Library Gazette

I figure since we’re about halfway through Teaching Teaching, it might be time for a Gaz update! This semester we’ve taken a different approach. Instead of Roz or me organizing the topics, lectures for each class, and activities, we’re acting as a community of learners. As a group we came up with topics that we wanted to address on the first day of the “class.” Each week several people share on the week’s topic based on their experiences and we have related group discussions based on what we hear.

So far we’ve heard about:

• Facebook, Twitter, and LibGuides as course pages
• Active Learning in One-Shot Sessions
• Incorporating Current Information Issues into Library instruction
• Sakai and POGIL
• A Pedagogical Approach to Teaching information Literacy Skills

(Attendees will be glad to see I’ve finally updated the blog!)

The topic for next Tuesday is “writing objective quiz questions and creating assignments.” So far I’m the only one who has volunteered. Does anyone else have anything they’d like to share on this day? There’s a lot of interest in creating quick and easy to grade assignments, and this is the period set aside to discuss that topic!

Since this semester has been a little bit crazy and folks haven’t always remembered the sessions they wanted to attend, I’ve added each session to the PDC. You can sign up for each “teaching strategy workshop” on our Staff Development page. This way you’ll get a reminder for the session in advance. Of course, if there’s something you’re interested in and you don’t sign up, don’t worry about it! Come on along anyway!

See you next Tuesday at 9am!

This month’s Emerging Tech Talk was on Location Aware Devices and Augmented Reality. Since it still sounds a lot like science fiction, and is hard to explain without seeing it in action, we started by watching a few videos:

First, a video about overlaying additional information based on symbols a device understands:

Then, a video about a browser that overlays data with the environment behind it:

Then, a video about Yelp’s “Monocle” Easter Egg for the iPhone:

And finally, we watched Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense TED Talk.

Afterward, we discussed how location aware devices are becoming more mainstream as GPS technology and compasses show up in mobile devices, and how we’re about to see growth in augmented reality as well (especially after the next version of the iPhone OS). The Sixth Sense demo showed a possible next steps we could see after that. Exciting stuff! And once it’s much more mainstream these technologies will impact how people can access information and what their expectations will be.

If you’re interested in seeing the Monocle app in action, several of us have installed it on our phones. I’d be happy to show you!

As the Toolkit continues to grow and have more applications, Kevin and I are taking a day to focus some energy on getting it in tip-top shape for the new school year.

For new folks to ZSR: the Toolkit is a service we provide to allow users to find help they need through our website. They can access it when we’re not here, or when they’re just looking to find the answer on their own. The Toolkit is comprised of a number of tools, which are very short narrated videos walking patrons through specific tasks. These videos can be accessed from the Toolkit, but also embedded in Blackboard, Libguides, and other websites.

Today is Toolkit day, and we invite you to stop on by to make a tool for the collection. Starting at 11:00am, at least one of us will be in our offices, with some Starbucks pastries, in case anyone wants to stop by and make one. We have two stations set up and ready to go, so you don’t even need to bring your ThinkPad.If you’d rather just phone us, we’ll make office-calls, too. If you’re new to the process, but want to see how it’s done, we have a page about it in the library wiki.

If you want to participate, but don’t have a tool in mind, we have a wish list of tools we’d like:

The “wanted” tools are requests that haven’t been created yet, and the “update” are tools referring specifically to our classic catalog interface, that should be duplicated in the new Vufind interface. We’ll be updating the list all day, so stop by to see the current wanted/update list!

By recording a tool, you’ll also be contributing to a PRIMO recognized project! Earlier this year, Susan recommended we nominate the Toolkit for PRIMO recognition, and we just found out that it was added to the list. PRIMO is a committee of the ACRL Instruction Section that was created to promote and share peer-reviewed instructional materials created by librarians. From their website: “The PRIMO Committee hopes that publicizing selective, high quality resources will help librarians to respond to the educational challenges posed by still emerging digital technologies.”

So, if you want to make a tool, have questions about the technical side, or have questions about the instructional design side, stop by and have a Starbucks pastry! We’re happy to help in any way we can! Here’s hoping that by the start of fall we have many new tools!

A year ago, Steve Cramer initiated a get together of UNCG and WFU library staff to talk about reference technology. We had a great time visiting our colleagues, talking about common issues, and brainstorming about the future of our distinct part of the field.

Yesterday, we met for a second time. A similar group from UNCG came to visit, and we broadened the group to include NCSU. It was a great time! We met in Starbucks from 10-12:30, had lunch at Shorty’s, and gave the NCSU folks a short tour before they went on their way.

Roz, Giz, Sarah, Mary, Kaeley, Bobbie, Kevin, and I participated from ZSR, and we had nine visitors from the other schools. We talked a bit about how our different institutions are organized, discussed current tools that have potential for instructional work, talked about current projects, and where our work was headed. If you’re interested in seeing the links we discussed, you can find them here.

It’s really energizing to connect with others doing similar things and to see how we’re approaching the same issues from our different institutional perspectives. NCSU was interested in hosting a get together in the fall, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again!

As a result of the staff appreciation survey of what people wanted to do this week, today we held our first Library Quiz Bowl. It was a good time, and we shared many laughs. The event couldn’t have happened without a number of people:

Thanks to Team 1: Steve, Roz, and Giz, and Team 2: Craig, Derrik, and Heather for playing. Kristen very kindly kept score. Mary Beth and Heather loaned us the Trivial Pursuit cards for the game. Mary Reeves provided drinks and Giz provided sugar with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. ILL and Access let us use extremely entertaining buzzers. Thanks to everyone that came out for the game. The game itself was a team effort!

The game was a close one. Team 2 was in the lead at the beginning. The two teams were tied for a bit, and then team 1 pulled ahead in the end. We had such fun, that Roz read through questions for the whole group after the game. With a room full of library folks, we were able to answer nearly every one!

Today was the final day of the teaching teaching spring class. We’ve been at it since January, and we’ve held 14 sessions. We’ve had 14 hours (less the minutes early I left for committee meetings) to devote some serious time to coming together as a group to talk about our teaching and hopefully learn a few tricks. I started today talking about the design for the course. Roz clearly played a large role, and everyone who participated helped shape the course either through conversations outside of the class or by their participation.

And while we’re talking about participants, we had a large percentage of the library staff attend at one point or another, and most people attended several (or all!). The “teaching teaching” participants were Roz Tedford, Bobbie Collins, Lauren Corbett, Carol Cramer, Ellen Daugman, Craig Fansler, Joy Gambill, Kevin Gilbertson, Derrik Hiatt, Kate Irwin-Smiler (from PCL), Julie James (from Carpenter), Sarah Jeong, Vicki Johnson, Steve Kelley, Mary Beth Lock, Leslie McCall, Carolyn McCallum, Kaeley McMahan, Erik Mitchell, Elizabeth Novicki, Mary Scanlon, Susan Smith, and Giz Womack.

We covered a lot of ground, too! We talked about what Instructional Design is, and the different models of ID that are practiced. We talked about taxonomies of teaching, educational psychology, multiple intelligences/learning styles, teaching styles, learning theory, problem based learning, active learning, classroom management, assessment, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. We’re planning a few summer workshops to bridge a few gaps, and we’re planning a fall program of facilitated practical talks on specific techniques. Keep an eye on your email to see when the next teaching classes will be!

I’ve really enjoyed this project, and it’s been a great semester. As I told the group this morning, having an enthusiastic group of participants made it much more fun (and made all of the planning much less burdensome and far more enjoyable). Clearly, this is an example of the culture of ZSR/WFU. The participants were focused on our mission: honing their teaching skills in order to better position themselves to help our students succeed. I can’t wait to see how this course shapes our instruction in the coming semesters. Thanks to everyone who participated! I really appreciate your enthusiasm and engagement!

If you’re interested in seeing what we were up to, you can see the course blog.

With “Cloud Computing” popping up all over the place, I figured we could use an emerging tech talk on the topic. Today, 13 of us got together to discuss the topic. We started with a brief overview of what cloud computing is, talking about some services we’re all familiar with that fall into the category. We discussed some emerging uses of cloud computing and strategies for choosing services to use. We talked a bit about the privacy issues and other concerns that arise around the topic. I feel like we had a really good discussion.

I chose to highlight two services as exemplary examples of cloud computing that make life a bit easier. One is DropBox. This site allows you to store files “in the cloud” and access them from your computers or mobile devices. Your computer syncs to the DropBox server, giving you a local copy (and an automatic backup “in the cloud”). This service has been a lifesaver for me when I need access to a handout I’m making at home or when I would like to see a conference proposal that I submitted (and saved on my home computer) at work.

I also talked about Evernote. This site stores the notes you take on their server, and lets you sync to have local copies on your computer. You can organize text notes, scanned images, and photos into notebooks (aka folders). You can then do a keyword search and find any time the topic is mentioned in your notes… even if the word was just included in a photograph. I’ve had friends take pictures of the business cards they get at conferences and use Evernote to find contact information rather than an address book. This has been useful to me, for example, when I worried about a project deadline at home and could check all my project notes in my Evernote system to see the deadline was further in the future. It’s been useful at work when I’ve remembered something I need to get at the store and can just add it to the list really quickly without having to worry about remembering it for later.

If you’re interested in the rest of the topics we addressed, you can see the presentation website. If you were there and heard about Kevin Kelly’s talk (or if you’re interested in the topic in general), here it is:

Next month we’ll talk about Net Neutrality. I think of this as one of the biggest information issues of the day, so I’m really looking forward to it! Let me know if you have any specific aspects you’d like to make sure we address!

It occured to me that with the passing of spring break we’ve crossed the halfway point with our Teaching Teaching class! For those who are interested in what we’ve been doing, you can read up on it with our blog. If you’re interested in coming, feel free to drop in any Friday at 9:00 in 476. You can attend as many or as few as you’d like, and we try to make it relevant to everyone, even if they’ve missed prior classes.

Here’s some of what we’ve covered:

Let Roz or me know if you have any questions!

Sorry all! I was demoing embedded videos for a podcasting class and accidentally used this blog instead of my normal demonstration site. Too many blogs, I guess! Heather emailed me about the 404 error and reminded me that we had a Wednesday with TED lunch yesterday, and hadn’t posted about it, so I’ll do that to make up for the blank post earlier today.

We started this informally last week, and it was so much fun, we did it again! In case you didn’t see it (from the post): TED Talks are great. The Technology Education and Design conference occurs every year. This invite-only conference brings in world leaders in various areas, and gives them 18 minutes to present. 18 minutes is about perfect. It’s long enough that they can cover content with depth and content, but short enough that they don’t drag on and you can make time to watch them. Most speakers, as world leaders, tend to be very effective presenters as well. You can see talks on the TED website. Kevin and I like them, and we both have learned a lot from them. However, as you know, it’s hard to find 18 minutes most of the time….

Yesterday Kaeley, Mary Beth, Heather, Craig, Kevin, and I watched two. Here’s the (now more formal) idea:

1. Reliably have a TED Talk video play each Wednesday lunchtime starting at noon and ending by 1:00.
2. Let people know that they’re welcome to come by. (Please come by!)
3. Watch TED Talk (we picked the first one, and folks voted on yesterday’s).
4. Chat about possible applications for the library.

Good stuff! Here’s what it was like yesterday:

We watched 2 shorter ones. The first was Pattie Maes on the sixth sense:

And the second was Tim Berners-Lee on Linked Data

Good future-of-libraries/information stuff! And now we know that as library professionals we need to know more about linked data (look for something on this in the near future)! And it was a very fun time… I’m looking forward to next week’s. If you’re interested, put it on your calendar and just come up to the room outside Kevin’s and my office at noon on Wednesday. We’ll be voting on the next one to watch then!

TED Talks are great. The Technology Education and Design conference occurs every year. This invite-only conference brings in world leaders in various areas, and gives them 18 minutes to present. 18 minutes is about perfect. It’s long enough that they can cover content with depth and content, but short enough that they don’t drag on and you can make time to watch them. Most speakers, as world leaders, tend to be very effective presenters as well. You can see talks on the TED website.

Kevin and I like them, and we both have learned a lot from them. However, as you know, it’s hard to find 18 minutes most of the time. So yesterday, during lunch in the space outside of our offices, we watched a TED talk with Craig, Erik, and Kaeley and then followed up with some casual conversation about how some of the ideas might apply to the library.

We watched Malcolm Gladwell (of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers) talk about spaghetti sauce. His talk focused on a study of people’s spaghetti sauce preference, and how instead of there being one best average sauce, there were people that clustered along different types. Further, many people didn’t say that their favorite was their favorite. One of his examples was that nearly everyone says they like a dark, rich cup of coffee, but really, less than 1/3 of people do. More people prefer a weak, milky cup of coffee:

Our conversations focused on what “clusters” our users might belong to, and that they might not necessarily shake out by the traditional student/faculty/staff/community member lines we typically draw. We talked about different data that we already collect that might be useful, and how information about clustering could inform our services.

If this sounds interesting to you, bring a bag lunch next Wednesday, and we’ll watch another!