full notes in this Google Doc (open for commenting).

Spring by just.Luc

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the web-scale discovery implementation project that has taken over my (work) life.

Following a conversation with Bill Denton at the Great Lakes THATcamp this past weekend, I was convinced that some sort of project management software/ system would help us to monitor our progress and manage the details of our work. Thus began the search. I’ve explored a few options & thought I’d share my thoughts so far (organized chronologically: what I looked at first, next, and so on).

For the record, I’m a little peeved to be spending time and effort selecting a PM system, when I’d rather be doing the bleepin’  project … BUT I want to be thoughtful before investing much more time in populating a PM system & imposing it on my eight team members.

And yes, this is a far-from-sexy topic. So, maybe this is just an utterly self-serving post in an attempt to help me make a decision. But any input is more than welcome!

Basecamp:

Pros:

• This is the one Bill recommended & used in their implementation of VuFind at York. Other colleagues have used it or heard about it & reported only good things.
• It’s slick & pretty darn intuitive.
• Makes it easy to capture detail & attach tasks to individuals and deadlines.
• I like it because it seems to involve little-to-no learning curve (ideal since we are in knee-deep in the actual work right now).
• It’s web-hosted and simple: (almost) everything is displayed on one page.

Cons:

• 45-day free trial, then costs the project owner $20/month for the basic account (10 projects, 3 GB storage) & unlimited team members. This is not in the project budget. Can it be justified? Is it necessary? I can’t be sure unless I’ve explored the options, so…

One-Page Project Manager:

Pros:

• Our library systems department currently uses this, so I have access to some help in setting it up.
• While it is completely confusing at first, once you’ve sorted out how to translate it, it offers a really nice way to see your project’s progress over time.
• I appreciate the use of a simple, one-page Excel spreadsheet.
• It’s free — the creator sells books on the process, but I don’t feel the need for it (is that bad? Sorry Clark Campbell , I promise to credit your copyright on every spreadsheet).

Cons:

• As mentioned above, confusing at first! Not self-explanatory at all, and will require a bit of time investment to bring team members on board, and any external folks we share this with.
• Doesn’t capture detail such as issue-tracking (we’d have to find another way to do this).
• I don’t love the idea of using an Excel spreadsheet & dealing with issues around version control & difficulty opening a document if someone else is viewing it. I don’t think Google Docs could handle this crazy spreadsheet
• Likely because of copyright concerns, I can’t find much online to help me learn how to apply this process. The creator has some free templates for download, but no explanation or support (makes sense, he’s trying to sell his book). I did find one presentation on Slideshare that helped me make some sense of it all.

SharePoint:

Pros:

• We already have access to this software in-house, web-hosted.
• It will do a decent job managing the organization of tasks & deadlines.
• It plugs in neatly to existing institutional systems for all team members (ie/ Microsoft Exchange Calendar, Outlook etc.).

Cons:

• It’s a complex, powerful tool that is not made *just* to manage projects, though I can see how you can make it work.
• Learning curve: Due to inexperience and said complexity, it will require more time and effort for the team to sort it all out.
• Clunky in contrast to pretty Basecamp.
• From what I can tell, there’s not much in the way of online resources for learning how to use SP for PM

Project.net:

I just learned that Brock’s IT department uses project.net to manage their work & it looks like I may be able to get an invite to check it out. So, I haven’t gotten in yet, but will update when I have more info. Here are my thoughts thus far…

Pros:

• Available in-house without additional project costs.
• Interface looks pretty clean and straightforward.
• Open source with user documentation on their wiki.
• …

Cons:

• Similar issues to SharePoint around complexity.
• Learning curve?
• …

Will let you know when we’ve made a decision. I know, I know… the suspense is too much

suppertime2 by haydnseek, via flickr

For the past few months, the bulk of my working hours have been focused on learning about discovery layers. At my institution, we are in the early stages of selecting, testing and implementing a discovery layer & I am currently chairing a 9-person team (eep).

It’s really an enormous project with implications across the library. I thought it might be helpful to have a brief primer on discovery layers with some links for further reading.

What is a discovery layer?

In my local context, when we say discovery layer, we really mean web-scale discovery. A nice (and only slightly technical) definition of web-scale discovery is,

A preharvested central index coupled with a richly featured discovery layer providing a single search across a library’s local, open access, and subscription collections (Hoeppner 2012).

So, technically the discovery layer is really just the user interface for searching (almost) all of our stuff at once: books, articles, and whatever else we decide to put in there. The ‘central index’ refers to that stuff.

If you really want to have a grasp on the vocabulary and current players, Athena Hoeppner’s recent article The Ins and Outs of Evaluating Web-Scale Discovery Services, referenced above, gets pretty technical but provides a strong state of the field.

Why a discovery layer?

We are attempting to do away with the silos of information (poor silos, they really get a bad rap these days). Whereas previously a user would have to search for books in the catalog and perform a separate search for articles in various databases, we are pulling our local content together with a significant portion of subscription databases to enable a single-search experience.

I know what you’re thinking: “So, we’re trying to compete with Google? Sounds like a losing battle.” Yes and no.

Yes, a discovery layer should provide speedy natural language searching. We know from studying our catalogue search history that our users come to our systems with assumptions about search functionality & are frequently frustrated and confused by the emphasis on controlled vocabulary.

And no, “selling” a discovery layer as Google-like will not hold water. Pete Coco said it well in a January 2012 blog post for ACRLog, Convenience and its Discontents: Teaching Web-Scale Discovery in the Context of Google:

First and foremost, what web-scale discovery borrows from Google does not make it Google. Searching Summon [a Serial Solutions product] for scholarly articles will never be like searching Google — not because Summon cannot approximate Google’s user experience, but because scholarly communications will never be like the things students use Google to find.

Pete’s article is worth a read: he addresses some benefits and limitations of a discovery layer, including a warning against an emphasis on convenience.

So, the discovery layer will cover everything?

As it stands, the central index will not (/never?) include absolutely everything.

In some cases, this involves a conscious decision not to include particular content that we determine to be inappropriate in this ’search everything’ environment. For example, highly subject-specific/ niche databases might be a poor fit for a discovery layer & only serve to confuse your users. Tough call.

In other cases, it is because certain vendor platforms will not play nicely with databases from their competitors. I don’t want to gloss over the ‘vendor agnosticism’ concern here. It is an issue. And just like how we can’t access Google’s algorithm for determining relevancy of search results, the same is true for proprietary discovery platforms. I’m still thinking through the implications of this. Mita Williams, always eloquent, touches on this problem in a November 2011 blog post, Practice makes the profession.

Um, this was confusing. I thought it was supposed to be a ‘primer’?

Yeah. Sorry. Turns out that discovery layers are just really complicated. To be honest, it’s been a pretty overwhelming project.

But, I’ve found some sanity by adopting the user experience design approach as described by JJ Garrett in Elements of User Experience book. More on that in another post — I’ve become a real convert to this UX stuff.

~~~

Hey, what happened to the scoop?

So, I decided to scrap the scoop. I will still share monthly (or more frequent?) posts on e-learning, teaching, communication, and recent publications, but now that this has moved to my blog it no longer made sense to maintain the guise of a publication with issues etc. Same content = no more silly name.

What is the scoop?

Just a short one this month!

~Communication Tools~

Twitter was in the news last month after reaching record high levels of activity (a sample article here from Forbes). In that context, I thought it might be fitting to provide an update on the @brock_library Twitter account.

Since I have returned from leave, I have noticed a significant jump in the activity of our students on Twitter. I’ve been keeping tabs on mentions of us on Twitter by running a constant search of terms such as “brock library”. It’s not uncommon to have several mentions of our library in one day, especially when it’s peak season!

Here’s a recent sampling of some of the tweets our students are writing about us:

• @taylormac_
• @samitan
• @kylie_dodds
• @ShalynnMarie
• @stephanieesays

If I find a message such the first one above, I will often “re-tweet” (RT) it — this means the original message is forwarded to all of our followers. It’s optional to add commentary, as I did in this instance. At the time of writing, we have 659 followers.

~In the literature…~

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. (2012). The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

This publication is part of a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. It is a result of collaboration between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI).

Depending on your level of interest (or time!), they offer an 8pg, 18pg, or 42pg report. Or, there’s the 3:13 minute video if you follow that link above.

The report is freely accessible from the above website, but they ask you to create and account and log in. I have uploaded the PDF of the 8pg ‘Preview’ here, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

I’m interested to hear what you think about our activity on Twitter and the Horizon report. Please feel free to share any thoughts in the comments!

What is the scoop?

~Communication Tools~

Tumblr & Pinterest

What is tumblr?

Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. …
How are people using Tumblr?
The average Tumblr user creates 14 original posts each month, and reblogs 3. Half of those posts are photos. The rest are split between text, links, quotes, music, and video.
http://www.tumblr.com/about

You’ve probably already been looking at tumblr pages without even knowing it. They are highly customizable, allowing the user control over look and feel (versus Facebook, Twitter, etc.) An example of one that was making the rounds last month: Hey girl. I like the library too.

Libraries are already using tumblr to connect with users. A few examples here: Libraries and tumblr

Image: Bulletin board art by scripting news

It’s a little like pinterest “the virtual pinboard,” another popular image-heavy sharing (and re-sharing) platform. Tumblr has been around for a few years, but pinterest is new this year. Example: http://pinterest.com/dimac4/libraries/

Uses in libraries? I couldn’t find any great examples, but there have been a few nice blog posts about the idea:

• Pinterest online curation pinboard with major promise Joe Murphy
• 5 ways to use Pinterest in your library iLibrarian
• Pinterest and the Core of Librarianship All These Birds With Teeth: *an interesting discussion about the shift from Search to Discovery

Applications:
Communication and promotion with students. Easy to create as “one-offs” for specific instruction or course. Other ideas? Collaborative curation? I’d love to hear what you think!

~Teaching Tools~

Collaborative Editing/ Google Docs

In a workshop this month, I wanted to have the students do some quick hands-on research and share their results with the class so we could review the citations & discuss search strategies. I wanted something simple with no log-in required. I ended up using Google Docs & it worked so smoothly.

Here’s how I did it:

• For each session, I created a blank Google Document. You must have an account to do this, but students do not need an account to contribute.
• I adjusted the permissions for the document (found under the “Share” button) so that anyone with the link can *edit*
• The link provided is incredibly long & complex, so I created a bit.ly for each document
• To start the activity, I put the bit.ly URL on the screen, asked everyone to punch that in & access the document. This worked with very few hiccups
• I briefly explained collaborative editing & asked them to be cautious not to delete each other’s entries

A few students commented that they found it neat to ‘see’ their colleagues in there writing. Several wrote “hello world” or similar funny comments when we first pulled it up on the screen. I would definitely use public Google Docs again for future hands-on session.

Benefits:
Demanded some accountability from the students to enter content on this “public” platform which their peers would see. Allows you to have live results from your hands-on session on a simple platform. Creates a team atmosphere as we work together to populate the blank document.

Drawbacks:
Out of seven sessions with 10-20 students each, it didn’t work for 2 students (possibly a machine problem?). They worked with group members to contribute content.

Citation Generators

In the same workshop, I learned that a good number of these first year Pop Culture students are using free web services such as CitationMachine and EasyBib to compose citations for them. Am I the last one to hear about these?

EasyBib only provides free citations for MLA. They are actually in partership with WorldCat and even have widgets you could put in your LibGuides. Beyond that, they do have ads on the page and have subscription fees for other citation styles (and “premium accounts”).

CitationMachine does a pretty good job for MLA, APA, Chicago & Turabian. The site does seem to have pop-up ads sometimes, but does not ask students to pay. A few students told me they just find the ISBN and punch that in to save time.

I’m sure there are many more. Since neither of these sites has the credibility of something like Purdue OWL, I wouldn’t recommend users use these without double-checking with a more official source (just as we recommend with RefWorks!). *But* I do think it is useful to know what many students are already using.

Have you tried something different with technology in instruction? Feel free to submit a little summary to share here!

~In the literature…~

“Balancing Act: How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library during Crunch Time,” Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, Project Information Literacy Research Report, University of Washington’s Information School, October 12, 2011

A lengthy exploratory report that confirms some assumptions but also provides some surprises & compelling observations. Includes some wonderfully rich comments from students.

*If you only have a few minutes, perhaps check out their Recommendations on p 50-53.

A sample of interesting points from the report:

• “Despite some students expressing resistance to Facebook, we found the ubiquity—the sheer omnipresence—of Facebook made it a force this generation of students had to contend with,whether they had 600 Facebook friends or none at all. Whatever their circumstances, nearly all of the students we interviewed were well versed in the pros and cons of using Facebook and how they had chosen to manage its use.” (p.13)
• “The majority of the respondents described the value of the library as a place: (1) where they could witness other students engaged in “hard work,” and this often was contagious for them, (2) where they could rely on library equipment rather than their own devices that often had too many easy access distractions, including Facebook, and/or (3) where students could unplug entirely and work in solitude during the final weeks of the term.” (p.17)
• “In general, YouTube videos helped certain students grasp complex concepts more easily. Perhaps, most importantly, these students considered being able to stop a video, take some notes, then go back and review and replay it as many times as they liked as something they could never get in a class lecture from a professor when they were struggling to learn material.” (p.45)

Image:  Ice Cream by Cascadian Farm

*poof*

That is the sound of me blowing the dust off of this wee blog as I draw if from the bookshelf. Sorry for the neglect blog-o’-mine, let’s be friends again.

Much has happened since this I last wrote. Since mid-October, I’ve been back at Brock as E-Learning/ Liaison Librarian — but this time as a *permanent employee* (currently completing my probation period, of course). Yippee for secure employment!

There’s more to tell, but this will just be a brief post to float an idea.

the scoop

In my interview for the position as E-Learning Librarian, I asked the librarians here at Brock, “What do you want from an E-Learning Librarian?” Much of the responses circled around the idea of someone who is ‘keeping an ear to the ground’ for ideas, testing out new tools and applications, and sharing this information with the group.

Starting in November, I have been writing a monthly brief of sorts. I called it the scoop and aim to discuss no more than five items, with a focus on communication tools, teaching tools, and highlighting a recent publication (’in the literature’).It’s a bit of an experiment, but it’s been a good exercise for me thus far. I’ll need to evaluate its usefulness for my colleagues, maybe in the summer? I shared the first three iterations on our Intranet, but I’ve enjoyed writing these too much and would rather not limit the discussion and idea-sharing to just ‘in-house’.

So, beginning in March I will share my monthly ’scoop’ here on this blog. I had too  much fun with my February one, so I may just have to publish that ‘back-issue’ as well

US Navy Cryptanalytic Bombe by Brewbooks via flickr

Recently I’ve been struck by that familiar sense of “so much to read, so little time.” Part of the problem is that my ‘periodicals’ have been piling up: The Walrus, Wired, the Saturday Globe & Mail, plus publications from OLA and ACRL. Never mind how behind I feel on my beloved Google Reader account. Oh, and I’m in a book club these days (just started reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).

All of this to say that I only recently got around to reading the article “Film School” written by  TED curator Chris Anderson in the January 2011 issue of Wired. Anderson suggests that the Internet — and specifically online video — provides the ideal environment for what he terms Crowd Accelerated Innovation.* He argues that online video allows for vastly larger communities of interest and dramatically increased visibility, stoked by the motivation factor of online recognition:

So crank up all three dials and, lo and behold, the wheel of Crowd Accelerated Innovation lurches into motion. Videos are posted. Comments fly. Views accumulate. Leaders emerge. And all this provokes a new round of innovation. In the process, everyone marvels. Everyone learns.

I agree that the role of online video is only just being realized — even when in relation to mundane, every-day tasks. When trying out a new cooking technique, I YouTube it (is that officially a verb yet?). I’m teaching myself ukulele — with the help of many fellow players who have posted videos sharing strum techniques. My partner has searched and found tips for his golf swing.

It seems everyone is a teacher. With the prevalence (some would say glut) of online video, it appears that the average person with a webcam shows little concern about ‘putting herself out there,’ especially when contributing to a community of interest. There’s more to be said here about a re-definition of expertise and a trend towards shared learning — this reminds me a little of the WILU 2010 keynote by Paul Gee — but I feel the need to read up on this topic first. Plan for a rainy day perhaps?

Ok, where am I going with this?

All these ideas surrounding collaborative communities and possibilities opened up by the Internet, and I couldn’t help thinking about the Digital Humanities. Digital Humanities has become an umbrella term, oft bandied about these days, and if you are feeling a little unsure of what this term describes, you are not alone. I came across an incredible resource: Stanford’s Tooling Up for Digital Humanities. This site is, according to its authors, a repository of essays designed to provide an introduction to key topics in the digital humanities.

I worked my way through all of it, and it’s a very impressive mini-course that I would recommend as reading for almost any academic librarian, especially those serving Humanities departments. The content is accompanied by a Workshop Series going on right now – I wish I could just drop in and attend!

Tooling Up highlights the intersections between Crowd Accelerated Innovation and academia. It was exciting to read about the projects developing in the Humanities field enabled by unexpected interdisciplinary collaborations and innovative applications of emerging technologies. The existence of this resource also speaks to a need for literacy surrounding this field, for both new and experienced humanists.

Finally, we as librarians can look to this site as info lit done right. The tone, the style, the medium: THIS is the way to engage academics & offer a learning experience.

A slightly scattered post today, but these ideas just have me thinking in all sorts of directions. Things are changing. How we learn, how we teach, how we explore new ideas. And one project just builds on top of another — the way it’s always been of course, but those dials have been cranked way up.

* I just have to mention oh-so-briefly that I attended the 2011 WNYO OCULA Spring Conference last week and participated in Innovation Boot Camp facilitated by folks from the University of Guelph. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s worth checking out.

Another article about Facebook?

I know, I know. It’s sort of a tired conversation these days, especially with the Social Network movie getting all that buzz (for the record: I didn’t think much of the film). But I was pleasantly surprised by the piece From friending to research: Using Facebook as a teaching tool written by Anne Pemberton in the January issue of College & Research Libraries News.

The author has thought of a few great ways of taking advantage of students’ Facebook use and proficiency.

As she puts it, “You know what a database is because you use Facebook.” Often when I am helping an undergraduate student with a research problem and suggest they look in a database, I get a blank stare in response. “Database” is understandably a foreign idea. But by explaining the *concept* of a database through comparisons to something most students use every day, the comprehension seems more likely to stick and be applied in later research.

Ms. Pemberton also suggests that “Facebook tagging is similar to controlled vocabulary.” I think she has hit on a great idea here. Many undergraduate students I work with are most comfortable performing keyword searches in the library catalogue; it is most Google-like. Getting students to notice (let alone use) those oh-so-handy hyperlinked subject headings can be a bit of work. The author tries to get students to see the connection between tagging Facebook friends in a photograph and the controlled vocabulary used in our records. Admittedly, this could be more tricky to explain but when effective, it could blow their minds!

Or, you know, lead them to a few key sources for their research topic. I’d settle for that

I’d love to try this out in the classroom, or even at the help desk. I’m not sure I’d run my entire instruction session around Facebook, but I think it could be a useful method to explain the concept of a database before getting students to try out some searches. I continue to believe that we do them a better service by working on concepts rather than the idiosyncratic details of a subject-specific search interface.

It will have to wait though, since instead of sitting at my desk in the Schmon Tower at Brock, I am on maternity leave and quickly typing while my little boy Elliott naps. Insert gratuitous baby photo here:

gift wrap by 'smil, via flickr

So, it appears I took a summer/early fall hiatus from blogging. I won’t apologize for not writing, since that’s one of the biggest blogging faux-pas — although it is likely now a blogging cliché to *not* apologize for not writing… Alright, I’ll stop being all “meta” and get to the point.

Today is my last day at Brock! On Monday, I begin a new chapter in my life: maternity leave. As you might guess, my partner and I are pretty excited to meet this new little person about to change our lives. Oh, and it has launched us into a totally foreign information universe of Parenting. Full of reference books, manuals, how-to guides, online forums, and a brand new vocabulary.

Life has been pretty busy with preparing for that little side project, but things at Brock have been quite active as well.

I completed my stint as the OCULA New Librarian Resident and took on a new title at Brock as the E-Learning/ Liaison Librarian (I wrote a little piece summarizing my residency experience in the latest InsideOCULA Newsletter, pg. 4). There’s a real push for E-Learning at Brock right now and it’s an exciting time full of strategizing, planning, and taking on new projects. I’ve spent a fair bit of time experimenting with software such as Camtasia to see how the Library might use it to offer a suite on online learning tutorials (eg/ Our new-ish Tutorials page).

A big question I’ve been sorting through these days is, how to offer the student active learning and self-assessment opportunities following their use of such a video? I’ve been testing out various avenues and probing the limits of the technologies we have access to here at Brock. I think it’s an important consideration, especially with the reduction of in-person workshops at many institutions.

Sure, I love screencasts and think they offer a great fix for demonstrating discrete online research techniques, but they have their limits and only offer a pretty passive learning experience.You’d be hard-pressed to find an academic library not offering a wealth of screencast tutorials, but I haven’t found examples of post-tutorial student engagement. Are we missing something here? Or are screencasts just ‘quick and dirty’ and it’s not necessary to build in an assessment piece? Should we just assume the viewer goes out and effectively puts those skills into practice after watching?

I somewhat reluctantly have to put this experimenting on hold and pass it on to the very competent new E-Learning Librarian, Silvia Vong.

Speaking of which, for the first time, I was on the other side of the table: I was a member of the search committee hiring for this position. And wow, what a process. One of the major take-aways for me was not to feel awful about all the jobs I’d applied to in the past and was not selected for an interview. So many qualified candidates applied and it really was a matter of trying to match our posting with an individual we thought best demonstrated those skills. I’ll be on the job hunt again at some point in the next year, and will have to remember what I learned.

But for now, I’ll be saying farewell to my colleagues at Brock. It has been a great ‘first year on the job’ filled with learning experiences in many different areas of librarianship.

The Juggling Act - 90/365 by foshydog, via flickr

You know that feeling you have after you’ve attended a good conference? All full of interesting ideas but you’re just not sure where to put them? That’s how I am feeling after attending WILU 2010 hosted by McMaster University.

And just to compound the problem, upon returning to Brock I attended a day on Best Practices in Service-Learning, hosted by our Centre for Teaching, Learning and Educational Technologies. The plenary speaker was the impressive Edward Zlotkowski.

I definitely noted some synergies between some of the WILU speakers and the concept of service-learning — something I was admittedly skeptical about (though I now see that my doubts came from pure ignorance).

The opening keynote at WILU was James Paul Gee, someone who is thinking about learning and video games. He opened his talk with the suggestion that schools have a “content problem” — too focused on students absorbing and regurgitating content, rather than actual problem-solving.

Gee finds a way out of this mess in the workings of online communities. Using wide-ranging examples including Yu Gi Oh,  fan fiction, Sims, and World of Warcraft, he sees communities of learners, working together to optimize their problem-solving skills. I’ve been pretty fascinated about the power of online communities for a little while (I wrote about one called Kvetch last year). Gee underlines something that I too was so impressed by: the expertise is in the community.

The challenge for us is: how do we (the library/ the institution) engage *this* sort of learning? How do we create environments conducive to these sorts of communities?

Zlotkowski also emphasized the potential for service-learning to offer students valuable problem-solving experience, while embedded in community engagement and further upon extensive reflection and consideration of the broader forces at play.

So these ideas are just bouncing away in my brain. Not sure where they will land just yet…

Several of the sessions I attended at WILU brought similar ideas to the surface.  I’ll share a few ‘takeaways’ :

• Peggy Pritchard’s Embedding an eJournal Project: An amazing use of OJS that got 1st year (!) students deep in a hands-on writing for publication experience, complete with peer-review. A fantastic template that can definitely be picked up by other librarians…
• Birds of a Feather Motivating Students conversation: This informal discussion resulted in some great points. ie/ Artificial = bad. The closer your IL activity to the research process, the better. Recognize motivation as a factor: ask students why they are interested in a particular topic. Treat them as scholars!
• Mita William’s Libraries in games: Mita raised so many questions in my mind about the role of games in scholarship/ libraries and made me want to read up on theories of fun and game design. Just one point she shared (which should be obvious, but wasn’t to me) was that play must be free — it cannot be obligatory (or it will no longer have the qualities of play). Hmmm…