Completion of Final Task Force Report

This Task Force completed its final report on June 26, 2006. With that, this blog may also conclude unless the task force has more to say from time to time.

A new blog to continue discussions about educational technologies that might be used in libraries can be found here: http://letc.wordpress.com

Thanks to everyone who participated in this planning process. Great work!

Educause Article on Social Computing

http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0627.asp
Social Software in Academia

Still new on campus, social software tools can support students and staff beyond the classroom, reaching around the world for learning and communication

By Todd Bryant

Comments About Our Preliminary Report

Please post comments about the “Task Force on Information Literacy Integration and Utilizing Learning Management Systems Preliminary Report” in this discussion thread.

Directions:

1) Click on the “Comments” link below.
2) Type in your name, email address, and comments
3) Click “Submit Comment”

Please Note: Comments made in the blog are public; viewing will not be limited to task force members.

Short Video About Social Networking

This is a hilarious video from The Daily Show that explains social networking sites, namely MySpace.  I was introduced to it by two librarians at the CARL conference.  Here are two different locations for it, in case one link fails.  Seriously, this is FUNNY and worth 5 minutes of yor life:

http://planetvids.com/html/Myspace-Trend-Report.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfm8IZTuPbE&search=comedy%20central 

May 18th Meeting

We're getting closer to finishing our preliminary report! I'll be sending out the draft tomorrow. At Thursday's meeting, we can probably hammer out the final the details, send it out the the whole library and brace ourselves for the comments.

Thursday

3-4pm

LL431

InfoLit Task Force Progress Report to Council

Hi All,

Library Council was very pleased with our task force progress report this morning (see the short version I passed out in your email).  Outcomes of the meeting:

1)  Expanding our charge to include collaboration with student and academic affairs groups is approved. 

2)  They asked that we please not limit or remove some of our ideas to the appendix.  They'd rather we suggest everything that we feel is a sound idea in the actual report.

3)  The AzsignMentor idea sparked a lot of attention.  It needs more explanation and fleshing out to help answer people's questions in our preliminary report.

Kudos to us all.  Great work everyone!
Pam

Use of Instant Messengers

A recent listserv discussion asked librarians if and how they’re using IM. Here are some responses:

“we are planning on experimenting with IM this summer and make it available this fall for students and faculty. I have already downloaded GoogleTalk and use it on my office computer. I have used MSN Messenger and AOL Messenger in the past. We plan to train all reference desk personel to use it and it will only be available on the reference desk. This is as per my conversation with the Library Director and also our on-going marketing plans for the Library. Meanwhile, I would like to know if anyone has experience with Trilliam as an agregator for IMs. I believe you can pick up any IM from any provider with this small software.” –Evergreen Valley College Library

In regards to Trillian, I use this exclusively for my IM work. In fact, with the paid version I can also use it for my on-campus Novell IM contacts. You can read how students contact me for IM at http://library.sbcc.edu/247reference.html. –Santa Barbara City College

Blackboard Articles

· "Sentient Discover — Learning Management." Multimedia Information & Technology 31, no. 3 (08//, 2005): 67-67.

· Bell, Steven J., and John D. Shank. "Linking the Library to Courseware: A Strategic Alliance to Improve Learning Outcomes." Library Issues 25, no. 2 (11//, 2004): 1-4.

· Bhavnagri, Navaz P., and Veronica Bielat. "Faculty-Librarian Collaboration to Teach Research Skills: Electronic Symbiosis." Reference Librarian no. 89/90 (2005): 121-138.

· Buehler, Marianne A. "Where is the Library in Course Management Software?" Journal of Library Administration 41, no. 1/2 (2004): 75-84.

· Costello, Barbara, Robert Lenholt, and Judson Stryker. "Using Blackboard in Library Instruction: Addressing the Learning Styles of Generations X and Y." Journal of Academic Librarianship 30., no. 6 (11, 2004).

· Cox, Christopher N. "Becoming Part of the Course: Using Blackboard to Extend One-Shot Library Instruction." College & Research Libraries News 63., no. 1 (01, 2002): 11-13.

· Cubbage, Charlotte. "Electronic Reserves and Blackboard's Course Management System." Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Information Supply 13., no. 4 (2003): 21-32.

Meeting Notes from April 27th

Brock Allen from the Center for Teaching and Learning met with our group. Be advised that some of these views are very controversial (maybe even upsetting). In otherwords, please don't freak out! Here are some highlights:

Brock's global view of where higher education is heading:

• We're in a process of disintermediation of information. Getting rid of the middle man (like librarians). We can find pretty much what we want on the Internet or on our own. This will be hitting Universities hard in the next 10 years.
• "Gatekeepers" (like librarians) need to be retrained. Technology is making information more easily available.
• Higher education is about student learning, not about teaching.
• We need to strategically look at how the library wants to support learning as opposed to how we want to provide access to information.
• Sources of information that aren't easy to use will become obsolete.
• Brock envisions a virtual system where an avatar of sorts helps people acquire knowledge and information (rather than a librarian).
• Thinks 'information' is not the best word and that we should say 'knowledge.' For example, change the library's name to 'Library and Knowledge Access.'
• We're a world of Autodidacts (self-taught) and don't need an intermediary anymore.

Brock's views on the future and current state on SDSU's campus:

• It is difficult for us to do the type of strategic planning we are proposing (collaboration with other units) because key or allied units are disjointed. There's no council to bring these groups together in terms of educational technologies and information literacy. The best path is for ITS and the Library to create a bond as we overlap and complement each other nicely.
• History: ITS used to do what CTL does. ITS continued faculty development as it relates to technology. CTL concentrates more on the student learning and teaching tips.
• ITS doesn't try to develop instruction/instructional design in Blackboard. They support the technology, not the teaching.
• ITS' media materials are 'dead' because they are only played via closed circuit television in the classrooms. Brock thinks the library should take over the collection.
• The library is the main unit on campus that provides direct support to students.
• Thinks library computer labs will only be useful for another 2-3 years until everyone has their own laptop or other handhel device. So he thinks we need to figure out how the library can remain important to students.
• There's a shift to large 500 seat classrooms on campus (which also increases the number of 200 seat rooms available).
  • Anecdotally, people say that only about 150 students enrolled in the 500 student classes are actually showing up to class in person. There's no accountability.
  • There's a thought that the students in these classes don't need to interact with each other, but there is that need.
  • This could be an opportunity for the library. For example, we have 35 sections of 500 seat classes. Where are those students going to interact?
  • The library can help faculty negotiate contracts with vendors for multimedia text books and lab sessions for these large classes.
  • Librarians can help faculty develop assignments for the large classes.
• The library could be a place to socialize and hold more social events, like colloqiua instead of traditional lectures. For example, students might attend a lecture one week and the next week attend an event that the library helps plan.
• There seems to be a big push to make everything convenient for students.
• Brock thinks that librarians have about 7-8 years to figure out what we are going to do besides being reference librarians because our jobs are going to be extinct.
• Over the last year, CTL, pICT and ITS have been meeting regularly and collaborating. However, it does not seem to be on higher administration's radar to look into a reorganization of these units that would facilitate cooperative management.
• The most pressing issue for the library is to work with ITS so our missions are aligned and complimentary and responsibilities are clearly stated.

Side Note:

SDSU was selected as the only CSU and only school on the West Coast to be a part of a Carnegie project for a leadership cluster on the advancement of teaching. The other schools are:SUNY system, UNC system, Seton Hall, and one other. This project would be working with MERLOT to not only have a media object repository but also include what people have found out about the objects' effectiveness in teaching and learning.

Free Gaming Web Seminar

Join pICT, ITS and CTL for this exciting webinar* presented by Educause.

Monday, MAY 8 — 10-11am in AH 1112 (the experimental classroom, next to the faculty staff room in ITS)

An Instructional Designer Looks at Digital Game-Based Learning

With
Richard Van EckRichard Van Eck
Associate Professor, Instructional Design & Technology
University of North Dakota

Rick Van Eck is an associate professor at the University of North Dakota, where he has been the graduate director of the Instructional Design & Technology graduate program since 2004 (idt.und.edu). He currently teaches several instructional design and technology courses, including developing computer-based instruction and using simulations and games for learning, and recently completed a year-long study of game play, game design, and workgroup composition with 5th and 6th grade students. Rick completed his Ph.D. at the University of South Alabama, where his dissertation examined the use of a simulation game to promote mathematics transfer in middle-school students. He also has an M.A. in creative writing, and his B.A. in psychology and English. He regularly publishes and presents in his research areas, which include instructional simulations and games, pedagogical agents, authoring tools, and gender and technology.

EDUCAUSE Vice President Diana Oblinger will moderate Richard Van Eck’s Web Seminar on digital game-based learning.

The potential of digital game-based learning remains largely unrealized, in part because designers of "edutainment" games have never understood how and why games are effective and how to align curriculum with the game world without "sucking the fun out" of the games (according to Marc Prensky). This has led some to believe that educators and instructional designers should never be allowed near a game.

The failures of the edutainment industry largely result from poorly understood theory and a lack of alignment between the worlds of education and games. Games succeed precisely because they employ sound pedagogical approaches such as situated cognition, cognitive disequilibrium, and scaffolding to teach what is needed to succeed in the game. By examining the underlying principles of games and aligning them with educational theory and learning outcomes, it IS possible to create effective blended game-based learning. Instructional design is ideally positioned to guide this process. This presentation will provide an overview of some of the theories that underlie games AND effective learning and explain how to align these two worlds.

*A webinar is a web-based seminar. For this one, we’ll gather together in AH 1112 and login (as a group) to the seminar being delivered over the internet. The presenters show slides as we listen to them present. There can be up to 100 people logged into an Educause webinar, and behind those 100 logged in might be a room full of people like us. A text chat is available too, where participants can ask questions of the presenters or others. We’ll be offering webinars like these throughout the summer and fall. The topics vary so stay tuned!