Electrified.ca

Electrified.ca focuses on e-learning and digital libraries in a short,quick to read articles that give you advice you can use immediately. Think well written articles that are longer than the regular blogposting and it's Canadian!

G is for Google

Interesting article in latest issue of University Affairs by Alan MacEachern, a history prof at UWO.

Starting the Dialogue - Promoting IL Through Academic Integrity Workshops for Faculty (WILU 2006)

This session was presented by two McGill librarians. They basically presented us with the workshop that they present to the faculty. There were several active learning exercises (small group work, case studies, large group work) that engaged us in discussion with other participants and I have the handouts for these. The slides (excluding the exercises) are available. Their argument was such - "While the concept of information literacy may be less familiar to many faculty members than librarians might like, academic integrity and plagiarism are issues of major concern for faculty. Academic integrity workshops and discussions provide a platform for librarians to open a dialogue with faculty about students' information literacy skills in familiar terms." I imagine that this workshop might resonate at StFX. These McGill librarians began by doing an hour at the Brown Bag lunch venue and from there the workshop grew to 3 hrs.

WILU 2006 - Keynote

The keynote speaker at WILU 2006 was Patricia Senn-Breivik. She has a new book coming out, Higher Education in the Internet Age. One of the best parts of her presentation was the viewing of a short video called What is Information Literacy? It was developed by the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. It's a good lead in to talking about information literacy although we might take issue with one of the final statements - "information is information - no more, no less".

Bright Ideas

The Instruction Section's Management of Instruction (MIS) Committee held it's Bright Ideas session at the San Antonio Midwinter Meeting on the topic of outreach (from instruction librarians to the campus community). These notes take the form of a list of ideas , including the "Dunk the Librarian" suggestion, for outreach to students, faculty and other groups on campus.

PRIMO

PRIMO: Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online, formerly known as the Internet Education Project (IEP), is a means to promote and share peer-reviewed instructional materials created by librarians to teach people about discovering, accessing and evaluating information in networked environments. There is a Site of the Month feature - Acadia's You Quote it, You Note It was Site of the Month in Septmember 2004.

The Information Cycle - a video

This is very US centric, as they use the Columbine incident of 1999 to illustrate The Information Cycle but I found it very effective, mostly because they focus on the one incident and use visuals of the actual information along with voice over to make their point. Could we do something like this for a Canadian news event that had long lasting coverage in the media and in the scholarly literature?

e-literate - a video

Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies commissioned the production of e-literate, a 15 minute educational video to be used by teachers, librarians, community leaders and parents to introduce 21st century literacies to young people. Produced by noted writer/director Thom Eberhardt (HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KIDS, CAPTAIN RON), e-literate addresses facts versus opinions, bias, and information reliability in a humorous yet provocative tone that makes it appropriate for multiple age levels, including children, teens, college students and adults. The report E-literate: Promoting 21 Century Literacy Skills is also very interesting in terms of who has used the video and how it plays to various audiences for various purposes.

How to Read a Newspaper Tutorial

The creators of the How to Read a Newsaper Tutorial say that it focuses on how to read a newspaper, rather than why read a newspaper or how to locate newspaper articles. It is designed to complement the University Libraries’ News Room collections and the Newspaper Readership Program at Pennsylvania State University.

Charting a New Course for Information Literacy at York

Over the course of the summer of 2005, York‘s librarians came together to develop a common vision and plan for library teaching and instructional efforts. Impetus for this exercise came as a result of the increasing demand for library instruction from faculty members and students, and as result of the strong support for our Information Literacy program in the University’s most recent Academic Plan. The UAP notes the critical importance of libraries to the research infrastructure of the university and the importance of access to professional librarians to provide intensified instruction in information literacy competencies to faculty and students alike.

Information LIteracy for All

A new report, sponsored by both UNESCO and IFLA and titled Information Literacy for All, argues that the existence of information holds little to no value to people who do not even know what information they need, much less whether it exists or not, or how to locate, evaluate and effectively use it.

Marketing Instructional Role

Arguing for an increase in collaborative efforts between librarians and teaching faculty to bridge barriers, Caspers and Lenn urge librarians to market instructional roles to the entire campus and greater learning communities. Their recommendation calls for librarians to build a range of "coalitions for information literacy that utilize political skills, including negotiation, persuasion, compromise and strategizing to achieve certain objectives."

Jean Caspers and Katy Lenn, "The Future of Collaboration between Librarians and Teaching Faculty." The Collaborative Imperative: Librarians and Faculty Working Together in the Information Universe (Chicago: ALA, 2000): 151.

Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y

Have a look at this presentation about Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y. Under Learning Style Examples, have a look at the one called Ludic (Play) Behavior and the two examples of teaching using the "OLD, non-ludic" reading assignment and an example of a NEW assignment using ludic learning.

List of Activities for Information Literacy

A page from Dalhousie where the librarians add learning activities. You can see that they put the tendancy of students to like gaming to good use. This might be an indea for us as we all take on information literacy in our subject areas.

Research 101

Research 101 is an interactive online tutorial for students wanting an introduction to research skills. The tutorial covers the basics, including how to select a topic and develop research questions, as well as how to select, search for, find, and evaluate information sources.

Here's the review of this tutorial from CHOICE:

Research 101 is an interactive tutorial about conducting research, developing research questions, and understanding how information is produced and distributed. Its organizing principle is the concept of information cycles. The site is a nondisciplinary perspective on information cycles, presented in a publicly accessible framework that can be licensed free by other academic libraries. Other customizable, discipline-specific treatments are restricted to University of Washington (UW) students and tied to a student's major, created by UW librarians in conjunction with teaching faculty. Content and design contributors are acknowledged, and contact information is provided to UW's sponsoring uWill Web site for information literacy learning. A site map serves as an index to tutorial content, and a link is provided to free plug-ins required for downloading. The tutorial is organized in six units that lead logically from one to the next; users select tabs labeled "The Basics," "Information Cycles," "Topics," "Searching," "Finding," "Evaluating." Each unit contains five to ten components. Most segments conclude with a review quiz, whose questions, exercises, and examples are thought-provoking and appealingly out of the ordinary. A time line illustrating the information cycle begins with invisible colleges and ends with reference works, providing examples and links to some resources. Search strategies and criteria for evaluating results are presented in depth. The site mixes visual interest with intellectual challenge, and its intuitive navigation scheme functions reliably. This standout learning tool will appeal to undergraduates and others who are motivated to improve their information literacy mastery. Summing Up: Highly recommended. College and university libraries. -- P. E. Sandstrom, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne

Information Literacy Need

Here's a description of the information literacy need from the Council of Australian University Librarians Information Literacy Standards document:

Information literacy is required because of proliferating information access and resources. Individuals are faced with diverse, abundant information choices in their studies, in the workplace, and in their lives. Information is available through community resources, special interest organisations, manufacturers and service providers, media, libraries, and the internet. Increasingly, information comes unfiltered. This raises questions about authenticity, validity, and reliability. In addition, information is available through multiple media, including graphical, aural, and textual. These pose special challenges in evaluating, understanding and using information in an ethical and legal manner. The uncertain quality and expanding quantity of information also pose large challenges for society. Sheer abundance of information and technology will not in itself create more informed citizens without a complementary understanding and capacity to use information effectively.

Focusing on Assignments

Here's an interesting site called Focusing on Assignments: Engaging Students in Library Research

It is described as a Collaborative Information Literacy Project of Cornell College & Colorado College. In particular, look at the assignments and the assessments tabs. Is designing appropriate assignments or at least advising on appropriate assignments part of IL for librarians at StFX?

Googling to the Max

Here's a presentation done by Linda J. Goff, Head of Instructional Services at California State University. She calls her MSPowerPoint presentation Googling to the Max. Her philosophy is that "We should all take it as a given that our students are avid Google users and start where they are. My experience is that given an empty search box, most students click before they think. By showing them how to get more out of their Google searching, we can then build on that experience".

Checklist of Information Competencies

California State University and California Community College librarians came up with this checklist of competencies to use as a resource for planning and assessing IL programs.

From Teaching to Learning

"In its briefest form, the paradigm that has [traditionally] governed our colleges is this: A college is an institution that exists to provide instruction. Subtly but profoundly we are shifting to a new paradigm: A college is an institution that exists to produce learning. This shift changes everything. . . . We are beginning to recognize that our dominant paradigm mistakes a means for an end. It takes the means or method—called “instruction” or “teaching”—and makes it the college’s end or purpose. To say that the purpose of colleges is to provide instruction is like saying that General Motors’ business is to operate assembly lines or that the purpose of medical care is to fill hospital beds. We now see that our mission is not instruction but rather that of producing learning with every student by whatever means work best" (Barr and Tagg 1995).

Barr, Robert B., and John Tagg. 1995. From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Change 27 (November/December): 12–25.

Information Literacy IQ (Institutional Quotient) Test

This IQ test is designed to help you determine the readiness of your institution in integrating information literacy into your curriculum. Respond to each statement by marking it true or false. Total all the number of true statements your have marked and compare your rating with the guide at the bottom of the page.

IL Credit Courses in Canadian Colleges and Universities

This is a list of Information Literacy Credit Courses in Canadian Colleges and Universities. The list does not include courses where information literacy or library instruction is a component of a credit course. Of the 34 courses listed, 21 are at Augustana at the University of Alberta. If you click on the Augustana link, you will see each of the courses and can link through to the syllabus for each.

Brown University Library Tutorials

Brown University has developed what they call story-based Library Video Tutorials. They use two Brown students as actors in what they describe as a funny, but informative, narrative. Brown University Library says that the modules show that there is MUCH more than Google to rely on for researching and writing term papers.

But tell me, do you love or hate this librarian? I thought the funniest ones were Finding Books and Finding Articles. I sure felt like I was looking into a mirror at times and I wasn't necessarily pleased with what I saw ;-)

These videos require QuickTime.

Project Sails

Project SAILS is a standardized test of information literacy skills, based on ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. This Web-based tool allows libraries to document information literacy skill levels for groups of students and to pinpoint areas for improvement.