I started my summer internship a few weeks ago, and so far I think it's going well. It's not exactly a perfect fit, because it is a Youth Services internship, and I am not intending on becoming a children's librarian necessarily, though I do think that it's important that I learn about all the different possibilities.
I'm working for the Chelsea District Library, a local library in a small town nearby. It's a beautiful library, and the community is very small, but very supportive of their library and proud of their town. Overall, it's a lovely environment. The programs that they put on for kids and adults alike are really interesting and innovative, with things like reading to library dogs (which they've been doing for several years now, already!), bringing in kids' authors to do writing workshops with kids at the schools, ballerina storytime where they brought in real ballerinas for the kids, and so much more! For adults they do "Smarty Pants Trivia Smackdown" every other Tuesday night at the local brewery, and it sounds like people have really gotten into it! People from the town have formed teams, and some include families, some are couples teams where actually the wives compete against the husbands! It sounds great, I can't wait to check that out.
Of course, what is coming up in the next few weeks is every library's largest program. I'm talking about the Summer Reading Program. Chelsea has a great theme this year, it's the national theme, Fizz, Boom, READ! and is science themed. To help combat the dreaded "summer slide," the Summer Reading Program encourages kids to read, but at Chelsea we'll also be doing fun math and science activities all summer long.
So of course what Chelsea is doing is great and awesome and I am excited to be a part of it. My first few weeks as an intern have been... somewhat less than exciting, however. Of course, I am still learning the ropes, and they are training me, and don't necessarily know what my abilities and skills are, and then combined with the fact that my supervisor has been gone this week on vacation means that the other librarians don't really know what to do with me. So far I've mostly been shadowing people on the reference desk, which is important because it's good to see what kinds of questions come up at those desks, and how to use the system to answer them, but I'm a pretty quick study so I feel like I could be on my own by now. And then the other things I've been doing are the "intern" jobs, meaning the jobs that need to get done but that no one else either has time for or wants to do. I don't want to complain, because I really am excited and grateful for this opportunity, but it has been a lot of work that the teen volunteers can do. I have spent a lot of time copying, and cutting, and counting. And of course, these are all things that need to happen for the Summer Reading Program to be a success, and I understand that and am happy to help. It's just been a frustrating week. I am hopeful that once my supervisor returns next week that she will supplement those necessary activities with some other educational experiences for me.
With that said, I was very happy to be able to contribute a few ideas for science activities that the kids can do at the kick-off party! We're going to be having little activity stations set up around the lawn outside the library, and I imagine that there will be kids everywhere. It should be fun! Hopefully it isn't either a. too hot or b. too rainy. I'm pretty pleased with my ideas, although, of course, they aren't really my own ideas. Both of these were activities that we did as kids at my best friend's house. Her mother was a math teacher, and so educational activities always happened there. Anyway, a few times they hosted neighborhood "science fair pool parties" for us kids, and these are a few of the activities I remember from that. (Could this be why I'm such a nerd? Quite possibly. Whatever, these parties were awesome.) Anyway, one is a chromatology experiment, which is super easy but should be really fun and surprising for the kids. Basically, you draw a little line on some paper towel using a black marker, and then dip an end into some shallow water. As the water travels up, the colors in the ink separate! It's neat. Then the second is the classic Tornado in a Bottle experiment. I'm just going to make maybe three of the bottle contraptions, then the kids can come, give it a couple whirls, then scurry off when they get bored. Easy peasy, fun, and educational!
But in a brief change of topics, I want to talk about working at the U of M libraries today. It's been a nice change of pace to go from cutting paper to sitting at the reference desk again today, and my career choice has once again been validated! Someone from the Ypsilanti public library called the reference desk here, asking after the American Indian Civil Rights Handbook. I took a quick look and yes, we have it! Not only that, but we had it available to be ordered through the Espresso Book Machine, which is a super awesome machine we have which will print your book and bind it in a matter of minutes. So, the woman was extremely excited and she and her family drove down to meet me here at the reference desk. She said she'd been looking for this book for over two years now(!). She talked to me all about tribal law, and how because the tribes are "sovereign" (but not really sovereign; they can't print their own money or anything like that), American constitutional rights don't apply. She and her family had somehow been denied their rights through the tribal courts because she had charges against her, but wasn't allowed any representation, witnesses to speak on her behalf, or even the ability to speak for herself! Anyway, she was very upset about the whole thing. She was adamant that although she only ever wanted to be a mother and a grandmother, she has had to learn all about Indian tribal law and civil rights because lawyers don't know a lick about Indian law (which apparently doesn't even exist. They don't have set "laws" to follow so much as whims, and at least according to this woman the tribes are corrupt). Anyway, she was a full-blooded Chippewa woman from Manistique, and we were able to find another book on the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 that was also able to be printed on demand via the Espresso Book Machine! She was just thrilled. And I loved learning all about it, and being able to help her find the information that she had been searching high and low for! It wasn't necessarily a challenging interaction, but it was a good one, and it felt great to help her.
Anyway, what that did for me today was to help me realize that I don't think it matters so much where I end up; public or academic library, as long as I can be a librarian and get the chance to make a difference to someone in need, I think I will be happy.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Readings: Week 14? 15?
For this week our readings focused on professional development. How can teachers (and librarians!) become better at what they do? Of course not every person can be strong in every skill area, and teachers are no exception. This week we looked at some really interesting ways that teachers can work together to learn from one another on improving areas of weakness. In the Semadeni reading, the example is a program run by the district that allows teachers to take time out of their day, maybe just an hour, to sit in on another teacher's class to study that teacher's strong suit. It's a great way for teachers to collaborate, and to promote respect and collegiality within the school as well. It's nice to be singled out as someone who does X very well, and who another teacher can learn from. And it's a great way for teachers to be able to ask their colleagues, "Why did you do that?" and get a real answer. I'm not sure if every school district would be able to implement this strategy, but it sounds pretty reasonable!
We also got to read Kristin's short piece on a PD tool that she enacted in her school as a librarian, which was a self-paced technology "exploration." I think this idea is pretty neat, because the teachers could do it on their own time, with minimal instruction or oversight, and just play around with a bunch of new educational websites and resources. They then had to write up a short blog post about it (something seems familiar here...) and submit it for their PD credit. I thought it seemed like a good way for teachers, who are so busy, to take their time going as slowly or as quickly as they like through new tools and resources. I think they're more likely to gain the benefit from this style of PD than they would if they sat in a computer lab for a half day and had someone "teaching" them to use all these new resources. So much of that information goes in one ear and out the other in sessions like that.
Well friends, this is my last "official" blog post! I must say, I really love blogging, and I think it's been really helpful to think through my learning and reflect on my classes. I am going to try to keep this blog up and running, hopefully with weekly blog posts related to my adventures in library school, or soon here, my internship. I think I get a lot out of it, even if it's just a cathartic release. And it's really been very surprising how many people are interested in what I have to say. I started posting this blog on my Facebook from the very first blog post, thinking, "Well, I wrote it, and probably no one will be interested in it, but I guess if someone really has nothing to do, they could read it." And I must say, I post the link to this blog every time, and almost every time, someone outside of SI even has something really great and interesting to say about what I've written. From teachers who have their own classrooms and have taught me more about what the readings said (for better or worse), to computer programmers discussing privacy concerns or ethical issues, to friends just agreeing with a few lines that resonated with them. So, thanks, everyone, for reading my ramblings on a class you may not even be in!
We also got to read Kristin's short piece on a PD tool that she enacted in her school as a librarian, which was a self-paced technology "exploration." I think this idea is pretty neat, because the teachers could do it on their own time, with minimal instruction or oversight, and just play around with a bunch of new educational websites and resources. They then had to write up a short blog post about it (something seems familiar here...) and submit it for their PD credit. I thought it seemed like a good way for teachers, who are so busy, to take their time going as slowly or as quickly as they like through new tools and resources. I think they're more likely to gain the benefit from this style of PD than they would if they sat in a computer lab for a half day and had someone "teaching" them to use all these new resources. So much of that information goes in one ear and out the other in sessions like that.
Well friends, this is my last "official" blog post! I must say, I really love blogging, and I think it's been really helpful to think through my learning and reflect on my classes. I am going to try to keep this blog up and running, hopefully with weekly blog posts related to my adventures in library school, or soon here, my internship. I think I get a lot out of it, even if it's just a cathartic release. And it's really been very surprising how many people are interested in what I have to say. I started posting this blog on my Facebook from the very first blog post, thinking, "Well, I wrote it, and probably no one will be interested in it, but I guess if someone really has nothing to do, they could read it." And I must say, I post the link to this blog every time, and almost every time, someone outside of SI even has something really great and interesting to say about what I've written. From teachers who have their own classrooms and have taught me more about what the readings said (for better or worse), to computer programmers discussing privacy concerns or ethical issues, to friends just agreeing with a few lines that resonated with them. So, thanks, everyone, for reading my ramblings on a class you may not even be in!
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Week 13: Class Reflection -- Webinars
This week for class we prepared webinars in groups to present to the class. Having never seen a webinar before last week (last week? two weeks ago? ten years ago? I have no idea how time functions at this point in the semester), it seemed like a really daunting task. First there is the fact that you have to talk about something for a half hour at a time. Then you have to come up with a powerpoint to go with your talk that will engage people on the other side of a screen, because it's really easy to tune out people who are not physically in front of you. Then there is figuring out how to use the software needed to broadcast a webinar, which is no small feat and plenty of us had "technical difficulties" today. Finally, it's important to rehearse and maybe even write down what you're going to say, because it's really easy to get messed up. Oh, and did I mention that while you're giving your presentation, there is an active chat happening on the side?
tl;dr: Webinars are hard.
But that didn't stop us! No, we forged on ahead, and although no one's webinar went off without a hitch, I'll say that they went pretty well, despite whatever difficulties.
Actually, I really liked my group's webinar topic and had a lot of fun exploring the topic. We chose to present on how to attract pre-baby, post-college Millennials (a group that is kind of "forgotten" usually by library services) to the library. We titled it "Millennials: Get in my library!" which I feel was apt. Anyway, we decided to have fun with the topic and I think it really showed in our presentation. The focus of our presentation was really on the kinds of fun events and services which really cater to the wants and needs of the millennial crowd. These included the Smarty-Pants Trivia Smack Down hosted at the Chelsea Alehouse by the Chelsea District Library, or the 21+ themed Halloween party that my own hometown library throws as a fundraiser, which features drinks, dancing, costume contests, fortune tellers, palm readers, silent auction, a raffle, and a tour of the library's (allegedly) haunted spots. That last bit is actually really cool because a few years ago we had "ghost hunters" come in and they verified the hauntings and whatnot, so it's pretty cool, but it's up to you whether you think it's haunted or not. So the tours go through the areas which the ghost hunters said were haunted in the dark and it's all kinds of creepy. The library shuts down early that day for service and they clear off the circ desk to make room for the bar, and they decorate the whole inside. It's a great party. It mostly works, though, because the building looks like a castle. Not that it couldn't be done in a building that does not look like a castle (re: most libraries), but it's just particularly suitable for this library. See the picture below!
tl;dr: Webinars are hard.
But that didn't stop us! No, we forged on ahead, and although no one's webinar went off without a hitch, I'll say that they went pretty well, despite whatever difficulties.
Actually, I really liked my group's webinar topic and had a lot of fun exploring the topic. We chose to present on how to attract pre-baby, post-college Millennials (a group that is kind of "forgotten" usually by library services) to the library. We titled it "Millennials: Get in my library!" which I feel was apt. Anyway, we decided to have fun with the topic and I think it really showed in our presentation. The focus of our presentation was really on the kinds of fun events and services which really cater to the wants and needs of the millennial crowd. These included the Smarty-Pants Trivia Smack Down hosted at the Chelsea Alehouse by the Chelsea District Library, or the 21+ themed Halloween party that my own hometown library throws as a fundraiser, which features drinks, dancing, costume contests, fortune tellers, palm readers, silent auction, a raffle, and a tour of the library's (allegedly) haunted spots. That last bit is actually really cool because a few years ago we had "ghost hunters" come in and they verified the hauntings and whatnot, so it's pretty cool, but it's up to you whether you think it's haunted or not. So the tours go through the areas which the ghost hunters said were haunted in the dark and it's all kinds of creepy. The library shuts down early that day for service and they clear off the circ desk to make room for the bar, and they decorate the whole inside. It's a great party. It mostly works, though, because the building looks like a castle. Not that it couldn't be done in a building that does not look like a castle (re: most libraries), but it's just particularly suitable for this library. See the picture below!
Some other ideas we had for programming we book-themed speed dating events, where singles would be paired up based on their tastes in books. This could just be done as a way to meet new friends, too, especially in an area that sees a lot of new people moving in. We also thought of hosting open mic nights, either at the library or a local coffee shop or brewery/bar, where people with talent want to get up and share their songs, poetry, comedy act, you name it. The last example we had was based on an event that the Ann Arbor District Library is hosting with the A2 Nerd Nite organization, which is a Sega gaming night. That easily translates into just any library offering a throwback gaming night, either with old school video games or board games.
So the intended message of our presentation was: "Hey, look at all these great things you can do to attract millennials into your library!" But according to our evaluations, what people actually came away with was our final slide on marketing! Admittedly, we put a lot of thought into that marketing slide, because honestly, you can create all the great programs you want and still only have four people show up if no one knows about them. As I was working on that slide, I actually had a lot of fun thinking of ways that we could market the library, and the biggest thing I could think of was that you need to be advertising where your users are. And where are millennials? What do they like? We came up with what I thought were some pretty great ideas, like advertising events on Pandora or the sidebar on Facebook, or in the bathroom stalls of a popular bar.
I think we were all really surprised, though, that in our evaluations, everyone said they loved the marketing tips! Well, I'm glad that they came away with something useful! Actually, what I get out of that, though, was that I had a lot of fun coming up with those ideas, and I had been toying with the idea of finding a Marketing for Non-Profits course to take as a cognate. Now I think I definitely will!
Our webinar was not flawless, though, this is true. It's a weird medium to get used to, that's for sure. At one point we had turned off the chat feature because the icon looks like a little whiteboard, and we didn't want people drawing all over our slides in a repeat of Kristin's in-class demonstration. And something weird happened with the polling feature; I think I clicked the show responses option too soon, thinking it would update as people filled it out, and that was not the case. And at one point I got lost in my own notes as I was going along, and couldn't find my place again, so I had an awkward pause and a bit of fumbling. But overall, I would still say that despite these hiccups, it went pretty well.
We may have been a little heavy-handed with the alcoholic beverage theme, but I don't think that makes it any less true. Go where the users are!
Monday, April 7, 2014
Week 12: Class Reflection
Alright, I will admit that I am lagging behind on this reflection post. It is now Monday evening, and class was Thursday, and I can barely remember what happened. Lots of talk about Twitter and Webinars.
Twitter. As I said in my last post, Twitter was quite the experience. But from our discussion in class on Thursday and reading through some of my classmates' blog posts on the subject, it seems like I was not the only one struggling with the platform, and I hated it less than others. I intend to keep my Twitter account and check on it from time to time, but I have to admit that I'm already failing at that, too. I haven't touched it since Thursday at least, I'm sure. I actually had a bit of a moment with another classmate while I was complaining about how it seems like everyone just posts links to articles, and how can I possibly read through even the ones that interest me when they are flying in at light speed? She admitted that she sometimes just retweets a link based on the title or headline without actually reading it. I have to really wonder how often that happens all over the web, but especially on Twitter. It just doesn't seem conducive to actual absorption of information. Speaking of that, NPR played a great April Fool's Day prank which illustrates that point exactly.
Webinars. Yes, this is coming back to me, now. Kristin walked us all through what the webinar platform we will be using looks like (Blackboard) and how to use it. It took quite a while for everyone to get on board, and the class was apparently quite slap happy (I guess being so near to the end of the semester turns stressed out grad students into children) because we spent an awful lot of time drawing on the slides with the interactive tools, and sending silly "private messages" which the moderator can see. Joking aside, though, it was a good to see a full-scale tutorial of the technology we'll be using to conduct our own webinars. Now I just have to practice it with my group a few hundred times before I can feel comfortable actually doing it.
Twitter. As I said in my last post, Twitter was quite the experience. But from our discussion in class on Thursday and reading through some of my classmates' blog posts on the subject, it seems like I was not the only one struggling with the platform, and I hated it less than others. I intend to keep my Twitter account and check on it from time to time, but I have to admit that I'm already failing at that, too. I haven't touched it since Thursday at least, I'm sure. I actually had a bit of a moment with another classmate while I was complaining about how it seems like everyone just posts links to articles, and how can I possibly read through even the ones that interest me when they are flying in at light speed? She admitted that she sometimes just retweets a link based on the title or headline without actually reading it. I have to really wonder how often that happens all over the web, but especially on Twitter. It just doesn't seem conducive to actual absorption of information. Speaking of that, NPR played a great April Fool's Day prank which illustrates that point exactly.
Webinars. Yes, this is coming back to me, now. Kristin walked us all through what the webinar platform we will be using looks like (Blackboard) and how to use it. It took quite a while for everyone to get on board, and the class was apparently quite slap happy (I guess being so near to the end of the semester turns stressed out grad students into children) because we spent an awful lot of time drawing on the slides with the interactive tools, and sending silly "private messages" which the moderator can see. Joking aside, though, it was a good to see a full-scale tutorial of the technology we'll be using to conduct our own webinars. Now I just have to practice it with my group a few hundred times before I can feel comfortable actually doing it.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Week 12: Twitter Activity
This week in Adventures of SI643, instead of readings, we were assigned the task to create a Twitter handle if we didn't already have one (I'm what one might call a "laggard," and therefore did not have one. You can follow me @EmilyKrueger89 if you really want.), and to follow professionals in the library field, and tweet at least 5 times to #si643.
Sounds simple enough. I've heard about Twitter enough to have a pretty good working knowledge of the platform. You tweet messages in 140 characters, you employ the use of hashtags (Let me tell you about my theory of the beauty of hashtags. No really.) to categorize postings. It's kind of neat because celebrities and CEOs and politicians are on Twitter and they will respond to you personally, and you can retweet things you want to share. Ok, good, I got it.
ERRR!! WRONG! I have no idea how to use Twitter!
Joining Twitter has been an extremely confusing activity. I don't know what's appropriate to post on Twitter and what's not, I don't know if I should be posting personal thoughts or if I should only be posting links to content. I don't like that people post photos but they're links you have to click on to see the photo. I wanted to retweet tweets(?) from people I'm following to #si643, but I can't alter the text of a retweet to put the hashtag there. The fact that I'm following almost exclusively professionals in my field makes me extremely wary of posting anything for fear of being unprofessional, and then the idea of gaining more personal contacts on Twitter doubles that fear. How come when I use the hashtag, sometimes my tweet shows up when I click on the hashtag link, and other times it doesn't? I'm not sure how to attribute other people in a tweet, so I have resorted to saying "From @______:" because the retweet option isn't what I want, and I don't know the proper way to do it! I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
Also, Barack Obama has been spamming my feed(?) all day about the success of ACA. I mean, every two minutes. Literally. Is this normal? I just completely don't understand the norms of Twitter and it's freaking me out! I think I need someone to sit with me like I'm 75 and talk me through it. Man, life is going to be hard when I'm actually old and have a hard time learning new things!
What I do like is that it's apparently totally normal to follow people you have never met, and so growing a professional network is much easier on Twitter than Facebook. In fact, it was kind of exciting when I posted something by someone I follow (using my make-shift "From:" attribution tag), and they retweeted it! That was neat. And then since I saw that person later give a shout out wishing all the #nightlibrarian 's a good night, I had to respond to that, since I'm on the desk currently. That was fun. I might be slowly getting the hang of some small aspect of this Twitter thing, after all.
Side-note on the pervasiveness of the hashtag, when I was in Alaska visiting my friend, one of her students had hashtagged the title of his/her essay, as well as the MLA heading. Handwritten. On paper. Example:
#English10
#MsWaldrup
#3rdhour
Sounds simple enough. I've heard about Twitter enough to have a pretty good working knowledge of the platform. You tweet messages in 140 characters, you employ the use of hashtags (Let me tell you about my theory of the beauty of hashtags. No really.) to categorize postings. It's kind of neat because celebrities and CEOs and politicians are on Twitter and they will respond to you personally, and you can retweet things you want to share. Ok, good, I got it.
ERRR!! WRONG! I have no idea how to use Twitter!
Joining Twitter has been an extremely confusing activity. I don't know what's appropriate to post on Twitter and what's not, I don't know if I should be posting personal thoughts or if I should only be posting links to content. I don't like that people post photos but they're links you have to click on to see the photo. I wanted to retweet tweets(?) from people I'm following to #si643, but I can't alter the text of a retweet to put the hashtag there. The fact that I'm following almost exclusively professionals in my field makes me extremely wary of posting anything for fear of being unprofessional, and then the idea of gaining more personal contacts on Twitter doubles that fear. How come when I use the hashtag, sometimes my tweet shows up when I click on the hashtag link, and other times it doesn't? I'm not sure how to attribute other people in a tweet, so I have resorted to saying "From @______:" because the retweet option isn't what I want, and I don't know the proper way to do it! I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
Also, Barack Obama has been spamming my feed(?) all day about the success of ACA. I mean, every two minutes. Literally. Is this normal? I just completely don't understand the norms of Twitter and it's freaking me out! I think I need someone to sit with me like I'm 75 and talk me through it. Man, life is going to be hard when I'm actually old and have a hard time learning new things!
What I do like is that it's apparently totally normal to follow people you have never met, and so growing a professional network is much easier on Twitter than Facebook. In fact, it was kind of exciting when I posted something by someone I follow (using my make-shift "From:" attribution tag), and they retweeted it! That was neat. And then since I saw that person later give a shout out wishing all the #nightlibrarian 's a good night, I had to respond to that, since I'm on the desk currently. That was fun. I might be slowly getting the hang of some small aspect of this Twitter thing, after all.
Side-note on the pervasiveness of the hashtag, when I was in Alaska visiting my friend, one of her students had hashtagged the title of his/her essay, as well as the MLA heading. Handwritten. On paper. Example:
#English10
#MsWaldrup
#3rdhour
#The Conch in The Lord of the Flies
Just saying.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Class Reflection: Week 11
In class on Thursday, we had a lot to talk about. We spent a long time discussing a recent local controversy surrounding the proposal of a park next to the public library. It sounds nice; it would be great to be able to take your kids out on some playground equipment after leaving the library, or to see small musical acts or stage performances put on by local artists in the community in a proposed staging area. How nice! How idyllic! What's the problem?
The article is here, and it brings up some excellent points. The reason the proposed park is controversial is actually because the director of the public library as well as the the board came out against the construction of this park. They already see a large amount of substance abuse within the walls of the library on such a regular basis that they feel making a park next door would further exacerbate the problem.
As you can see in the article, some of the city council did not feel that the claims made by the library director were true. I think a big part of the problem is that in this kind of community, people either aren't aware or turn a blind eye to problems. This is a wealthy community. This is a clean city. The public library is well-funded, it's a beautiful space with enormous collections and excellent, innovative programming. We do not have drug users in our community, and they certainly wouldn't be found in the library. But it is true. A public library in any community attracts the homeless, and the drug users (who are not always the same people, by the way). Even on the island of Kodiak, Alaska, I heard rumors that the city's homeless gathered there. I was more surprised that the island had homeless people than that they chose the library as their preferred haunt.
But in her interview, the director of the library explained that the drug abuse is such a problem in the space of the library walls that they have had to remove ceiling tiles in the bathrooms to prevent people from stashing their drugs there. The library has quietly been dealing with this major community problem on its own for many years. They are only now being vocal about it because they can see that adding outdoor space just outside the walls of the library would invite more miscreant behavior. They have concerns about the safety of the space both next door and inside their walls. The director paints a vivid picture of someone having to clean up the syringes every morning in the proposed space. Who takes care of that? Since the library is next door, will they be in charge of monitoring activity in this public space? A shocking figure reported is that the library spends $250,000 annually on security personnel. That is a very large amount of money to be spending, and I am sure that the library would not spend nearly so much if they did not have the need for it.
I guess what our conversation boiled down to was that so many in this community, and other similar communities, see this as a library problem, when it is really a community problem. There are no homeless shelters in the area (so I'm told). Heroin is cheap and popular. What I really thought was admirable was that in her interview, the director doesn't place blame, but she doesn't shy away from talking about the problem either. Hopefully this controversy sparks more than just angry words about whether or not a park should be built. Maybe someone will start to consider what else could be done.
The article is here, and it brings up some excellent points. The reason the proposed park is controversial is actually because the director of the public library as well as the the board came out against the construction of this park. They already see a large amount of substance abuse within the walls of the library on such a regular basis that they feel making a park next door would further exacerbate the problem.
As you can see in the article, some of the city council did not feel that the claims made by the library director were true. I think a big part of the problem is that in this kind of community, people either aren't aware or turn a blind eye to problems. This is a wealthy community. This is a clean city. The public library is well-funded, it's a beautiful space with enormous collections and excellent, innovative programming. We do not have drug users in our community, and they certainly wouldn't be found in the library. But it is true. A public library in any community attracts the homeless, and the drug users (who are not always the same people, by the way). Even on the island of Kodiak, Alaska, I heard rumors that the city's homeless gathered there. I was more surprised that the island had homeless people than that they chose the library as their preferred haunt.
But in her interview, the director of the library explained that the drug abuse is such a problem in the space of the library walls that they have had to remove ceiling tiles in the bathrooms to prevent people from stashing their drugs there. The library has quietly been dealing with this major community problem on its own for many years. They are only now being vocal about it because they can see that adding outdoor space just outside the walls of the library would invite more miscreant behavior. They have concerns about the safety of the space both next door and inside their walls. The director paints a vivid picture of someone having to clean up the syringes every morning in the proposed space. Who takes care of that? Since the library is next door, will they be in charge of monitoring activity in this public space? A shocking figure reported is that the library spends $250,000 annually on security personnel. That is a very large amount of money to be spending, and I am sure that the library would not spend nearly so much if they did not have the need for it.
I guess what our conversation boiled down to was that so many in this community, and other similar communities, see this as a library problem, when it is really a community problem. There are no homeless shelters in the area (so I'm told). Heroin is cheap and popular. What I really thought was admirable was that in her interview, the director doesn't place blame, but she doesn't shy away from talking about the problem either. Hopefully this controversy sparks more than just angry words about whether or not a park should be built. Maybe someone will start to consider what else could be done.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Week 11: Class Readings
How People Learn: Chapter 7
This chapter presents a more detailed look at some teachers in classrooms who are succeeding in teaching their subjects incredibly well. The main point is that it is not enough to say that once a teacher has learned teaching strategies, they can teach any subject. Now, I'm not sure who says that to begin with, because I don't think anyone wants someone whose area of knowledge is in the social sciences teaching the hard sciences, or vice versa. Do people really think that teachers can successfully teach any subject just because they are trained teachers? Anyway, the chapter suggests that teachers should not only understand teaching pedagogy, but have a very thorough understanding of their subject and the ways their subject is best taught. The chapter presents a history teacher who instead of outlining what their curriculum will be at the beginning of the year asks the students what they most want to know about themselves and about the world. They then come up with a list of questions which they attempt to answer throughout the year using various subject disciplines. The example was a student's question of "Will I live to be 100?" and they attempted to answer it by studying genetics, population statistics, family trees, environmental concerns, etc.
So this approach sounds really awesome and like a great teaching/learning methodology, but I think it would be almost impossible for most teachers to teach that way, and for a number of reasons. The first reason is that very, very few school curricula would allow such a free-form outline of the school year. The second reason is that only very experienced teachers could develop their lesson plans in such a spur-of-the-moment manner. Teachers spend all summer developing their lesson plans for the upcoming school year, and then continue to develop them throughout the year. It would be very difficult for anyone to do this. The third reason this is almost impossible is because this teacher seems to have a very broad knowledge base to teach from. Not too many social studies teachers, I imagine, could confidently teach genetics, for example. I think the text's example is an example of a great teacher, and her students are fortunate to have her, but I don't think it is a realistic model to draw from.
Overall, though, I do believe that the text's premise is correct: the best teachers are the ones who a. know how to teach well, and b. are masters of their subject areas. This must be why in many European countries, school teachers are required to have their subject area master's degree before they can become a teacher at all. But, in this country, that gets into issues of the cultural status of teachers, and rates of pay vs. student debt. The payoff just isn't there.
This chapter presents a more detailed look at some teachers in classrooms who are succeeding in teaching their subjects incredibly well. The main point is that it is not enough to say that once a teacher has learned teaching strategies, they can teach any subject. Now, I'm not sure who says that to begin with, because I don't think anyone wants someone whose area of knowledge is in the social sciences teaching the hard sciences, or vice versa. Do people really think that teachers can successfully teach any subject just because they are trained teachers? Anyway, the chapter suggests that teachers should not only understand teaching pedagogy, but have a very thorough understanding of their subject and the ways their subject is best taught. The chapter presents a history teacher who instead of outlining what their curriculum will be at the beginning of the year asks the students what they most want to know about themselves and about the world. They then come up with a list of questions which they attempt to answer throughout the year using various subject disciplines. The example was a student's question of "Will I live to be 100?" and they attempted to answer it by studying genetics, population statistics, family trees, environmental concerns, etc.
So this approach sounds really awesome and like a great teaching/learning methodology, but I think it would be almost impossible for most teachers to teach that way, and for a number of reasons. The first reason is that very, very few school curricula would allow such a free-form outline of the school year. The second reason is that only very experienced teachers could develop their lesson plans in such a spur-of-the-moment manner. Teachers spend all summer developing their lesson plans for the upcoming school year, and then continue to develop them throughout the year. It would be very difficult for anyone to do this. The third reason this is almost impossible is because this teacher seems to have a very broad knowledge base to teach from. Not too many social studies teachers, I imagine, could confidently teach genetics, for example. I think the text's example is an example of a great teacher, and her students are fortunate to have her, but I don't think it is a realistic model to draw from.
Overall, though, I do believe that the text's premise is correct: the best teachers are the ones who a. know how to teach well, and b. are masters of their subject areas. This must be why in many European countries, school teachers are required to have their subject area master's degree before they can become a teacher at all. But, in this country, that gets into issues of the cultural status of teachers, and rates of pay vs. student debt. The payoff just isn't there.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Week 10: One-Shot Workshops
Hah! Do you see that there? That photo of a young, hip looking librarian leaning against some shelves? That's me! Ok, it's not me. But it's a stock photo that represents me, and I got it from Getty Images which as of just recently gave up the good fight against internet plagiarism and now allows anyone to embed photos their website and it attaches that fancy photo cred tag at the bottom, too!
That photo above is brought to this blog by this week's One-Shot Workshops that we held in class. The first group that went did a presentation on copyright and Creative Commons, and showed us some great resources where we can access legally free-to-use images and music! As librarians, copyright plays an important role in our lives, as according to the ALA Code of Ethics (were you paying attention last week?) it is our responsibility to balance the rights of the creator with the rights of users. That can be a fine line! But not so fine that I had trouble walking it earlier last week when someone in China asked me during an online reference chat if they could have their friend in the States come and scan the whole book they wanted from our collection and send it to them. The answer is no. That's copyright infringement, and is definitely not acceptable.
The second group that went presented on Diversity in the Library, an always important topic in any field. The problem we have currently is that librarians are overwhelmingly white females. But the group presenting on diversity opened up the discussion to include more diversity than "How can we get men/people from other ethnic backgrounds to be librarians?" which is so often the only question addressed. They simply asked what having diversity in a library means to us, and we found that we came up with a wide variety of answers. To me, it means having the people staffing the library reflect the community they are in. I worked in a public library in an urban area, and most of our patrons were African-American, but almost all of our staff were white ladies, and that really stood out to me. To other people, having diversity in the library meant a diverse collection reflecting many different subjects, viewpoints, and formats. To others, it meant respecting that not everyone who works in a library has the same background or experience. To others, it meant having employees who have a disability, or resources for those who have disabilities. Our classmate who is blind is a constant reminder of how we can easily help those who have disabilities just by taking a few extra thoughtful steps. She explained that if she had had even a small browsing collection of books in Braille as a kid, it would have meant the world to her to be able to go to the library and pick out a book to read like any other kid. I really hope that by having her in my classes, I carry the idea of accessibility with me throughout my career.
We went next, and our workshop was on avoiding controversy when weeding library collections. It's kind of weird to think about, but weeding (removing books from) a collection is a necessary part of librarianship, and interestingly enough, it's the task that is most likely to stir up controversy in a community. People start saying things like "The library is throwing away all those good books that my tax dollars paid for!" and things get out of hand quickly. So based on the information I'm learning in my Collection Development course, we outlined a few strategic tips to make doing our professional duties less likely to cause problems. I think it went pretty well! I was actually nervous to do the workshop, oddly enough. I wasn't nervous to do the book club a few weeks ago, which was the same length of time and with the same people. It must have been because giving a workshop is considerably more structured than leading a book club. I think it went really well, though, and I shouldn't have been nervous in the first place.
The next group to present was talking about banned books, and we got to pretend like we were high schoolers, which was a riot. It was definitely a lot of fun, but I think the group may have gotten a little out of hand with the antics. Their presentation was good, we talked about why we thought someone might ban books and why we (as high schoolers) disagreed with people making those kinds of decisions for us.
Our final group's workshop was on learning to use the Apple Voice Over technology, which was a really great learning session. Unfortunately, only three people in the room (of about 10) had Macs, so we had to share, which wasn't bad but it would have been a better learning experience if we could have all easily tried to follow along. Anyway, it was immediately clear how complicated using adaptive technology can be! It really gave us a good idea of the kinds of challenges people who need to use screen readers face when using computers.
Overall, everyone did a great job, in my opinion, and I had a lot of fun learning from my peers! I really love when we have the class structured in these small groups and get to learn from each other. I've really enjoyed getting to know some of my classmates I haven't had the opportunity to really interact with yet.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Week 9: Class Reflection (It actually is week 9. I was not wrong in my previous titles!)
For the first half of class on Thursday we spent some time talking about our breaks, and Kristin brought up some great points about her visit to a great archive while she was in Hawaii. She was discussing all of their artifacts, and how so much of it was physical, and there was a sense of awe and reverence for the physical items. It brought up something which I think has been bothering me about the School of Information program: all of our emphasis on being "cutting edge" means that everything is digital. It makes it seem like every library or archive is handling almost exclusively e-books or digitizing their holdings. The program practically ignores the "traditional" physical aspect of librarianship or archivism. It's been bothering me in particular since my visit to the Kodiak Public Library in Kodiak, Alaska. The library director was recently hired in October to open the new building, and she has years of experience in libraries, both in leadership positions and otherwise. She said to me, "Right now, I'm dealing with major technological challenges. The Sirsi system hasn't been updated since 2003. I just realized that my staff (none of whom are professional librarians) didn't know they could have two windows open at once on the computer. They thought that in order to check their email, they had to close out of the circulation system, check their email, and then re-open the circulation system." She handed me paper documents to look over. When I visited the classroom my friend teaches in, they did everything in paper. My friend doesn't have internet at home. Now, Kodiak, Alaska is not exactly the prototype of America, but even so, it made me remember that even just a year ago before I came to SI my life was not entirely digital. And I think it's important to remember that once we leave SI, we will be dealing with a lot more physical objects than we currently do, and not everything we do every day will be "cutting edge." I definitely appreciate the emphasis on technology because it means that I will likely have the skills necessary to continue to be relevant in the future. But at the same time, it's important to remember that beyond SI not everything is digital. During lunch, the KPL director asked me, "So how did the library school transition to the School of Information? How did it become so tech-heavy?" And I tried to answer with the reasoning that I've been given, which is basically that the founders saw technology as the "next frontier" and a natural extension of teaching and learning which compliments the library mission, but somehow it seemed like a hollow and incomplete answer. I'm still thinking about it. Her understanding of the tech people at SI was that they were there to do the tech stuff that libraries need, and that isn't the case. They could, in theory, end up working for a library doing tech, but that isn't their main goal or focus. It's given me a lot to think about.
So after the brief discussion of shell necklaces and ceremonial spears, we started talking about whether shopping at Walmart or shopping at Whole Foods was preferable, since stocks "everything" and Whole Foods is a kind of curated collection of foods which are "good for you." Somewhat surprisingly, (and I must say I'm pleased, because Whole Foods is just ridiculously expensive) the class, at least those of whom spoke up in class, seemed to agree that shopping at Whole Foods wasn't necessarily any better than shopping at Walmart, since cookies are cookies whether they contain high fructose corn syrup or not, and people can be fooled into thinking that everything at Whole Foods is good and they can choose anything there and still be healthy. Of course the cost question came into play, since as graduate students we are all living on a, er, "limited" budget. I know I hate that Whole Foods is the only grocery store on my way home, so occasionally I'll stop to pick up a few ingredients for dinner. What would have cost me under $10 at Meijer costs me $25 at Whole Foods. And they're not even specialty items, just a can of tomatoes and tortilla chips and shredded cheese, right? I can't stand that. Whole Foods I think is great for some things (I really like their wood-fired pizzas!) but I really would not say that Whole Foods is a better experience than Walmart, or another major grocery store (Meijer4Lyfe). And I'm glad that we felt that way, because as it turns out, Kristin was using it as a metaphor for the state of libraries today. Libraries are becoming more Walmart-y than Whole Foods-y in the sense that librarians are no longer cultivating collections of only "good, educational" books/materials. In a push to become more communal spaces and to have greater applicability to the larger community, libraries are stocking everything instead of just "what's good for the public." I think this is also in part because of the literacy initiative which basically says that a person reading anything is better than a person reading nothing, and that all materials have value. And just as in the grocery store, I know that I certainly read the labels and pick foods that I know are good for me, with the occasional treat from the dark side. I think that a conscientious reader can do the same in a library.
So after the brief discussion of shell necklaces and ceremonial spears, we started talking about whether shopping at Walmart or shopping at Whole Foods was preferable, since stocks "everything" and Whole Foods is a kind of curated collection of foods which are "good for you." Somewhat surprisingly, (and I must say I'm pleased, because Whole Foods is just ridiculously expensive) the class, at least those of whom spoke up in class, seemed to agree that shopping at Whole Foods wasn't necessarily any better than shopping at Walmart, since cookies are cookies whether they contain high fructose corn syrup or not, and people can be fooled into thinking that everything at Whole Foods is good and they can choose anything there and still be healthy. Of course the cost question came into play, since as graduate students we are all living on a, er, "limited" budget. I know I hate that Whole Foods is the only grocery store on my way home, so occasionally I'll stop to pick up a few ingredients for dinner. What would have cost me under $10 at Meijer costs me $25 at Whole Foods. And they're not even specialty items, just a can of tomatoes and tortilla chips and shredded cheese, right? I can't stand that. Whole Foods I think is great for some things (I really like their wood-fired pizzas!) but I really would not say that Whole Foods is a better experience than Walmart, or another major grocery store (Meijer4Lyfe). And I'm glad that we felt that way, because as it turns out, Kristin was using it as a metaphor for the state of libraries today. Libraries are becoming more Walmart-y than Whole Foods-y in the sense that librarians are no longer cultivating collections of only "good, educational" books/materials. In a push to become more communal spaces and to have greater applicability to the larger community, libraries are stocking everything instead of just "what's good for the public." I think this is also in part because of the literacy initiative which basically says that a person reading anything is better than a person reading nothing, and that all materials have value. And just as in the grocery store, I know that I certainly read the labels and pick foods that I know are good for me, with the occasional treat from the dark side. I think that a conscientious reader can do the same in a library.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Readings: Week 8 (I apparently got off-count somewhere along the lines. Two weeks of week 8!)
Our readings for class this week were (thankfully) pretty light, which I appreciate because I think we all had very busy "breaks."
We were asked to read over the ALA Code of Ethics, which we have looked at in previous courses, as well. I imagine that part of library school has to do with being indoctrinated to follow the ALA Code of Ethics, which is just as well because they're a pretty good set.
The second reading was pretty interesting because it kind of went against the grain of what we had been previously taught about the Code of Ethics and a librarian's level of responsibility in providing access to information. Specifically, it went against what we were taught about it in the introductory course, 647. In regards to "dangerous questions," we were taught that it is unprofessional to judge what is or is not appropriate to provide access to, regardless of the material or circumstances surrounding it. A patron may be asking about books on suicide or pipe bomb building for any number of reasons which may or may not include actually committing suicide or building a pipe bomb, for example. This seems reasonable enough, a person could have had someone close to them commit suicide, or they could be doing a school project on recent history involving pipe bombs.
"Dangerous Questions at the Reference Desk: A Virtue Ethics Approach." Lenker, Mark. The Journal of Information Ethics. 17,1. Spring 2008.
The second reading challenges that interpretation of the ALA Code of Ethics, saying that to provide access to information which is potentially harmful to the patron or others without considering the possible effects is both reckless and irresponsible. The author says that it is a narrow line to walk, but a person's moral integrity should not be put into opposition with a profession's guidelines, or use them to hide behind. The paper was a bit misleading, because it went into a few hypothetical "case studies" of patrons asking dangerous questions at the reference desk, and then going over the virtue ethics stance of responding, which allowed for the hypothetical librarian to think about the different ways his answer could affect things, but I felt like it didn't actually come to a conclusion about what level of information the librarian could provide, or what he could say if he decided that the dangerous question was something that he felt immoral providing an answer to. Even if I decided that I didn't want to provide the answer to how to build pressure cooker bombs, how do I tell the patron that without being rude or unprofessional?
I really think that the reading we did brought up some fascinating points about how perhaps following the ALA Code of Ethics to a T while disregarding personal objections is at best a cop out for responsibility and at worst a serious degradation of a person's moral character. I think it begs the question, though, about how do you judge what you deem to be objectionable based on your own values and bias against what someone else deems to be objectionable? Can you put qualifiers on when it is and is not okay to withhold information? One person may find a patron's request for information on how to become a sex worker objectionable and another may not.
I'm really interested to see what we as a class have to say about this interpretation of the Code of Ethics. It seems safer to just stick to the code and provide whatever information is asked of us, but at the same time, I might feel personally responsible if I found out that I had helped someone to kill a family in a house fire.
We were asked to read over the ALA Code of Ethics, which we have looked at in previous courses, as well. I imagine that part of library school has to do with being indoctrinated to follow the ALA Code of Ethics, which is just as well because they're a pretty good set.
The second reading was pretty interesting because it kind of went against the grain of what we had been previously taught about the Code of Ethics and a librarian's level of responsibility in providing access to information. Specifically, it went against what we were taught about it in the introductory course, 647. In regards to "dangerous questions," we were taught that it is unprofessional to judge what is or is not appropriate to provide access to, regardless of the material or circumstances surrounding it. A patron may be asking about books on suicide or pipe bomb building for any number of reasons which may or may not include actually committing suicide or building a pipe bomb, for example. This seems reasonable enough, a person could have had someone close to them commit suicide, or they could be doing a school project on recent history involving pipe bombs.
"Dangerous Questions at the Reference Desk: A Virtue Ethics Approach." Lenker, Mark. The Journal of Information Ethics. 17,1. Spring 2008.
The second reading challenges that interpretation of the ALA Code of Ethics, saying that to provide access to information which is potentially harmful to the patron or others without considering the possible effects is both reckless and irresponsible. The author says that it is a narrow line to walk, but a person's moral integrity should not be put into opposition with a profession's guidelines, or use them to hide behind. The paper was a bit misleading, because it went into a few hypothetical "case studies" of patrons asking dangerous questions at the reference desk, and then going over the virtue ethics stance of responding, which allowed for the hypothetical librarian to think about the different ways his answer could affect things, but I felt like it didn't actually come to a conclusion about what level of information the librarian could provide, or what he could say if he decided that the dangerous question was something that he felt immoral providing an answer to. Even if I decided that I didn't want to provide the answer to how to build pressure cooker bombs, how do I tell the patron that without being rude or unprofessional?
I really think that the reading we did brought up some fascinating points about how perhaps following the ALA Code of Ethics to a T while disregarding personal objections is at best a cop out for responsibility and at worst a serious degradation of a person's moral character. I think it begs the question, though, about how do you judge what you deem to be objectionable based on your own values and bias against what someone else deems to be objectionable? Can you put qualifiers on when it is and is not okay to withhold information? One person may find a patron's request for information on how to become a sex worker objectionable and another may not.
I'm really interested to see what we as a class have to say about this interpretation of the Code of Ethics. It seems safer to just stick to the code and provide whatever information is asked of us, but at the same time, I might feel personally responsible if I found out that I had helped someone to kill a family in a house fire.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Book club reflection: week 8
Greetings from the road! I am currently on a bus to Chicago, where I will catch a flight to Seattle, then another flight to Anchorage, then a final flight to Kodiak, Alaska! I'm using my phone to update this, so I apologize if autocorrect makes this post a little wacky.
Thursday in class we divided into our book club groups and spent the whole class period discussing the readings we had picked out (I reviewed them earlier in the week on this blog). We had so much fun! My group was great, people brought snacks (I had meant to but had forgotten, ugh! There was plenty, though), we chit chatted for a little bit before we started, like a real book club is likely to do, and we all had great discussions on every piece. It was really impressive to see how much thought the teams had put into choosing pieces to read as well as how much everyone had put a lot of thought into the reading of the pieces as well. We decided that as a group we picked some pretty "dark" readings, which always makes conversation more interesting, if not uplifting. We managed to stay cheery despite the tone of the readings, though.
Because I don't really want to go through every discussion of every reading, I will list some key points I thought were interesting in each:
1. What qualifies as a quality submission to a crowdsourced digital repository? How do we avoid censoring submissions when we select for curation purposes, and how can we say that a person's experience of an event such as the Boston Marathon bombing is more or less valid than another's?
2. What should we really be taking away from Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings?" Is this an instruction on writing fiction for authors, or it is it an instruction for reading fiction, or can it apply to how everyone should be thinking about their life? The question of what is in "the dash" (meaning that your whole life on your tombstone will be summarized by a dash. How scary is that? E.g., 1989 - 2100, hey, I can dream of seeing the next century, right?) is addressed.
3. In our piece, William Carlos Williams' "The Use of Force," we talked a lot about ethics and motivations. We wondered whether the fact that the doctor is a doctor justifies the use of force on a child to get her to comply with an action she clearly does not want to do, and whether because it was to "save her life" if it made a difference. We also wondered what kind of treatment we would allow or expect in a medical setting today. I noticed that we really only asked one or two of our questions that we had prepared; the group really took off discussing it all on their own.
4. The piece on the Syrian opposition being deleted from Facebook was really interesting. We discussed whether Facebook had any responsibility to harbor graphic activist groups or not, as well as how the Syrian conflict had moved from being "good guys vs. bad guys" to a really conflicting mix of everyone vs. the bad guys. It was fascinating to think about the role that social media is playing in this civil conflict, and the continuing role it will play in future conflicts. Social media is not designed for these kinds of uses, and so their policies must evolve to consider their future potential use. Really thought-provoking material.
5. The discussion around Bluebeard was really varied. Mostly it centered around how entirely creepy the story was, and for a fairy tale, we were concerned about how there seemed to be a lack of a clear moral. This likely stemmed from the speculation that Bluebeard is a story based on the true French aristocratic serial killer, which is all kinds of creepy. So what was the moral? We never did figure it out.
Altogether, the book club was a great success!
Monday, February 24, 2014
"Book Club" Readings, Week 8
This week for class, we are doing a kind of "book club." We paired up and picked brief readings we wanted to share with the class, and will be discussing them in a book club format during the class period.
"For Comfort and Posterity, Digital Archives Gather Crowds." Jennifer Howard. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nov. 18, 2013.
This article was so interesting! It was about a digital archive called Our Marathon which was set up in the days following the Boston Marathon bombing. Being such a recent traumatic event, it's still very fresh in my mind. The article talks about how the Our Marathon archive was set up, and that it became apparent to the founder, a professor at Northeastern University, that everyone in the city had a story to tell, whether they had seen anything or not, knew someone who was hurt or not. The archive is open to the community at large to contribute to, and consists entirely of digital-born content. The author stressed the importance of collecting this material as immediately as possible, because with digital content so much can be lost very quickly.
The archive receives much of its funding and technical support from Northeastern University and from their campus library, which is great. I'm so glad that the university and the library have undertaken this archive and see the value in its existence and support. They also get a lot of volunteers from the nearby Simmons College's Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, which makes me glad to know that LIS students are being involved in the digital curation of this collection.
Finally, they mention that other similar projects which were created in "the early days" such as the 9/11 archive are really struggling to stay afloat because of infrastructure issues. They claim to have learned from such projects and are making efforts to make a better site.
"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood.
I first want to say that I have been told a million times to read Margaret Atwood and to my embarrassment I never have. So when I saw this short story listed for the book club readings, I was very excited to read some Margaret Atwood at last! I'm not really sure what I was expecting, since the people who tell me to read Margaret Atwood are people who enjoy thought-provoking and feminist literature, generally, but the title was "Happy Endings" and so I was expecting this to be a happy little short story about something or other.
I was mistaken.
It's set up in a neat format, kind of like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, which is always fun to see. But basically it outlines a married couple's life in the vaguest of terms in section A until they die. Then sections B-F are all variations on what happens before the part where they die. Ultimately, this is not a short story at all, but rather an essay on writing fiction. She says:
"The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.
So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known
to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.
That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what
and a what and a what.
Now try How and Why."
which is of course very poetic and a lovely instructional piece on how to write good and meaningful stories. But I must say, I was expecting a Happy Ending and I had my bubble burst.
"For Comfort and Posterity, Digital Archives Gather Crowds." Jennifer Howard. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nov. 18, 2013.
This article was so interesting! It was about a digital archive called Our Marathon which was set up in the days following the Boston Marathon bombing. Being such a recent traumatic event, it's still very fresh in my mind. The article talks about how the Our Marathon archive was set up, and that it became apparent to the founder, a professor at Northeastern University, that everyone in the city had a story to tell, whether they had seen anything or not, knew someone who was hurt or not. The archive is open to the community at large to contribute to, and consists entirely of digital-born content. The author stressed the importance of collecting this material as immediately as possible, because with digital content so much can be lost very quickly.
The archive receives much of its funding and technical support from Northeastern University and from their campus library, which is great. I'm so glad that the university and the library have undertaken this archive and see the value in its existence and support. They also get a lot of volunteers from the nearby Simmons College's Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, which makes me glad to know that LIS students are being involved in the digital curation of this collection.
Finally, they mention that other similar projects which were created in "the early days" such as the 9/11 archive are really struggling to stay afloat because of infrastructure issues. They claim to have learned from such projects and are making efforts to make a better site.
"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood.
I first want to say that I have been told a million times to read Margaret Atwood and to my embarrassment I never have. So when I saw this short story listed for the book club readings, I was very excited to read some Margaret Atwood at last! I'm not really sure what I was expecting, since the people who tell me to read Margaret Atwood are people who enjoy thought-provoking and feminist literature, generally, but the title was "Happy Endings" and so I was expecting this to be a happy little short story about something or other.
I was mistaken.
It's set up in a neat format, kind of like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, which is always fun to see. But basically it outlines a married couple's life in the vaguest of terms in section A until they die. Then sections B-F are all variations on what happens before the part where they die. Ultimately, this is not a short story at all, but rather an essay on writing fiction. She says:
"The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.
So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known
to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.
That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what
and a what and a what.
Now try How and Why."
which is of course very poetic and a lovely instructional piece on how to write good and meaningful stories. But I must say, I was expecting a Happy Ending and I had my bubble burst.
"The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams.
This is the story we picked as our piece for the book club assignment. I'll confess that my previous experience with William Carlos Williams is exclusively in poetry (so much depends upon a red wheel barrow...), and I had not read this short story previously. However, I am very glad that we picked it! It's a first-person narrative of a country doctor making a house call to check on a little girl who has been running a fever for three days. Diphtheria has been going around the school she attends, and apparently one of the signs of diphtheria is a sore throat because it is covered in a membrane. The story is actually the struggle between the doctor and the little girl who refuses to open her mouth to show the doctor, and his use of force to open her mouth to see. I won't say much more about it, just because I'm excited to see what my classmates have to say in our discussion.
The Syrian Opposition is Disappearing from Facebook. Michael Pizzi. The Atlantic. Feb. 4, 2014.
Wow. That's all I can say about his piece right now. It was considerably longer than the other pieces we read for the book club, but it was also the most important. It brought up so many fascinating points. The most interesting, I thought, was that it is incredible how people have started to use Facebook as a means of reporting civil conflict to refugees and the world at large. How incredible. But second, that there is a kind of guerrilla warfare happening between the factions for control over what gets posted on Facebook. Information is powerful.
I usually have a hard time reading pieces like this simply because I feel so extremely helpless. I listen to NPR, I hear about these kinds of problems in different parts of the world, I read articles online or in the newspaper. And my heart goes out to these people whose lives are so oppressed and they live in constant fear for their lives. But what can I do? It's incredibly frustrating to know there are people like you and me around the world, just trying to live their lives, and they don't have the same luxury of knowing that they are safe in their home or at work that I do. I always feel so powerless to help anyone in any way once I read these articles. I wish I could help, somehow.
Alright, so people have heard of Bluebeard, and most people probably equate him with Blackbeard of piratey fame, but according to this story, anyway, he is not a pirate but a vicious monster who slaughters his wives. The text of the story does not support this, but the illustrations lead the reader to believe that Bluebeard is from the Middle East. There is some serious "Othering" happening here. Especially in the end where Bluebeard is about to cut off the head of his bride and her brothers come in and kill him, give all his slaughtered wives "Christian burials" and the bride remarries someone good and handsome and forgets all about it. Talk about happy endings.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this story was used to malign Muslims as monsters during the Crusades, and they therefore had to be saved and converted into Godly Christians.
However, after a skilled Wikipedia search (everything on the internet is true, folks), Bluebeard is apparently a French folktale thought to be based on a serial killer. Fascinating. Those illustrations were very misleading. Something to bring up in class!
Friday, February 21, 2014
Class Reflection: Week 7
Yesterday in class we spent half of the time doing a kind of "book club"/Socratic Seminar based on one of our readings for the week, the Marc Prensky piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled In the 21st Century, Let's Ban (Paper) Books. I'm not sure if the article linked to is provided by MLibraries or not, so my apologies if you can't read the article. Anyway, just based on the title, this is a pretty incendiary piece, and we had a really interesting discussion of it in class.
We turned our tables into a square to facilitate discussion better, and Kristin practiced what she preached by sitting down with us. She has us each reread the article, and then discuss it for a few minutes with a partner, and write down a question we each came up with on an index card. Then someone started the conversation with their card, and it pretty much just took off from there. It was interesting to see this activity become a serious discussion between peers in a classroom setting, in which Kristin chimed in occasionally but was mostly silent. Obviously we were all extremely against the premise of "banning" all paper books on a college campus, since we are all aspiring librarians or archivists in the library and it is in our professional interest to believe that paper books are still useful. It would have been interesting to have some of the other specializations at SI's take on the article. Anyway, I'd just like to list a few of the concerns we had with the article here:
We turned our tables into a square to facilitate discussion better, and Kristin practiced what she preached by sitting down with us. She has us each reread the article, and then discuss it for a few minutes with a partner, and write down a question we each came up with on an index card. Then someone started the conversation with their card, and it pretty much just took off from there. It was interesting to see this activity become a serious discussion between peers in a classroom setting, in which Kristin chimed in occasionally but was mostly silent. Obviously we were all extremely against the premise of "banning" all paper books on a college campus, since we are all aspiring librarians or archivists in the library and it is in our professional interest to believe that paper books are still useful. It would have been interesting to have some of the other specializations at SI's take on the article. Anyway, I'd just like to list a few of the concerns we had with the article here:
- What are the actual benefits of "banning" paper books on a campus?
- Imagine how wildly, insanely expensive it would be to digitize a whole library's collection (and faculty collections, too!) and house all that digital material.
- There is a little thing called "copyright law" which prevents libraries from digitizing their own collections.
- What library could ever dream of affording a fully digital collection, when licensing fees are through the roof? At least in today's digital publishing climate.
- What about the special and rare collections of items that for one reason or another cannot be digitized?
- What happens if the system crashes?
- What do you do with all those millions of paper books?
- He says that pretty much everything students read for classes are already in the public domain and are already digitized. What world does this man live in that students use materials at the college level from 1923 or earlier, particularly outside of the narrow world of English literature?
The list of concerns goes on and on. We had hoped that perhaps Marc Prensky was making a parody, or commenting on the current user demand for all materials online, accessible now. Kristin sort of deflated that balloon of hope by saying that in her experience, Marc Prensky is not the kind of person who would say something like this in irony.
I would be interested to hear what people outside of the profession would say about this. Are paper books irrelevant and outdated? Assuming we could provide access to all of a library's holdings electronically, would this be a legitimate plan? And frankly, comments like "I just like how a physical book feels/smells" or "I like using my large collection of bookmarks" are not useful in this discussion.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Readings: Week 7
The Evolving Book Group, Beth Dempsey. Library Journal Sept. 2011
Most students do not understand how their more articulate, insightful classmates reach conclusions about literature. Unless teachers explain why some interpretations are more valid, class discussions confirm students' belief that some of their classmates "just get it" and that literature is inaccessible to them. Again, imagine a math class in which no one explains how a problem was solved."
In the 21st-Century University, Let's Ban (Paper) Books By Mark Prensky 2011
This article I thought was pretty ludicrous, let's say. By reading the comments at the end of it, I can tell that I am not the only person who feels this way.
I can appreciate some of his argument: at SI, the vast majority of our readings are all free and online, which has been great because textbooks are outrageously expensive and I pay a lot of money already for tuition, so not having to buy books has been great. But to ban print books altogether? To literally confiscate a print book if found on the campus at all, in anyone's private possession? That is insane. Let's take a moment to think about how insane that is.
Even if an institution had the kinds of funds available to 1.digitize their entire collection, 2. give every student and faculty member an e-reader, and 3. pay the licensing fees for all the materials necessary, year in and year out, this plan would take an enormous amount of time and manpower. Not to mention that even in those cases, people still just like paper books. Fact.
"The joy and mystery of reading is that each of us reads a different book from everyone else…even when it's the same book," says Nancy Pearl, author of the Book Lust readers' advisory (RA) titles and LJ's 2011 Librarian of the Year. "We bring all of our life experiences to the reading of a book, any book, and each person's history is different from everyone else's."
I thought that this article was really great. As a recovering English literature student, I find it really easy to buy into the concept of a book club being a kind of transformative experience for people. Beth Dempsey cited a few library programs which bridge the generation gap, or exclusively target the young professionals crowd. I think that the graphic novel group would be really fascinating, and hosting such book clubs at outside venues, whether it is a local coffee shop or a local brewery, gives a program a more casual and relaxed feel. The online/in-person book club was great, too. People can participate on their own time however much or little they want when the session is online, as well as providing a traditional communal feel for those who prefer that, too. Great ideas!
I think I was the most interested in the prison outreach book club she cites in her article. I loved the idea of having a "book club" with a young offender, the parole officer, the judge, and a librarian, and that it works as a way to model young people who have battled tough situations but made it through alright. It could really help a young person in a positive way. I loved that she said many of these rehabilitated young people still keep in regular contact with "their" librarian!
I think I was the most interested in the prison outreach book club she cites in her article. I loved the idea of having a "book club" with a young offender, the parole officer, the judge, and a librarian, and that it works as a way to model young people who have battled tough situations but made it through alright. It could really help a young person in a positive way. I loved that she said many of these rehabilitated young people still keep in regular contact with "their" librarian!
"Socratic Seminars: Engaging Students in Intellectual Discourse." Lynda Tredway. 1995
Generally I agreed with this article. It said that teachers should be using the "Socratic method," a term I had heard before but never really knew what it meant. Essentially, it is a teaching method in which the teacher leads a discussion but doesn't tell students what to think or how to solve a problem. This method encourages critical thinking skills and as well as respect for one's peers. I liked how the article approached using the Socratic method in school classrooms, but I was reminded of my college experience more than anything else. In reading the article, I realized that this style of teaching was essentially the way that college level English courses are taught, which needless to say, I enjoyed.
I can very easily see how this method of instruction translates into a library-lead book club, which would be essentially the same as a guided discussion in a literature course. For me, leading a book club discussion would be second nature, I think, which is why I am really excited to do our brief book club exercise in class as well as develop my own book clubs later in a professional setting. How fun is this job?
The Book Club Exploded Barbara Hoffert. 2006
This article brought up some interesting variations on book clubs, for instance, bringing in authors to speak with the book clubs via phone or videoconference. One idea I really liked was the idea of doing a book club on a thematic basis instead of picking the same book for everyone to read, or picking an author for the book club to focus on and everyone selecting one of their works. I think that in this way people could get more out of a book club from their peers. It would be a greater learning experience and probably even more interesting!
Metzger, Margaret. "Teaching reading: beyond the plot." Phi Delta Kappan 80.3 (1998): 240. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Jan. 2011.
I really enjoyed this particular article. It was on a teacher's method of helping her high school freshman English students learn to comprehend texts using a variation on the Socratic method. It's very detailed, and I think that her unit on close reading is probably very successful. I can imagine that some students initially feel that it is a dumb activity, but I think by the end of the unit (2 months) the majority of the students, from all reading levels, would feel like they had learned something or done some valuable thinking about these texts. I think doing this with high school freshmen is the perfect age group, too. They have never been allowed, or told, to mark up books, so that is a new and exciting experience, as well as the opportunity to sit and talk freely with their peers. I liked that at one point the author says her students threw her out of the inner circle, saying that she was not being helpful to their discussions. I think that is a really telling moment for her instruction, and knowing that it was working. Anyway, a really interesting article on helping all students to become better readers. I think that the premise of this article is really foreign to me: reading has always been fun and easy, so I never understood how people could dislike reading or find it difficult. There was a great quote on it, though, that really put it into perspective for me:
"Often teachers feel so desperate for some class participation that they accept any verbal statement, fearing that they will suppress conversation if they make judgments about the quality of student responses. Therefore, students don't know which answers are right and wrong, particularly since it is out of fashion to say that any answer is wrong. As soon as teachers hear a reasonable answer, they move on to the next question. It's as though in a math class, after several solutions were given, the teacher just moved on to the next math problem without saying which solutions were right and to what degree.
Most students do not understand how their more articulate, insightful classmates reach conclusions about literature. Unless teachers explain why some interpretations are more valid, class discussions confirm students' belief that some of their classmates "just get it" and that literature is inaccessible to them. Again, imagine a math class in which no one explains how a problem was solved."
In the 21st-Century University, Let's Ban (Paper) Books By Mark Prensky 2011
This article I thought was pretty ludicrous, let's say. By reading the comments at the end of it, I can tell that I am not the only person who feels this way.
I can appreciate some of his argument: at SI, the vast majority of our readings are all free and online, which has been great because textbooks are outrageously expensive and I pay a lot of money already for tuition, so not having to buy books has been great. But to ban print books altogether? To literally confiscate a print book if found on the campus at all, in anyone's private possession? That is insane. Let's take a moment to think about how insane that is.
Even if an institution had the kinds of funds available to 1.digitize their entire collection, 2. give every student and faculty member an e-reader, and 3. pay the licensing fees for all the materials necessary, year in and year out, this plan would take an enormous amount of time and manpower. Not to mention that even in those cases, people still just like paper books. Fact.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
New Adult as a Category
In doing some research for a separate class, I stumbled upon an article published in Booklist which caught me off guard. It's the concept of "New Adult" as a category of people, and publishers are catering to them. A surprising statistic cited in the article is that 84% of YA books are being purchased by people over 18 (not sure if this statistic includes parents buying for their teen, because that would make a huge difference, I'm sure). Anyway, I thought it was a great article, and it included a list of Top 10 books for New Adults which I found really interesting. I think I would add the new Hyperbole and a Half book to this list, as well.
Top Books for New Adults
Top Books for New Adults
Friday, February 14, 2014
Reflection: Week 6
Our last class period was, in my opinion, very interesting! We started with one topic, which was basically what did we think about the TED talk we watched last week by Jane McGonigal on How Videos Games Can Change the World, and it felt like we really were able to dig deeper and connect the conversation to a wider picture. Class was also made more interesting by Kristin's lovely multi-colored notes on the whiteboard, complete with illustrations. Thanks for that, Kristin.
I'm not sure if our class is just a bunch of cynics or what, but a lot of what we had to say about McGonigal's talk was fairly negative. We weren't sure if 1. the kinds of games she creates are either enjoyable or able to transfer into reality as a real change, and 2. if gamers actually care at all about transferring their in-game skills into the real world, or as a force for change. We did spend some time discussing other people's work that seems more successful in this arena, such as Henry Jenkins' games, or a few other games around solving plague outbreaks or running a McDonald's, which teach transferable skills. What we ultimately ended up deciding was that McGonigal speaks as a brand, rather than necessarily a successful individual. She has a great presence; she's an attractive woman with a mass of blonde tangles like a lion's mane (apparently all the best-known ladies in LibraryLand have great hair. Note to self: invest in excellent hairstylist.), she's a great speaker, and most importantly, she's a gamer herself. She's not exactly the typical stereotype of "gamer," or even "female gamer." So, she's a great representative to the world of the gaming community and the kinds of work that could, in theory, be done. I think we had a real negative spin on this in class, and we called her out for kind of selling half-truths, but I think maybe it is smart of either her or whoever is putting her in the spotlight to call attention to an area which people think could be expanded upon.
We ended up taking the conversation in a separate but related direction by discussing the UMSI t-shirts which we all received at orientation which say "i will change the world." Lowercase i meaning information, not just poor grammar. There were some significantly mixed reviews on this message. Some people liked the idea that it was promoting that just one person can make a big difference in the world, which is great. Some people felt that it was a slogan that had good intentions but was also a little bit arrogant. I can definitely see that, sometimes it feels like people at the university have this mentality that they are going to "save the world," and it can come off as really arrogant and egotistical. We talked about the idea of a kind of us vs. them mentality to this--that we know what is best for other people. I mean, I know that I have insane amounts of student loans for this program, so it doesn't feel like I am one of the wealthy privileged, but simply by virtue of being at UMSI I have to accept that I am one of a very, very privileged few. So when I leave here, I may end up working in a community or at an institution which does not have the same kinds of resources or opportunities that are available in the Ann Arbor area or at UofM. In fact, it's more than likely that that is what will happen. And how can I go to this community and say "Look at all these fancy technological things I learned in library school!" when what they really need is just help figuring out what the heck a browser is and how do you double-click with a mouse. Which sort of brings me around to how I feel about the slogan, which is that I think it applies more to the tech-side of UMSI, anyway. So many of the amazing, world-changing things that happen here happen because someone had a brilliant idea for a tech start-up and implemented it while they were in school, or they designed an app which monitors their glucose trends for diabetes, or they are re-designing the way citizens interact with their local government. What world-changing thing do I do? So this lead the discussion in two ways, the first way being that the iSchool grew out of the library/service tradition, and really the mission of the school is to help people use theirpowers skills for good instead of evil. Helping better society = good, hacking personal data = bad. Instilling morals and all that, which is great and something I hadn't thought of. The second way the conversation went was that we help to change the world on a much smaller, more individual scale. We promote intellectual freedom, literacy, community support. On an individual level, we help people out when they need it. That changes that one person's world. Most poignantly, Meagan, our own moral compass, concluded the discussion on a positive note about how she really does feel like she changes someone's world, when she can help another blind or disabled person use assistive technology which will help them tremendously. And that really is changing the world for someone.
tl;dr: warm fuzzy feelings on how we really do change the world at UMSI, in big and small ways.
I'm not sure if our class is just a bunch of cynics or what, but a lot of what we had to say about McGonigal's talk was fairly negative. We weren't sure if 1. the kinds of games she creates are either enjoyable or able to transfer into reality as a real change, and 2. if gamers actually care at all about transferring their in-game skills into the real world, or as a force for change. We did spend some time discussing other people's work that seems more successful in this arena, such as Henry Jenkins' games, or a few other games around solving plague outbreaks or running a McDonald's, which teach transferable skills. What we ultimately ended up deciding was that McGonigal speaks as a brand, rather than necessarily a successful individual. She has a great presence; she's an attractive woman with a mass of blonde tangles like a lion's mane (apparently all the best-known ladies in LibraryLand have great hair. Note to self: invest in excellent hairstylist.), she's a great speaker, and most importantly, she's a gamer herself. She's not exactly the typical stereotype of "gamer," or even "female gamer." So, she's a great representative to the world of the gaming community and the kinds of work that could, in theory, be done. I think we had a real negative spin on this in class, and we called her out for kind of selling half-truths, but I think maybe it is smart of either her or whoever is putting her in the spotlight to call attention to an area which people think could be expanded upon.
We ended up taking the conversation in a separate but related direction by discussing the UMSI t-shirts which we all received at orientation which say "i will change the world." Lowercase i meaning information, not just poor grammar. There were some significantly mixed reviews on this message. Some people liked the idea that it was promoting that just one person can make a big difference in the world, which is great. Some people felt that it was a slogan that had good intentions but was also a little bit arrogant. I can definitely see that, sometimes it feels like people at the university have this mentality that they are going to "save the world," and it can come off as really arrogant and egotistical. We talked about the idea of a kind of us vs. them mentality to this--that we know what is best for other people. I mean, I know that I have insane amounts of student loans for this program, so it doesn't feel like I am one of the wealthy privileged, but simply by virtue of being at UMSI I have to accept that I am one of a very, very privileged few. So when I leave here, I may end up working in a community or at an institution which does not have the same kinds of resources or opportunities that are available in the Ann Arbor area or at UofM. In fact, it's more than likely that that is what will happen. And how can I go to this community and say "Look at all these fancy technological things I learned in library school!" when what they really need is just help figuring out what the heck a browser is and how do you double-click with a mouse. Which sort of brings me around to how I feel about the slogan, which is that I think it applies more to the tech-side of UMSI, anyway. So many of the amazing, world-changing things that happen here happen because someone had a brilliant idea for a tech start-up and implemented it while they were in school, or they designed an app which monitors their glucose trends for diabetes, or they are re-designing the way citizens interact with their local government. What world-changing thing do I do? So this lead the discussion in two ways, the first way being that the iSchool grew out of the library/service tradition, and really the mission of the school is to help people use their
tl;dr: warm fuzzy feelings on how we really do change the world at UMSI, in big and small ways.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Readings: Week 6
The readings for this week take us back to where I stood on day one of this blog. I firmly believe that in order for learning to happen, real learning, we need to teach students to understand and transfer information, not just regurgitate facts.
I was forever angry in high school because the grades in high school were not about how well you understood the material, or how intelligent you were, they were based on whether or not you filled out the endless worksheets going over the same material again and again. This is the reason why I was not a 4.0 student in high school. I could pass every test with flying colors, I could write a great essay and apply my knowledge to a few different areas or topics we had learned in class. But to me, filling in mindless worksheets was a waste of time, and frankly a lazy way out for the teachers. I will be the first to admit that I'm sure I was a bit of a challenging student to have in class, because although I was always polite, I simply refused to be insulted in that way. Teachers always used to say, "Emily is so bright. She would do so much better if she would just apply herself," to my mom during teacher conferences. Sorry I'm not sorry, but I knew as a fifteen year old that filling in answers was not an acceptable way to learn.
Maybe that idea stemmed from my stellar elementary education, where every unit had a purpose and an activity that tied it all together. I still remember dressing up as a runaway slave in a wax museum exhibit in the fourth grade when we learned about slavery, or sewing together our Freedom Quilt squares (I am not any better at sewing today than I was in the fourth grade). I recall going outside to splash water on the pavement, measuring the diameter of the spill, and then returning in a half hour to measure it again, and again in another half hour, so that we could see and experience evaporation for ourselves. We turned out whole classroom into a "city." We had a mayor, and we each had businesses where we sold our wares to the other grades for pretend money. I'm sure we had days where we sat and did normal kids-in-school things, but it always culminated in a big activity that lasted for several days and we learned an incredible amount.
What do I remember about high school? I remember I played around with paint in art classes. I remember watching a lot of movies. I remember not doing an awful lot of worksheets. I remember tests which I could have taken the day after the lecture, but we spent weeks on. I remember a few essays. The best courses were my AP European History and AP U.S. Government class, but even those were just an accelerated version of the usual, with one or two larger transfer activities tied in. We did try to do a Middle East peace talks negotiation at one point in AP U.S. Gov, which must have been somewhat successful because I kind of remember it. Mostly I remember a whole lot of nothing. What does it say that I remember my elementary education better than my high school education? I read something recently that was essentially a letter to a young teacher, and it was along the lines of "Don't stress, young teacher, because your students won't remember the lessons you taught them, or the way you set up your classroom. They will remember how you made them feel." Which is sweet in sentiment, but in reality I think that is a disservice to students and teachers alike. Clearly, I recall the well-designed lessons of my teachers from the past. And I thank them for what must have taken extreme amounts of time and effort to develop, because they have succeeded with their students. I don't just mean me, I mean all of my former classmates from that school. We had a little class reunion at the end of our senior years of high school, and so many, so many, were valedictorians in their own schools. So many were going off to attend prestigious universities and do amazing things like become astrophysicists or surgeons or whatever. And so many, too, were inspired by our own teachers to be the best teachers they could be. I was in the middle, I didn't know what to do. I hadn't thought of librarianship, yet, I guess. But I think that for all of us, the lessons we learned as young children stayed with us. Lessons on how to learn, and how to be challenged. That learning is fun, and that the things we learned in school applied in the larger world.
How can we give all students that same kind of experience I had a child? How can we prove to educators and administrators and government agencies that the standard model of education in place today has long outlived its usefulness? This is the real question. Because good educators know that teaching students to understand, not just repeat facts, is the key to success in education, and in life.
Without further ado, a brief recap of the readings.
Put Understanding First, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
"If we don't give students sufficient ongoing opportunities to puzzle over genuine problems, make meaning of their learning, and apply content in various contexts, then long-term retention and effective performance are unlikely, and high schools will have failed to achieve their purpose."
I think the quote above pretty much sums up the whole argument they make in this article, and what I was trying to get at in my angry educational rant above. They propose that, gosh darnit, education should be meaningful and relevant to students because they would probably learn it better. I don't think I can say much more than I already have other than that I agree. Whole-heartedly. Clearly.
I was forever angry in high school because the grades in high school were not about how well you understood the material, or how intelligent you were, they were based on whether or not you filled out the endless worksheets going over the same material again and again. This is the reason why I was not a 4.0 student in high school. I could pass every test with flying colors, I could write a great essay and apply my knowledge to a few different areas or topics we had learned in class. But to me, filling in mindless worksheets was a waste of time, and frankly a lazy way out for the teachers. I will be the first to admit that I'm sure I was a bit of a challenging student to have in class, because although I was always polite, I simply refused to be insulted in that way. Teachers always used to say, "Emily is so bright. She would do so much better if she would just apply herself," to my mom during teacher conferences. Sorry I'm not sorry, but I knew as a fifteen year old that filling in answers was not an acceptable way to learn.
Maybe that idea stemmed from my stellar elementary education, where every unit had a purpose and an activity that tied it all together. I still remember dressing up as a runaway slave in a wax museum exhibit in the fourth grade when we learned about slavery, or sewing together our Freedom Quilt squares (I am not any better at sewing today than I was in the fourth grade). I recall going outside to splash water on the pavement, measuring the diameter of the spill, and then returning in a half hour to measure it again, and again in another half hour, so that we could see and experience evaporation for ourselves. We turned out whole classroom into a "city." We had a mayor, and we each had businesses where we sold our wares to the other grades for pretend money. I'm sure we had days where we sat and did normal kids-in-school things, but it always culminated in a big activity that lasted for several days and we learned an incredible amount.
What do I remember about high school? I remember I played around with paint in art classes. I remember watching a lot of movies. I remember not doing an awful lot of worksheets. I remember tests which I could have taken the day after the lecture, but we spent weeks on. I remember a few essays. The best courses were my AP European History and AP U.S. Government class, but even those were just an accelerated version of the usual, with one or two larger transfer activities tied in. We did try to do a Middle East peace talks negotiation at one point in AP U.S. Gov, which must have been somewhat successful because I kind of remember it. Mostly I remember a whole lot of nothing. What does it say that I remember my elementary education better than my high school education? I read something recently that was essentially a letter to a young teacher, and it was along the lines of "Don't stress, young teacher, because your students won't remember the lessons you taught them, or the way you set up your classroom. They will remember how you made them feel." Which is sweet in sentiment, but in reality I think that is a disservice to students and teachers alike. Clearly, I recall the well-designed lessons of my teachers from the past. And I thank them for what must have taken extreme amounts of time and effort to develop, because they have succeeded with their students. I don't just mean me, I mean all of my former classmates from that school. We had a little class reunion at the end of our senior years of high school, and so many, so many, were valedictorians in their own schools. So many were going off to attend prestigious universities and do amazing things like become astrophysicists or surgeons or whatever. And so many, too, were inspired by our own teachers to be the best teachers they could be. I was in the middle, I didn't know what to do. I hadn't thought of librarianship, yet, I guess. But I think that for all of us, the lessons we learned as young children stayed with us. Lessons on how to learn, and how to be challenged. That learning is fun, and that the things we learned in school applied in the larger world.
How can we give all students that same kind of experience I had a child? How can we prove to educators and administrators and government agencies that the standard model of education in place today has long outlived its usefulness? This is the real question. Because good educators know that teaching students to understand, not just repeat facts, is the key to success in education, and in life.
Without further ado, a brief recap of the readings.
Put Understanding First, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
"If we don't give students sufficient ongoing opportunities to puzzle over genuine problems, make meaning of their learning, and apply content in various contexts, then long-term retention and effective performance are unlikely, and high schools will have failed to achieve their purpose."
I think the quote above pretty much sums up the whole argument they make in this article, and what I was trying to get at in my angry educational rant above. They propose that, gosh darnit, education should be meaningful and relevant to students because they would probably learn it better. I don't think I can say much more than I already have other than that I agree. Whole-heartedly. Clearly.
How People Learn Chapter 3
This chapter is on educational transfer and again how meaningful it is that we teach for understanding and not just facts. It's much lengthier than the above article, and goes in more depth about things which are intrinsically connected to learning materials such as motivation and context. If a student has no motivation to learn something, "How will this ever apply to me?" how could we expect them to learn something from it? I think this can be connected to our previous discussion in class (last week?) when we discussed at what stage it would be most helpful for a librarian to step into the picture. The beginning of the semester is not a super great time to teach students how to use certain databases. They really don't care. Once they have been assigned a paper topic, and need help using the databases to find relevant information? Bingo.
Fortunately for me, I have the extreme pleasure of manning the reference desk, and from time to time I get the odd intrepid student who realizes that they are lost and need help finding information, or forming a topic, or narrowing the field. I like that part of my job. I get to help shape the direction of their research, I get to talk with them about options they may not have considered. If nothing else, I get to help them out of a corner. But for every student who comes to the desk for help, I can imagine that there must be 10 (or more!) students who muddle through it on their own, relying on what techniques they learned for research in their introductory composition class in the second week. How can we convince faculty that if we are to be of the best use to their students, the faculty need to bring their class to the library once they have been assigned a task?
Bonus Entry on Other Professional Bloggers (Or, Professionals Who Blog, Rather)
As part of our blog assignment for this particular course, we were supposed to pick a few bloggers who update from the field to follow and then report back on who they are, what they talk about, etc. This has been a particularly interesting task, and for me I think it has been a nice introduction to something that is really stressed in library school (follow professional bloggers! Read professional publications!) but without being assigned is just another "thing I should really do." So without further ado, I give to you the librarian bloggers I have chosen to follow along with for this semester.
Academic Bloggers
Librarian Meg has been a blogger that I have been personally interested in following. A little while ago I went into Kristin's office hours and had a lengthy chat about which kind of library I might be best suited for, or would enjoy working in best. The final outcome was possibly a rather innovative public library, or a fairly small academic library such as my own alma mater. In any case, she suggested then that Librarian Meg, a UMSI alumna, might be a good person to follow and/or get in touch with. She works at a small university in upstate New York, and it has been nice to follow along with the daily challenges she faces at work, which seem like things that a typical librarian at a small university would deal with. She talks about things like one-shot workshops where professors want her to teach citation. I liked that her thoughts on this were something along the lines of "Where did everyone get the idea that librarians are citation experts? And furthermore, the professor is the one grading it, shouldn't they be the ones teaching citations to their specifications?" But she chooses to buck up and teach citation, along with some other things she thinks are useful, because face-time with students is invaluable, and a librarian should leap at every opportunity they have to interact with students. She also discusses the challenges that I think many librarians face which have to do with marketing. Librarians are not naturally good marketers (imagine that) and therefore she saw that their ebook system, Overdrive, was being severely underused. She had to figure out a marketing strategy and implement it so that the system would see more use and thus justify the cost of such an expense. This struck a chord with me, too, especially as I think about what courses I should be taking next year. I had already heard about a cognate course in the School of Social Work, I believe, and it was was Marketing for Non-Profits. I was already thinking that would be a great course to take, especially if I am interested in public libraries, but I think it would be beneficial to take even for people going into academic libraries, as Meg is. Of course, I can't expect to learn everything I need to know about marketing in a semester, but it should give me a little more solid footing than I would otherwise have.
Letters to a Young Librarian is a blog run by Jessica Olin, the director of a small liberal arts college in Delaware. I think that her blog title says it all. Her posts aren't actually in letter format (it makes a little sad that they don't start with "Dear Young Librarian,"), but she writes about topics as a season library veteran honestly and in an easily accessible way. My favorite post of hers was a recent recap of her first year as director, and it really struck me because everything she said about feeling like she was totally in over her head every day, and then ultimately realizing that she was going to be okay, really resonated with me as a student. That's how I feel everyday. So it was nice to know that even the tried-and-true librarians feel the same as us beginners. I even commented and thanked her for being so honest. She also spoke at one point about being persuaded by her readers to go to ALA Midwinter, and how she was glad she went after all. I liked that because I am 100% that person who doesn't really want to go to social events because it just seems so exhausting and people end up having to drag me out. I always have a good time when I'm there, but it's a struggle to go. I expect I will need friends and colleagues in my career to drag me to conferences. She also discusses her family history--her mother and grandmother were librarians, too! How sweet! I think there is a kind of wonderful passion and familiarity that so many children grow up with when they have librarians for parents or grandparents. I think it is not all that unusual for children to follow in those footsteps, which is really sweet and encouraging.
Miscellaneous Bloggers
These bloggers don't really fall into a specific category of professionals. They are librarians, or librarian-types, and discuss things relevant to the field.
Annoyed Librarian is a blogger I found to be really funny and interesting. It's written by "anonymous," and hosted by Library Journal, so it's kind of an "official" library blog. I really liked AL's sardonic voice and her perspective on certain issues such as the whole demise of libraries due to e-books. She talks about e-books and how if we get rid of paper books then the gap will only widen between the poor and the more wealthy, and education will suffer, which I think is absolutely true. I am from a poor area, and I know that many of the patrons we served at the public library couldn't use a computer, let alone own one. And an e-reader or tablet? Nobody even knows what those are. What I find to be actually more interesting than the AL blog posts, though, are the comments she inspires, which often turn into a kind of librarian flame war. This is odd because librarians are notoriously the nicest people around. I've learned that when "enthusiastic" is used in job descriptions (and it is very often used in job descriptions), they really mean "young and fresh out of library school," which is a bonus for me right now. The flame wars are fascinating to read through, while at the same time horribly discouraging. When commentors routinely make comments such as this one:
"Yes, there is a glut of MLIS degrees, a dearth of jobs, and a trend toward downsizing professional library staff through attrition. So under what delusions do people continue to pursue a master’s degree program in a low-paying field with bleak to non-existent prospects for either full-time employment or a liveable wage? I have little sympathy for anyone who accrues 40K in student loan debt on an MLIS and then cries foul because they cannot find a job in the field. As the old saying goes, a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. I hear Wal-Mart is hiring." Follow the comment thread here
I get pretty upset. 40k in student loans? That's cute. My only hope is in the Career Development Office's figures of 98% post-graduation employment. I see a lot of success stories coming from last year's alum and this year's soon-to-be alum already. I guess I have to have faith in the strength and quality of my program, the school's alumni network and prestigious name, and myself.
InfoDocket has been really interesting to follow for the semester. It's another blog hosted by Library Journal, and it's written by Gary Price. I like it because it is a hodge-podge of library news from all over. If it is noteworthy and a library somewhere is doing it, or it applies directly to libraries, InfoDocket covers it. This blog is updated several times daily, which makes it really challenging to keep up with, so often I only read the full post if the headline grabs my attention. It has been so much fun following it though! I have pulled links from a few different posts and sent them to friends on Facebook. Namely, when InfoDocket announced that the Library of Congress had created an online exhibit to the cosmos in honor of Carl Sagan and the newly updated Cosmos series that Fox will be airing hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, I was able to share that on my fiance's wall, and he thought it was great! And one of my current roommates is a huge music buff, and I was able to share on his Facebook wall that the Library of Congress had announced the digitization and release of over 80,000 songs and other materials on American Folk Music, and he was really excited about it, too! I very nearly shared a recent post about Marvel's public release of their API on another friend's wall who is trying to break into the comic book industry, but I decided that he probably wouldn't really know what to do with a public API, and neither do I, if we're being honest here. My point is that following InfoDocket has been really exciting to me both as a librarian who is interested in what libraries around the country and around the world are doing, and as a person who just likes to share interesting information because it's neat and I think someone close to me would benefit from it (or is that just the secret definition of being a librarian?).
I'm going to conclude by saying that I'm glad I was prompted to set up an RSS feed for this class so I can actually follow professionals who blog, and that I believe I will keep up this practice going forward in my studies and my schooling.
And finally, because I really liked this and want to share it here but don't want to create a separate post, photographs of today's librarians at ALA Midwinter. Such great photos of how we are not all old ladies shushing people!
Academic Bloggers
Librarian Meg has been a blogger that I have been personally interested in following. A little while ago I went into Kristin's office hours and had a lengthy chat about which kind of library I might be best suited for, or would enjoy working in best. The final outcome was possibly a rather innovative public library, or a fairly small academic library such as my own alma mater. In any case, she suggested then that Librarian Meg, a UMSI alumna, might be a good person to follow and/or get in touch with. She works at a small university in upstate New York, and it has been nice to follow along with the daily challenges she faces at work, which seem like things that a typical librarian at a small university would deal with. She talks about things like one-shot workshops where professors want her to teach citation. I liked that her thoughts on this were something along the lines of "Where did everyone get the idea that librarians are citation experts? And furthermore, the professor is the one grading it, shouldn't they be the ones teaching citations to their specifications?" But she chooses to buck up and teach citation, along with some other things she thinks are useful, because face-time with students is invaluable, and a librarian should leap at every opportunity they have to interact with students. She also discusses the challenges that I think many librarians face which have to do with marketing. Librarians are not naturally good marketers (imagine that) and therefore she saw that their ebook system, Overdrive, was being severely underused. She had to figure out a marketing strategy and implement it so that the system would see more use and thus justify the cost of such an expense. This struck a chord with me, too, especially as I think about what courses I should be taking next year. I had already heard about a cognate course in the School of Social Work, I believe, and it was was Marketing for Non-Profits. I was already thinking that would be a great course to take, especially if I am interested in public libraries, but I think it would be beneficial to take even for people going into academic libraries, as Meg is. Of course, I can't expect to learn everything I need to know about marketing in a semester, but it should give me a little more solid footing than I would otherwise have.
Letters to a Young Librarian is a blog run by Jessica Olin, the director of a small liberal arts college in Delaware. I think that her blog title says it all. Her posts aren't actually in letter format (it makes a little sad that they don't start with "Dear Young Librarian,"), but she writes about topics as a season library veteran honestly and in an easily accessible way. My favorite post of hers was a recent recap of her first year as director, and it really struck me because everything she said about feeling like she was totally in over her head every day, and then ultimately realizing that she was going to be okay, really resonated with me as a student. That's how I feel everyday. So it was nice to know that even the tried-and-true librarians feel the same as us beginners. I even commented and thanked her for being so honest. She also spoke at one point about being persuaded by her readers to go to ALA Midwinter, and how she was glad she went after all. I liked that because I am 100% that person who doesn't really want to go to social events because it just seems so exhausting and people end up having to drag me out. I always have a good time when I'm there, but it's a struggle to go. I expect I will need friends and colleagues in my career to drag me to conferences. She also discusses her family history--her mother and grandmother were librarians, too! How sweet! I think there is a kind of wonderful passion and familiarity that so many children grow up with when they have librarians for parents or grandparents. I think it is not all that unusual for children to follow in those footsteps, which is really sweet and encouraging.
Miscellaneous Bloggers
These bloggers don't really fall into a specific category of professionals. They are librarians, or librarian-types, and discuss things relevant to the field.
Annoyed Librarian is a blogger I found to be really funny and interesting. It's written by "anonymous," and hosted by Library Journal, so it's kind of an "official" library blog. I really liked AL's sardonic voice and her perspective on certain issues such as the whole demise of libraries due to e-books. She talks about e-books and how if we get rid of paper books then the gap will only widen between the poor and the more wealthy, and education will suffer, which I think is absolutely true. I am from a poor area, and I know that many of the patrons we served at the public library couldn't use a computer, let alone own one. And an e-reader or tablet? Nobody even knows what those are. What I find to be actually more interesting than the AL blog posts, though, are the comments she inspires, which often turn into a kind of librarian flame war. This is odd because librarians are notoriously the nicest people around. I've learned that when "enthusiastic" is used in job descriptions (and it is very often used in job descriptions), they really mean "young and fresh out of library school," which is a bonus for me right now. The flame wars are fascinating to read through, while at the same time horribly discouraging. When commentors routinely make comments such as this one:
"Yes, there is a glut of MLIS degrees, a dearth of jobs, and a trend toward downsizing professional library staff through attrition. So under what delusions do people continue to pursue a master’s degree program in a low-paying field with bleak to non-existent prospects for either full-time employment or a liveable wage? I have little sympathy for anyone who accrues 40K in student loan debt on an MLIS and then cries foul because they cannot find a job in the field. As the old saying goes, a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. I hear Wal-Mart is hiring." Follow the comment thread here
I get pretty upset. 40k in student loans? That's cute. My only hope is in the Career Development Office's figures of 98% post-graduation employment. I see a lot of success stories coming from last year's alum and this year's soon-to-be alum already. I guess I have to have faith in the strength and quality of my program, the school's alumni network and prestigious name, and myself.
InfoDocket has been really interesting to follow for the semester. It's another blog hosted by Library Journal, and it's written by Gary Price. I like it because it is a hodge-podge of library news from all over. If it is noteworthy and a library somewhere is doing it, or it applies directly to libraries, InfoDocket covers it. This blog is updated several times daily, which makes it really challenging to keep up with, so often I only read the full post if the headline grabs my attention. It has been so much fun following it though! I have pulled links from a few different posts and sent them to friends on Facebook. Namely, when InfoDocket announced that the Library of Congress had created an online exhibit to the cosmos in honor of Carl Sagan and the newly updated Cosmos series that Fox will be airing hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, I was able to share that on my fiance's wall, and he thought it was great! And one of my current roommates is a huge music buff, and I was able to share on his Facebook wall that the Library of Congress had announced the digitization and release of over 80,000 songs and other materials on American Folk Music, and he was really excited about it, too! I very nearly shared a recent post about Marvel's public release of their API on another friend's wall who is trying to break into the comic book industry, but I decided that he probably wouldn't really know what to do with a public API, and neither do I, if we're being honest here. My point is that following InfoDocket has been really exciting to me both as a librarian who is interested in what libraries around the country and around the world are doing, and as a person who just likes to share interesting information because it's neat and I think someone close to me would benefit from it (or is that just the secret definition of being a librarian?).
I'm going to conclude by saying that I'm glad I was prompted to set up an RSS feed for this class so I can actually follow professionals who blog, and that I believe I will keep up this practice going forward in my studies and my schooling.
And finally, because I really liked this and want to share it here but don't want to create a separate post, photographs of today's librarians at ALA Midwinter. Such great photos of how we are not all old ladies shushing people!
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Reflection: Week 5
In class on Thursday we randomly selected three of the screencasts we did a few weeks ago to watch.
The first one was by a classmate and it was on using the Beeline Reader Plug-in for your browser. This was something I have looked at before but for whatever reason I don't think I installed it. Anyway, it's a really neat bit of software which softly shifts colors on pages with a lot of text so that your eye can read faster and with less strain. I actually find it really helpful, and must remember to install it on my Chrome browser on my laptop once I get home. Anyway, the actual screencast was very nice. It was easy to follow along with, her pacing was really good, and she showed just where everything should go in a browser in case you had never used plug-ins (extensions?) before. Overall, a really excellent example.
The second screencast we watched actually was a podcast, because we have the wonderful opportunity to have a student who is blind in our class. So she did a podcast on how to use a particular piece of software put out by the National Library Service called BARD: Braille and Audio Reading Download which is basically like downloading a book to your Kindle or Nook but for the visually or physically impaired. Her podcast was great because she explained both how the service worked as well as the actions a blind person would need to do to access it, such as explaining where specific buttons were and the motions a person would need to do to get there. She also allowed her screen reading technology to play in the background of her podcast so that the person listening would be able to hear what the screen reader would say. I think that having this student in our class is really eye-opening, and in a program where accessibility is highly-stressed (hopefully it is highly-stressed in all library science programs), her presence alone reminds us to always keep accessibility in mind. I know that in my own screencast, I tried to keep her in mind and say out loud the area of the screen a person would find a specific button. I'm not sure if I always succeeded, but it was a great reminder to make things as accessible as I can.
The third screenshot we watched was on the software/website Canva.com. I thought that this was an incredibly awesome bit of technology. It's free and is pretty much a drag-and-drop graphic design tool for anything from posters to presentations to invitations and more. I swear I learn about cool things every day lately. Anyway, the screencast was very good, easy to follow along, and her voice was very confident!
Based on the random sampling of my classmate's work, I imagine that they were all pretty great!
Based off of the above tutorial on Canva, I felt like I was in a safe enough space to ask what in the world a "poster session" is. I get a call to submit my work to a poster session probably daily in my email, and long have I wondered what that means. I imagined it involved a poster (wow) and perhaps some kind of small presentation, but beyond that, I had no idea. Thanks to Kristin and my peers, the mystery has been solved! A poster presentation is where you make a poster for a conference and stand by it and talk to whoever approaches you about your work. Kristin likened it to a science fair, which really helped. So now, once I have done something I think someone might be interested in, I can apply to do a poster session at a conference and know what that actually is. I think I will actually do one on my "Alternative" Alternative Spring Break mini-project I am planning on doing for the expoSItion.
Finally, we watched a great TED talk by Jane McGonigal (spoilers: she does not turn into a cat, sadly) on How Gaming Can Make a Better World, which was really interesting. She used World of Warcraft as her perpetual example, and my deep hatred of the game tainted her presentation for me, but overall it was really interesting. She basically talks about how gamers spend so much time working at gaming that they become "experts" in that area, and we should be channeling that expertise into a game that will actually make a difference for today's world problems. I found it to be a little far-flung, but I thought it was interesting and innovative. We used the TED talk as a starting point for creating evaluative surveys for post-workshops and the do's and don't's of that.
The first one was by a classmate and it was on using the Beeline Reader Plug-in for your browser. This was something I have looked at before but for whatever reason I don't think I installed it. Anyway, it's a really neat bit of software which softly shifts colors on pages with a lot of text so that your eye can read faster and with less strain. I actually find it really helpful, and must remember to install it on my Chrome browser on my laptop once I get home. Anyway, the actual screencast was very nice. It was easy to follow along with, her pacing was really good, and she showed just where everything should go in a browser in case you had never used plug-ins (extensions?) before. Overall, a really excellent example.
The second screencast we watched actually was a podcast, because we have the wonderful opportunity to have a student who is blind in our class. So she did a podcast on how to use a particular piece of software put out by the National Library Service called BARD: Braille and Audio Reading Download which is basically like downloading a book to your Kindle or Nook but for the visually or physically impaired. Her podcast was great because she explained both how the service worked as well as the actions a blind person would need to do to access it, such as explaining where specific buttons were and the motions a person would need to do to get there. She also allowed her screen reading technology to play in the background of her podcast so that the person listening would be able to hear what the screen reader would say. I think that having this student in our class is really eye-opening, and in a program where accessibility is highly-stressed (hopefully it is highly-stressed in all library science programs), her presence alone reminds us to always keep accessibility in mind. I know that in my own screencast, I tried to keep her in mind and say out loud the area of the screen a person would find a specific button. I'm not sure if I always succeeded, but it was a great reminder to make things as accessible as I can.
The third screenshot we watched was on the software/website Canva.com. I thought that this was an incredibly awesome bit of technology. It's free and is pretty much a drag-and-drop graphic design tool for anything from posters to presentations to invitations and more. I swear I learn about cool things every day lately. Anyway, the screencast was very good, easy to follow along, and her voice was very confident!
Based on the random sampling of my classmate's work, I imagine that they were all pretty great!
Based off of the above tutorial on Canva, I felt like I was in a safe enough space to ask what in the world a "poster session" is. I get a call to submit my work to a poster session probably daily in my email, and long have I wondered what that means. I imagined it involved a poster (wow) and perhaps some kind of small presentation, but beyond that, I had no idea. Thanks to Kristin and my peers, the mystery has been solved! A poster presentation is where you make a poster for a conference and stand by it and talk to whoever approaches you about your work. Kristin likened it to a science fair, which really helped. So now, once I have done something I think someone might be interested in, I can apply to do a poster session at a conference and know what that actually is. I think I will actually do one on my "Alternative" Alternative Spring Break mini-project I am planning on doing for the expoSItion.
Finally, we watched a great TED talk by Jane McGonigal (spoilers: she does not turn into a cat, sadly) on How Gaming Can Make a Better World, which was really interesting. She used World of Warcraft as her perpetual example, and my deep hatred of the game tainted her presentation for me, but overall it was really interesting. She basically talks about how gamers spend so much time working at gaming that they become "experts" in that area, and we should be channeling that expertise into a game that will actually make a difference for today's world problems. I found it to be a little far-flung, but I thought it was interesting and innovative. We used the TED talk as a starting point for creating evaluative surveys for post-workshops and the do's and don't's of that.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Formative Assessment
This week's readings were all about the teaching principle of using "formative assessment." What this means is that teachers evaluate students' learning during the lessons, and modify their teaching to better fit students' learning styles or focus on areas the students are not understanding. This method of teaching is in conflict with the traditional method of teaching, where teachers teach, students are expected to learn, and then they are assessed on what they have learned. The result is either that students learned what they needed to and do well on the assessment, or they did not learn what they were supposed to and do poorly on the assessment. The modern school of thought is more in favor of the former method of teaching. It emphasizes students' actual learning; it's more important that the students are understanding the material than that they score well at the end.
I come from a small state school here in Michigan, a university, I mean, and one of our most popular and most widely touted programs is our teaching program. We produce notably excellent teachers, who are generally praised all around for their readiness to teach in a real classroom post-graduation. I was never in the teaching program because I don't have the courage and fortitude to face a classroom full of young people day in and day out. But I did take Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) courses, and I know that my professor in all of those courses, who was also a professor in the normal teaching program, I believe, very highly stressed the value of formative assessment. In every class I had with him, he drilled into us that formative assessment is the only way to teach effectively. I am pretty certain that this was the case throughout the whole School of Education, and that our teaching graduates leave the college with a firm understanding of today's best practices in teaching. I would hope that, even though my school produces great teachers, this is the normal way that new teachers are taught, and that new teachers entering the workforce are putting these practices into use. The "problem" seems to be with getting veteran teachers on board with these new practices.
This is all well and good, but the question remains: what does this have to do with libraries? I think that part of it is the need to elicit feedback from users when we are doing instructional courses, or even during a simple reference question. Making sure that users are understanding what we are trying to show them is crucial in the service aspect of the profession. We are in the business of helping people help themselves, and if we show them time and time again without teaching them, we are doing them a disservice.
I come from a small state school here in Michigan, a university, I mean, and one of our most popular and most widely touted programs is our teaching program. We produce notably excellent teachers, who are generally praised all around for their readiness to teach in a real classroom post-graduation. I was never in the teaching program because I don't have the courage and fortitude to face a classroom full of young people day in and day out. But I did take Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) courses, and I know that my professor in all of those courses, who was also a professor in the normal teaching program, I believe, very highly stressed the value of formative assessment. In every class I had with him, he drilled into us that formative assessment is the only way to teach effectively. I am pretty certain that this was the case throughout the whole School of Education, and that our teaching graduates leave the college with a firm understanding of today's best practices in teaching. I would hope that, even though my school produces great teachers, this is the normal way that new teachers are taught, and that new teachers entering the workforce are putting these practices into use. The "problem" seems to be with getting veteran teachers on board with these new practices.
This is all well and good, but the question remains: what does this have to do with libraries? I think that part of it is the need to elicit feedback from users when we are doing instructional courses, or even during a simple reference question. Making sure that users are understanding what we are trying to show them is crucial in the service aspect of the profession. We are in the business of helping people help themselves, and if we show them time and time again without teaching them, we are doing them a disservice.
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