ACRL 2009 - Creating Instruction To Go

I didn't immediately share the notes from this excellent session about online learning late this morning because I continued my path of scholarly learning bailed on ACRL with Marie for a few hours to have lunch & check out some nuclear pants at Archie McPhee. HOT!

I have to say that not only was the content of this paper about creating learning objects very informative, but the presentation itself is one of the best ones I've seen at a conference. The presenters walked the talk: they didn't merely read their Powerpoint (far more elaboration than that) but engaged us as the audience from the beginning with our questions about what they had. After explanations, they had us follow in their footsteps of identifying learning objects, brainstorming steps to accomplish meeting the objective of the learning object, then shared the tools they used along the way.

Par for course, a few teasers from my session notes:

• Faculty love the idea of information literacy but do not want to compromise their class time to offer it.
• What is a learning object? An online resource or set of resources that have been developed to achieve a specific learning outcome.
• Needs to be able to stand alone and remove any contextual references to other learning objects
• So much of what we do is related to interfaces so this is especially difficult to do.
• Always include a check for understanding via a quiz or learning exercise at the end of a learning object.
• Microlectures: 60 minute lectures, cut extra verbiage, in less than 2 minutes communicate cores. (published in Journal of Higher Learning and EduGeek blogged it well)

.. and much more including more specific how-to's with free online tools I hadn't heard of before such as Mindmeister and trailfire. I'm really looking forward to using these methods on some online course development roadblocks I've hit and am hopeful I'll move on from frustration/guilt that things aren't going forward to some clearer objectives and ways to meet them.

Freak or geek by osmosis? Reflections on librarians' distance education

While I am enjoying the MLA Web 2.0 101 class, I have a confession to make: my sociocultural anthropology side is learning far more by observing my colleagues in the course than my librarian side is with the curriculum. Sorry. Apparently I'm such a Lackluster Veteran (although I don't quite fit the demographics, what are you?) that it's a serious challenge for me to be 'ooh, ahh!' about Web 2.0.

When we arrived at the midpoint of our 8 week class, more than a few colleagues expressed dismay at falling behind due to a variety of reasons that mostly involve time and/or technology & requesting/proposing alternate arrangements. I am certainly sympathetic to the demands of the life/work/education balance yet somewhat puzzled. There appear to be common expectations that our coursework would tidily fit in with our regular routine at our jobs without any extra effort (i.e. homework) required.

I'm fascinated by this and want to understand why as a future online teacher. Were these expectations because the class is free? Online? Massive at over 600? Something in the way it was marketed to MLA members? Having the curriculum administered via a blog? How is this class any different than a college course where professors surely must hear the same things from students at midterms? Do we truly value CEs or see them as something we sit through, grab our certificates for our points then head out without much further reflection on the material?

As I've shared in my profile, I was a full time distance education library school student for 16 months while working at a non-library job 24 hours a week and being some semblance of a wife & mom to a preschooler. If there was a Most Non-Existant Friend award for 2006-2007 I probably would have won it, but I think most of my friends understood & have forgiven me :)

I say this not to boast or suggest taking that life/work/education balance to anyone (I'd discourage it unless you want to question your sanity on a regular basis), but to note that I'm still not certain if I am a freak or a geek by osmosis by being online since the early 1990s and comfortable with learning information in whatever form as rapidly as possible. I have to be careful as I teach in the future to realize that many (most?) of my colleagues are not set on automatic information-seeking overdrive, although I believe that many (most?) of our users are. Of course this depends on our particular library and services, but perhaps this is part of the current disconnect where users are not perceiving libraries as being of value.