OCLS Conference - Day 3

Today's sessions...

Using WebCT, Wiki Spaces, and e-Portfolios for Teaching and Building Information Literacy Skills -- I found a lot of similarities in what this presenter was talking about to our "in process" CourseLibData pages. She created modules for different classes with specific resources for those classes. She had them in a repository of sorts (something I continue to check with Kayla on to see if D2L's can be turned on, but no luck yet!) and they were imported to classes as appropriate. Her initial focus was the nursing program. This librarian talked about how much success she had because she could back up what she was doing with research -- she said once her subject faculty understood she was following pedagogy, they understood she was more than capable of teaching within their course. RE: e-portfolios -- she said the best part of this tool was after doing library instruction with students, she was able to see some of the successes (or failures as the case may be) to their searching. Students would complete an e-portfolio and invite her has a guest to view it and she could see the sources they used for their project.

Building a Virtual Campus: Librarians as Collaborators in Online Course Development and Learning -- This was a very interesting presentation! The librarian (who is new to the profession and was a conference award recipient) did a wonderful job with her powerpoint by having the perfect amount of info on each screen and adding good supplemental info during her talk, rather than reading from the powerpoint. Plus her topic was pretty interesting, too :) They have been able to be involved in the creation of online courses upfront -- they work as part of a team to design a course (graphic artist, subject matter expert, course designer, librarian). They work from a course blueprint which shows learning outcomes/steps, learning activities, review assessments, and assets. Assets are specific things assigned to the librarian and graphic artist to find or create. For example, she talked about being asked to find supplemental resources for (I think it was) an anatomy class and she found a great video clip on YouTube that was inserted into the online course. She also had "assets" from Flickr, a website, and an article from a database. I would love to see our college implement more of a process for creation of new courses -- and one of the steps would be checking in with a librarian about options to incorporate such as online videos, YouTube clips, article links from databases (this process will hopefully get easier as we move to EZProxy in the next month or so...), and so on. I was pretty excited after this session!

How May We Help You? Online Education Faculty Tell Us What They Need from Libraries and Librarians -- Unfortunately, this wasn't a great one for me to end the conference on. I liked the idea of what they did surveying faculty re: needs, awareness of services, etc., but I think they presented "too soon." They kept saying, 'we're going to have to look into that' or 'we aren't really sure what they mean by that' or 'we need to do more marketing.' But they never really gave us anything concrete they had done based on their survey...maybe it's more clear in their paper.

My MN colleagues also retrieved a handout for me from the Creation, Management, and Assessment of Library Screencasts: The Regis Libraries Animated Tutorials Project that they attended at the first session when I was in the WebCT one. They said it was a great presentation - lots of info and somewhat overwhelming. More fun stuff to explore!

I was thinking this was my 3rd OCLS conference, but it's just my 2nd...it's a wonderful, targeted conference. I hope to attend again in a few years.

OCLS Conference - Day 2

Today's sessions...

Embedded Librarians: MLS Students as Apprentice Librarians in Online Courses -- Focus on relationship marketing and connecting customers and content. The lead researcher on this project has been at a few different universities and has experimented with this concept in different ways. This presentation was on MLS students being embedded into nursing courses. The MLS students are from Emporia and the Nursing program is at Central MO. A practicing librarian created tutorials for the "apprentice librarians" to use to become more comfortable with MeSH and the medical databases. They posted to a wiki to get feedback/input from all involved -- said it was successful. Was interesting to listen to the MLS student and her experience -- so much to learn and experience: creating a relationship with a nursing instructor at a different college, being embedded into a class they have little or no subject knowledge of, and being able to answer the student's questions. Quite an undertaking for a 1-credit optional class, but a great experience! Interestingly, last night at the Keynote Speaker I was seated next to the student who was presenting today. She seemed quite enthralled with the whole conference experience and she did a wonderful job presenting today!

Embedding General Education Competencies into an Online Information Literacy Course -- Debated about going to this one since it was another "embedded" topic, but the focus was much different. This is really about a stand-alone course taught by the librarians that incorporate 5 out of 6 gen ed competencies (Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, Critical Reading, Writing, Quantitative Reasoning). As they worked their way through their presentation, I recognized much of it was what I had been doing with the high schools I worked with last year on my CTL grant. They had a few different components since they were specifically targeting the gen eds vs. my focus on information literacy, but it was nice to see their model. Primary difference in why they originally created this -- overseas students! I guess that would definitely qualify as a distance student!

Beyond the Library's Walls: Using Library 2.0 Tools to Reach Out to All Users -- I just had to attend this session after spending all the time recently on the Web 2.0/Library 2.0 topics in 23 Things on a Stick! Got me thinking about how we could use wikis internally: keep track of our High School library contacts? tutors to connect on topics they are currently tutoring? Book reviews? Policies and procedures -- we are due to update the Collection Development Policy this May. They talked about blogging, too, which I know we've discussed -- could we use this tool as a way to have our New Titles list out there and then RSS feed that into our Webpage?? How about using NING in working with local high schools? Could this be a forum we create to work with them? Reminded me how much I need to get in and try Audacity. They talked about using del.icio.us with a class to create helpful resources and then adding it as a widget into a d2l course -- assuming there was access as an embedded librarian :)

Using Online Tutorials to Reduce Uncertainty In Information Seeking Behavior -- this was the only "research based" one (rather than more practical ideas) that I attended today. I liked her thought process about if there is high uncertainty, a more structured form of searching is best, whereas if there is low uncertainty, serendipitous searching is probably adequate. She didn't demonstrate any of the tutorials they are using, but did talk about things to think about when creating tutorials such as student skill level, training for librarians to create tutorials, student modem connection, download times, and tutorial design. Putting some tutorials into the Teacher Resources area of D2L would be a good idea..."Library Elements" is what they termed their information, I believe.

Visual Tutorials for Point of Need Instruction in Online Courses -- I generated a list of ideas to create tutorials for using Captivate, Camtasia, etc. -- in areas I hadn't considered before. As the RightNow administrator, I'm thinking there are some basic ones we could also load into AskJay! How cool to have a quick 1-2 minute tutorial about naming conventions and saving files to a drive and how to put it into the dropbox! As we move to EZProxy, a quick tutorial on that might also be a good idea. I'm wondering if we'd be able to embed some tutorials into our Course QuickStart guides as we get those created? Specifically thinking about nursing and how to get to CINAHL, etc.

Until tomorrow...

OCLS Conference - Day 1

Travel into Salt Lake City went well -- that's always the first hurdle!! Beautiful city with the surrounding mountains! This is my first trip to Salt Lake City, or Utah, for that matter!

Today's sessions...

Mobile Devices and Distance Learning -- I didn't hear the speaker for this one, but I did pick up her handout. There's a term in here I haven't heard before: "m-learning." The increased use of mobile devices brings about the need for libraries to explore reaching students via this method of communication. The paper discusses the challenges along with previous and current practices in higher education. Interesting topic...as with many technological advances, I always try to think about how many of our students would benefit from utilizing this? We sure see a lot of students on their cell phones in the LARCs -- could we be tapping into them via that source as well? Food for thought.

Document Delivery vs. Interlibrary Loan -- this was a discussion group having an open dialogue about how services are provided to distance students. It's interesting to hear how others provide service, if they charge, what tools they use (Iliad, Ariel, etc.). One idea in particular I think we should discuss at our college is the idea of using ILL requests more as a Collection Development tool. Those who are doing this made a good argument that many of the items we buy are for "anticipated use" and may never get checked out, but if an ILL request has been made on an item, purchasing it might make more sense -- at least we'll know it has at least one use then! And maybe the odds are increased that another student will use it, especially if it's for a targeted assignment. I know we do some of this already, but this is more targeted in that they have certain criteria to meet (e.g., less than $100 purchase, not a textbook, not fiction, English language, must be able to get it within a week) and they purchase the book from vendors (they specifically named Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble) that can guarantee arrival in a week or less -- about the same as with an ILL request.

ACRL Distance Learning Section -- this was an open forum discussion about ways to align the DLS strategic plan with ACRL's strategic plan. I think it more turned into an open discussion about ideas and ways we could do more collaboration with each other. This is a difficult discussion to summarize as it was really all over the board with ideas -- many expressed interest in affordable, online continuing education offerings through DLS, developing or utilizing streaming video in online classes (discussion about PRIMO, MERLOT), as well as general discussion about statistic gathering and research topics being pursued by some members.

Keynote Speaker -- Lynn Copeland from Simon Fraser University "Library Services to Distance Learners: Is it Time to Recast the Model?" This was not the best keynote I've heard -- it was perhaps a little too much focused on what we all do. Or maybe we were spoiled a bit last year with a futurist speaker who talked more about tools (e.g., the mobile devices mentioned earlier) and not so much on services most of us are already providing. I'm not sure she ever quite got her point across about how we recast the model -- she expressed concerns about some of the current guidelines, so maybe that's what she was getting at??

Had good conversations with Joan from SCC, Julie from St. Scholastica, and Karen Docherty, who used to be at Minitex, then moved onto CLIC -- she's now down in Arizona at Maricopa Community Colleges. This conference is so small (about 200 attendees this year) that I can recognize faces (and have even come up with a few names before reading name tags!) from 2 years ago in Savannah. :)

MnPALS User Group Meetings - April 17 & 18

Spring User Groups for the MnPALS Consortium were held at St. Cloud State University on Thursday, April 17, and Friday, April 18.

Thursday -- Attended the General Session and enjoyed the presentation and dialogue about Open Source ILS options. After sharing lunch with other 2-year, out-state community and technical college librarians -- always a good dialogue!! -- I attended the in-person ILL training. Very good information -- some systems work I need to look at in the background and a new interface for the staff to learn! I'm confident they will all pick up on the new look quickly :) Then I attended the Systems Librarians User Group meeting and learned more about the proxy server change over -- very happy to hear the timeframe for the move is sooner rather than later. I believe we are number 7...or is it 9?? on the list to get moved over, so I'm anticipating early in June we will be on EZProxy.

Friday -- Started the morning meeting with one of my LUOMA project members...good to catch up and reflect on that project. The end is near...we hope! Then onto Circulation User Group -- my first time convening, although it was by default as the Convener is out on maternity leave! Overall I think it went well and it was enjoyable to work with the PALS staff in collaborating on the agenda using the Wiki! We identified some good discussion points we can move out to the Forum for further discussion with the consortium. Then onto ILL User Group -- reiterated our situation on not being on the Delivery system and how that can affect direct borrowing requests.

Thing 23 - Final Thoughts

Although I've completed the 23 Things, I certainly can't say this is the end. I do plan to continue to use my blog and explore other tools that I haven't been using.

I do have some of these already built into my regular work (wiki, RSS, ELM), but I'd like to do more Podcast exploring and get more familiar with the social networking sites. I am also more intrigued by Second Life than before...might take me a while to figure that one out, but I'm glad I'm "in" so I can do that!

I don't have any words of advice for the creators/moderators -- I really enjoyed the whole experience. Thank you for providing the opportunity!!

My one sentence to describe the experience? An unbelievably productive, hands-on learning experience!

Thanks again ~ Pam

Thing 22 - What Did I Learn Today?

I do think I will keep blogging on my 23 Things on a Stick site. After I got going on the 23 Things and realized how much I was learning, it dawned on me that this is all Professional Development materials I will be able to use at my review. One of the most difficult things I have found when preparing for my review is keeping track of everything I've learned, done, etc., in one place. Viola! Here it is! This will be a great tool to document for that goal. Every time I take part in a Minitex Webinar, training for our ILS, a WebJunction course, or attend a conference, here is where I can post it!

I also hope to work a few of the new tools I've experimented with here either into my personal life (e.g., photosharing with family, ideas for scrapbooking) or into my work - especially in collaborating with online instructors. There are great possibilities there and the more comfortable I feel with the tools, it will be easier to share them with instructors and work with them to incorporate them into their courses.

Thing 21 - Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Well, now I'm really 'with it' since I'm officially a member of multiple social networks! :) How do I feel about that? Is it going to be 'one more thing' to keep up with or am I going to reap benefits I never would have considered?? Time will tell.

I'll proudly display the 23 Things on a Stick Ning Badge:

Visit23 Things on a Stick

Thing 20 - Libraries and Social Networks

I decided to join Facebook -- primarily because my sister-in-law sent me a request (a long time ago!) to join it so we could scope it out before my niece got in there. I never did quite got all the way into Facebook back then. And now it doesn't look like my SIL is active anymore! Oh well, I'm glad I finally made the plunge.

Hardest part of this for me was finding friends. Sad, I know! I did join a few groups -- 2 "large" groups and one very small group -- will be interesting to see if it's even active.

At this time, I haven't posted to a Discussion Board yet - although I tried! I kept getting an error message, so I will try it again later. It was a discussion about "Is anyone doing 23 things?" :) Okay - I went back into there and got it to post -- it was User Error :)

I see students on this ALL THE TIME in our college libraries/computer labs. I like being able to see what they see :)

Thing 19 - Podcasts

I listened to a podcast from WIT - We Integrate Technology. The podcast I chose was talking about how much "extra" teachers needed to learn or have endorsement in Online Teaching in order to teach an online course. How much preparation/instruction is needed? This was coming from Michigan -- a state which has implemented a requirement that students to take an online course before graduating from high school.

I had trouble with the first Podcast Directory I was trying to look in (Podcast Alley), so I went to Educational Podcast Directory and found something there. I didn't think the directory was all the useful and there wasn't a search capability (at least it wasn't obvious to me!) so it was scanning through the titles and hoping one caught my eye.

The background noise in the podcast was a little distracting...almost sounded like people going up and down bleachers and the lady in the background who yelled "You're early!" really made me chuckle!

I have been interested in learning more about Podcasting since a student asked about it last year and a good friend of mine is experimenting with it at work. My interest is certainly piqued about how I could incorporate this into my work. Could this help me with the history instructor who wants some online videos into his course?

Thing 18 - YouTube & Other Online Video

I've watched a number of YouTube videos in the past, but they were things that had been sent to me rather than things I was searching for. The number of videos is overwhelming.

I decided to go for a music video as I am happy to be overwhelmed by Keith Urban :) Seriously this is one of my favorite songs, so I'm thrilled to be able to add it and the video to my blog!

Things 17 - ELM Productivity Tools

Wow, there was a lot to do in this Thing! All good, useful stuff! Fortunately, I've done most of these before and had accounts set up, etc. I did not end up creating the RSS for the Ebsco Search Alert as I already have 4 search alerts sent to my email each month. I did add one new one of those, though! They are a quick and easy way for me to stay current with those periodicals. I'm much more apt to go out and read one of the articles I run across in the TOC sent to me via email (along with links to the Full-text article) than I am to leaf through a print journal I receeve. It works well for me!

I had never tried the Ebsco Page Composer before, so I did go through those steps. It was slick since I already had an account setup. I'm not sure I see many of my students utilizing these advanced features unless it is part of an assignment. I would love to see something like this incorporated into our Intro to Microcomputers course, but they have so much to cover in there already...maybe an "extra" for advanced students who can work through the bulk of that class quickly?? Or maybe as a way to use some of the stuff they learn in that class in "real life."

Again with the ProQuest database I have used many of the features before - but I hadn't created a webpage first before emailing links to myself. One thing I didn't like was that you could only put in one email address at a time. In the directions it said to email it to yourself and a colleague, but in order to do that you have to recreate the webpage and then email it to someone else. Not a big deal and easy enough to do, but I would have preferred to have been able to put more than one email address in at a time.

netLibrary -- another tool I use regularly. I was just walking a student through some of the described features last week! There are so many cool things to do with e-books, but they haven't caught on in our institution as much as I'd like. We keep working to introduce more students and classes to them, though!

Thing 16 - Student 2.0 Tools

I've seen a few presentations about Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator over the past few years. It's a neat project the UofM has created and disseminated Open Source.

From my perspective, it's really the instructors who need to get on board with the tool first. We need them to encourage student use, just like we need them to encourage students to use library books and databases rather than only the open web.

The time management aspect of this is key. Students need to see how they can plan things out and not have a crunch time at the end before their paper is due. It would be wonderful if students came to higher ed with that understanding :)

Thing 15 - Online Games & Libraries

I've been hearing about Second Life for a couple of years now, but hadn't made it there yet. Another one of those -- if you haven't tried it, you can't understand it. Of course, I could also say, Well, I've tried it, but I'm not sure I understand it! I do get the concept, but I will take a good amount of time poking around in there to fully see capabilities.

Perhaps a good exploration for the summer?!?!?!

Thing 14 - LibraryThing

Now this was a user-friendly tool! I can see great potential in this tool by incorporating it into a library website and/or into a class. Easy to create and post!

Nice way to make a recommended reading list for a class and have them post comments about it. This is a tool I would really like to come back to and make an effort to incorporate it into my work!

I added my LibraryThing in a left-side widget.

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

I chose MyYahoo as I've worked with it before...I didn't find it all that user-friendly the first time, nor did I this time. Some of it might be lack of interest in this for me as well. I will not be making it my permanent home page.

I have also used the YahooCalendar feature before and shared that with a friend as we coordinated get-togethers. It was useful!

I like the tadalist -- I'm a "list maker" by nature, so this one is right up my alley :)

I looked at Backpack, but didn't create an account. Again, I see this as useful tool for group projects...anything with collaboration. However, I've said that about a lot of them as I've worked my way through the Things!

I do find these interesting and can see uses for them. I'll admit I'm more paper and pencil when it comes to this. But I can change - I used to write out all of my checks, too, and now do as much as I can via online banking!

Thing 12 - Do You Digg?

This is the tool I've been least impressed with so far...I'm sure they are useful, but they were just overwhelming to me! I can see getting lost in them for hours on end. My gut reaction was a lot of biases were being posted and students will just take the info and plop it into a paper without critically thinking about where it came from, who posted it and why.

Until today, I hadn't looked at these types of sites -- I did pop into a story or two that piqued my interest, but was consciously trying not to dive in, for fear I might drown. For me, these would be a productivity detractor!

Thing 11 - Tagging & Del.icio.us

Another tool I've been introduced to before, but hadn't taken the time to set up an account. I now have my del.icio.us account set up, but will need to get back to work to be able to put my favorites in there! I can definitely take advantage of this tool and have found myself frustrated in the past by not remembering a URL that is on my PC at my office when I am on a different campus! I do believe this is a tool I will be able to use regularly for my personal use.

I can see uses for this in some classes I work with as well. Anything with a group project could benefit from this tool -- each member can log their resources and see what others are using. Plan to pass this one on as well :)

New RSS Feed Added

Today I ran across a RSS feed in this month's issue of MINITEX/OCLC Mailing so I added it to my Blog! Authority control updates for adding Death Dates to the Personal Name Authority Headings. Maybe this topic isn't too exciting, but it is useful :)

Thing 10 - Wikis

Those Common Craft video clips are really great -- they get the point across without lots of fanfare or wordiness!

I've been using a wiki for work since last Spring. Our consortium posts User Group (and other) meeting agendas and minutes that way. I was a minute taker this fall, so I had the opportunity to get in there and post the minutes. It was pretty intuitive, although I do remembering not hitting save once and about pulling my hair out when I lost all of my work!! I'm using that wiki again this Spring to post the meeting agenda. This is a collaborative effort between the Acting Convener(me), members in the consortium submitting agenda ideas, and the PALS office. We have edited the agenda a few times back and forth -- with only one phone conversation to clarify a few things. Slick!

I'm going to ask the group I'm Audio Conferencing with on Friday if they'd be interested in using Zoho or a Wiki to edit our final report document...hope they are willing!

I did go in and edit on the 23 Things on a Stick Wiki, although it is much different than others I've seen/used. It's not really organized in a useful fashion - at least as far as I could tell it was basically a scrolling list of comments rather than organized into a few major areas (e.g., some people were asking for marketing ideas, others were giving quotes or pictures, etc. but they weren't grouped together on different pages).

We do have instructors who ban Wikipedia based on it's unreliability/verifiability. Why not find the information in a more reliable place? Just because Wikipedia comes up first in a Google search -- that's the most common answer I hear for why students use it. I think it's a cool tool to learn about new concepts and ideas, but I'm not convinced it's the best source to use in a paper.

Thing 9 - Online Collaboration Tools

Here's my attempt at ZohoShow:


This is a PowerPoint Presentation I created in 2004 to review the Dewey Decimal System with 5th graders as part of a library instruction unit. It was interactive (although I'm not noticing that functionality here) in that when an answer was selected it would ring a bell if you got it right, etc. I enjoyed putting it together and (I think!!) the students enjoyed playing it. I'd be happy to give sharing rights to anyone who wants to edit.

I can see these collaborative tools being extremely useful in the online teaching environment. I can think of one class in particular that I work with where the instructor has them collaborate on a group project. I'm not 100% sure if they use an online collaborative tool or not, but I will certainly be asking that question now!

Thing 8 - Share Your Creations

Oh, boy, was this ever fun! I can see this as another advertising tool on the website or library blog :) It was pretty simple to do as well -- once it was part of a routine, it would be a real snap!

I would recommend this tool to others. I did have to poke around a little bit to get my Album into a Flick, but once there, it was simple to create. I like that there are a lot of different options to choose from so you could really mix it up as far as backgrounds, etc.

Thing 7 - Web 2.0 Communication Tools

This one made me feel pretty 'with it' as I've used all of these W2 tools...and use most of them regularly! :)

Email -- on it all the time. I read the productivity comments. I could do better at managing my email...
IM -- I like the idea of IMing the reference librarian. Our library utilizes at Chat function which is pretty similar - except you don't have to be on the same IM service as your patron. We don't get a ton of chat traffic though...maybe it would be higher on IM. I'd be more than happy to try it as I use it regularly for personal use. We do have an IM function through work, but not everyone knows about (i.e., it isn't really advertised), but there are certain colleagues I use it with regularly.
Text Messaging -- I really got into this about a year ago. It is the handiest thing for me! I like the video with the texting librarian - I could do that as well (if I get a phone through work that pays the bill, that is :) The article about integrating with an ILS is very cool -- I'm all for that, streamline as much as possible. Again, I am regular texter -- every day, most likely multiple times a day with multiple people.
Web Conferencing -- I took a look at the OPAL presentation on flickr + libraries - a March 2007 presentation. Very smooth. I hadn't done one of those before. I do take part in Web Conferencing regularly through MnPALS consortium and have done a number of Minitex ones as well. I've also hosted a Web Conferencing meeting (MnScu uses WebEx) and as a matter of fact, just set up an Audio Conferencing meeting this morning!

Thing 6 -- Online Image Generators

Alrighty, I see my Creation from ImageChef has appeared! THAT was slick.



This stuff is Cool, Cool, Cool! I can see lots of fun ideas for Scrapbooking :) But back to work ideas...again, I think these are attention grabbers. My ImageChef example could be posted to website as an eye-catching way to let students know our LARCs are closed over Spring Break (well, we might not be able to be quite as cryptic as my message, but you get the idea!).



I'm always a fan of using different fonts and colors when putting up signage/flyers/postings as I think that draws attention. A little more work perhaps, but hopefully worth the impact difference. Same idea with these tools -- they might take a little more work initially, but hopefully benefits would be reaped!



Here's my trading card:

Pam's 23 Things on a Stick

Thing 5 - More Flickr Fun

The mashups are fun -- a term I hadn't heard before, although I'm sure I've seen it, but just didn't realize what it was!





I chose the Puzzle maker since I love puzzles...and again selected a picture that looked bright, cheery, and colorful!





This was posted in Flickr by Lilian Nobumitsu Leao on 2/9/08 and is called Grampinhos.

Using these tools would be possibilities through our library website as attention grabbers, promotional materials, etc. We've talked about creating a blog -- this is something we could add to attract attention. Perhaps a new book cover mashed up or a book title displayed using the Spell with Flickr functionality would be eye-catching.

I'm not opposed to sharing photos online, but I do think people need to consider what they are sharing and why. Pictures of family and friends should really only be posted with permission of all parties in the picture, for example (assuming we are talking about public display/access to photos). It certainly is a simple, effective way to share photos across the miles!