LIR

Library and Information Research has published Vol 33, No 103 (2009). This is a free online journal including peer-reviewed articles. An Invited Contribution in this issue is : What are students doing in our library? Ethnography as a method of exploring library user behaviour by Joanna Bryant and a review of the book: Weaver, M. (ed.) (2008) Transformative learning support models in HE: educating the whole student. London: Facet Press. http://www.lirg.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/index

Photo by Sheila Webber: Sun through copper beech, May 2009

Meetings on educational development and on technology

1) There is a residential course 21-23 July for educational developers new to their role, run by SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association) at Cumberland Lodge, England. SEDA Summer School 2009: Supporting Educational Change. "Academic development includes working with individuals, groups and institutions to analyse and improve their academic practice. The Summer School will give participants time, stimulus and support to review and improve their own practice. The course is intended for colleagues in their first few years of work in academic development. Development may be part or all of their work. Participants may work in academic development units; as learning and teaching coordinators in faculties or schools; in Subject Centres; or in other settings and roles where they help to enhance academic practice." Go to http://www.seda.ac.uk/

2) One day conference on technologies in the library environment, Where will it all end? Emerging technology in the library, is run by North West branch of the Multimedia and Information Technology Group at Liverpool John Moores University,England, on 17 June, 2009. Speakers include Russell Prue "Emerging technologies in education", Les Watson "Technology and learning space design, Jane Secker, "Who's Space is it Anyway?: Facebook, libraries and librarians" Go here for more info

Photo by Sheila Webber: Euphorbia and garlic mustard, Sheffield, May 2009

Australian Library and Information week

25-31 May is Library and Information Week in Australia, and this year's theme is Libraries your passport to discovery: http://www.alia.org.au/
advocacy/liw/index.html You might want to look at the "great ideas" page where there are ideas for library week from people in libraries in different sectors, including ones related to information literacy. Examples include a different kind of open day each day of the week in a school library - though my favourite is the one which suggests taking a hot air balloon over the different colleges campuses and flinging out library leaflets to the startled masses below. http://www.alia.org.au/advocacy/liw/great.ideas.html

Collaborating in Second Life

At the European Business School Librarians Group conference a couple of weeks ago (held at Ashridge Management College) I gave a talk about using Second Life, the virtual world, for collaboration. This is the PowerPoint:

Collaborating in Second Life

View more presentations from sheilawebber.

Recent articles

Bennett, O. and Gilbert, K. (2009) "Extending liaison collaboration: partnering with faculty in support of a student learning community." Reference Services Review, 37 (2), 131-142.
Collins, B. (2009) "Integrating information literacy skills into academic summer programs for precollege students." Reference Services Review, 37 (2), 143-154
Oud, J. (2009) "Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts." Reference Services Review, 37 (2), 164-177.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Ashridge Management College, May 2009

ANTS

Animated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS) is "a collaborative project presently involving librarians in Canada and the United States, but open to librarians elsewhere. The goal of the project is to create a shared repository of library, research, and information literacy tutorials created using screencast software such as Adobe Captivate, Qarbon Viewlet Builder, Techsmith's Camtasia Studio, or similar products."
At the moment there seems to be more information about creating tutorials (including a discussion forum) than actual tutorials, but the advice & discussion seems useful in itself. http://ants.wetpaint.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: beech leaves photoshopped, May 2009

Media literacy books

Leaning, M. (Ed) (2009) Issues in Information and Media Literacy: Criticism, History and Policy. Informing Science. ISBN:1932886117, 9781932886115
(From the chapter titles) this is mainly about media literacy, and looks at it from the perspective of different countries/cultures.

Leaning, M. (2009) Issues in Information and Media Literacy: Education, Practice and
Pedagogy. Informing Science. (ISBN: 1932886125, 9781932886122)
From the chapter titles, there is a focus on ICT use in media and information literacy, and again there is a perspective from various countries.
More info on teh Informing Science website http://informingscience.net/

Photo by Sheila Webber: After rain (well, during it, in fact), May 2009

Early years

The Scottish Information Literacy project is now working with Learning and Teaching Scotland on extending their Information Literacy Framework to younger pupils. The project Real and Relevant - Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner' (Early and First Level) has the aim to create a quality CPD Information Literacy resource pack whose target audience will be Early Years (primary 1-2 in Scotland. See http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/ and http://caledonianblogs.net/information-literacy/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Arctic poppies, May 2009

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Some resources are worth a reminder, and one of these is Charles W. Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, which has been published on the web for well over a decade and is now up to version 75. "This selective bibliography presents over 3,400 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet." http://www.digital-scholarship.org/sepb/sepb.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: possibly strawberry plants, May 2009

Literacies discussion

The chatlog for the discussion on Second Life ... revisiting media literacy, held on 14 May 2009, is at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=404
Marty Keltz (Marty Snowpaw in SL) who led the discussion, spoke from his ample experience in pioneering new media in schools in the 60s, and now exploring the possibilities in virtual worlds. The picture shows the discussion, which took polace in the Centre for Information Literacy Research on our Second Life island, Infolit iSchool.

The next events are on 21 May (Dr Diane Nahl, Univerity of Hawaii, talks about affect in information behaviour) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/132/246/21/ and 4 June (contribute to the 3D build of the SCONUL 7 Pillars with examples relating to questions on swine flu, see previous entry). You need a SL avatar and the SL viewer installed on your computer to participate.

Information Literacy sans frontieres

I see that Peter Godwin has blogged the paper that he wrote for JISC with his views on the current state of Information Literacy.
Godwin, P (2009) Information Literacy sans frontieres. JISC. http://librariesofthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/
files/2009/03/
information-literacy-_sans-frontieres_.doc
He produced it for the Libraries of the Future Campaign, whose blog is at http://librariesofthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/
2009/03/27/29/ and whose website is at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/
campaigns/librariesofthefuture.aspx
They organised the Libraries of the future event at Oxford University which I attended virtually, in Second Life. I must say I was a bit disappointed: some of the speakers seemed to have a "future" vision which was actuality already in some libraries, and there was rather an obsession with digitised content. I suppose the latter is explained by JISC's own focus on that, but I think the future of libraries and librarians is about more than content. There is material about the conference here
Photo by Sheila Webber: Inscription outside Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, March 2009.

Swine flu

I have started developing an example of using the SCONUL 7 Pillars model of information literacy with questions about swine flu via a 3D model in the virtual world Second Life. As with the existing "bird flu" build, the idea is that it could be used to help people think about the different pillars in relation to a particular problem. I am seeking help with suggestions of different problems/questions to do with swine flu and different examples for the various pillars. I aim to hold a session in SL specifically about this.
You can see the build at the following location on our Second Life island, Infolit iSchool (you need a SL viewer and an avatar)http://tinyurl.com/p6qk3w

Training the Trainers in Information Literacy" UNESCO Final Report

I missed alerting people to the publication of the final report to UNESCO on the Training The Trainers in Information Literacy workshops project, which was prepared by Albert K. Boekhorst and Forest Woody Horton and published in February. It includes the background documents (e.g. proposal and guidelines for organisers) and information on the workshops, listing the countries in which they were held, the countries represented at the seminars, and the job sectors of participants. It has recommendations for further action to UNESCO. These include establishing an "Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning Clearinghouse (CoIL-LL) so that the experiences, ideas, best practices, new theories and experimental pilot projects that have already emerged, and will certainly continue to emerge, can be captured in a disciplined way, organized, indexed, and then shared internationally."
http://www.infolit.org/reports/TTT%20Final%20Report.doc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Foxton, nr. Cambridge, May 2009

Second Life ... revisiting media literacy

Second Life ... revisiting media literacy is a discussion taking place in the virtual world, Second Life (SL). Marty Keltz (Marty Snowpaw in SL) will lead this discussion, chaired by Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in SL) . Thurs 14 May 2009, 12noon - 1pm Second Life Time - 8pm to 9pm UK time on Infolit iSchool (Sheffield's SL "island") - you need a SL avatar and the SL viewer on your computer
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/132/246/21/
Marty introduces the topic "At a recent New Media Literacy (NML) conference, Henry Jenkins said that we are '...not teaching code but teaching culture.'" A key element is "taking the media that children loved and were already learning from and bringing it into the classroom."
What does this mean for teaching in SL? Bring your views!
Marty was co-founder and President of Scholastic Productions Inc. , the successful television, film and licensing division of Scholastic Inc. and is currently with GS New Media Inc. The picture shows us discussing the session, a couple of weeks ago.

Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World: new report

Thanks to Lyn Parker for alerting me to this story in the Guardian today and thus tracing a very interesting report. (Quoting the Guardian) "Melville's year-long study, published today, finds "patchy" use of social networking in university learning and teaching, but he says UK institutions are well served with broadband width. Students still want face-to-face contact with staff, but more use of the kind of technologies they have grown up with, though they need to be persuaded to use them to study. They also need to learn how to critically evaluate online sources, while academics need more help in using the technologies."
The actual report Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World (not linked from the Guardian article, annoyingly, so I had to use my Advanced Google skills to find it) is published by JISC.
I haven't read it, but I note that two of its recommendations as regards learners are:
- JISC develops an ongoing research and support programme for institutions in best practice in developing information literacies and web awareness.
- Becta increases its support for colleges and schools in developing all aspects of information literacy and web awareness.

Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience (2009) Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World. JISC.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/heweb2.aspx

Lipsett, A. (2009) "Time to get with the program?" Guardian, 12 May. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/12/computer-science-it

Photo by Sheila Webber: Bluebell wood (again), Hellingly, April 2009

Academic Integrity & Plagiarism

I see that Michael Lorenzen has posted about his tutorial Academic Integrity & Plagiarism which "discusses academic integrity and plagiarism as defined at CMU [Central Michigan University], and provides tips for avoiding plagiarism." You need Javascript enabled http://www.lib.cmich.edu/tutorials/
plagiarism/plagiarism.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Beech woods, Ashridge Management College, May 2009

Social Media for the Social Sciences

There is material (narrative, ppts and links) from the ALISS Web 2.0 workshop at the University of Bristol, and specifically the session on Social Media for the Social Sciences given by Paul Ayres (Intute) is at http://alissweb2.wordpress.com/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Woods, Ashridge Management College, May 2009

Digital Visual Literacy

(Sorry fot the few days blogging gap, I've been out doing talks at conferences, which I will blog shortly) A useful resource to develop visual literacy, Digital Visual Literacy, has been produced by the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction, supported by a substantial grant from the National Science Foundation. There are online "modules" including an introduction and ones focusing on topics such as copyright, visual rhetoric for blogs (rhetoric is not a topic that features in the UK university curriculum, but I know it does in the US) and skills in manipulating images and using Powerpoint, Excel and Word effectively. Thus there is more of a practical focus than I thought there would be when I first saw the site, but it does have a good focus on thinking about the impact and implications of using these tools, not just the technicalities. The introduction also covers some visual literacy issues nicely. In each case you get full teacher notes, powerpoint/ exercises/quizzes (plus answers) that you might use with learners.
"A modern, literate person is one who is not only able to read and write but is educated in all the
basic means necessary to thrive in a digital, networked world. An important aspect of this general literacy is a digital visual literacy, the ability to critically analyze visual materials, create effective visual communications, and make judgments and decisions using visual representations of thoughts and ideas." (from the introduction for tutors) http://mcli.maricopa.edu/dvl
Photo by Sheila Webber: Jenny at Southover Grange, Lewes, April 2009

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice

The 5th Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference is taking place at the Karolinska Institutet University Library , June 29 - July 3 2009, in Stockholm, Sweden. For more information go to http://eblip5.kib.ki.se/

Photo by Sheila Webber: Canalside daffodils, April 2009

New SIMILE

There is a new issue of SIMILE ( Volume 9/ February 2009 )
which has 3 items
Jeremy H. Lipschultz and Michael L. Hilt: Editors' Note: Defining Media and Information Literacy Amid Change
Donna Chu Experiential Model of Media Education: Primary School Reporters in Hong Kong
Joan Latchaw, Chris Allen and Dave Ogden Public Relations Professionals as Shapers of Public Information: The Role of Theory in Their Education
Photo by S. Webber: Bluebell wood, Hellingly, April 2009
(correction made 26 July - sorry - I had been calling this journal SMILE bymistake!)