library+instruction+technology » Suggested Reading http://www.whitis.us/blog Thoughts on instruction, technology, and management from the point-of-view of a small college library director. Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:00:03 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 LOEX Plenary: Creative Collaboration http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/06/09/loex-plenary-creative-collaboration/ http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/06/09/loex-plenary-creative-collaboration/#comments Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:50:23 +0000 Andrew Whitis http://www.whitis.us/blog/?p=181 Laurel Ofstein from DePaul University's Center for Creativity and Innovation was the plenary speaker for LOEX 2008 in Oak Brook, IL. She described the nine dimensions of a creative environment:

  • Idea support – are new ideas encouraged or judged?
  • Trust and openness – are staff free to share ideas?
  • Discussion – are staff comfortable enough to discuss the idea freely?
  • Challenge and involvement – do staff feel that they own the organization and have a stake in success?
  • Idea time – do staff have time to work on new ideas as part of normal job?
  • Humor and play – are staff comfortable enough to be humorous at work?
  • Freedom – are staff macro or micro managed?
  • Risk taking – do staff feel they can fail and not be punished?
  • Degree of conflict – are staff in competition with one another or other groups within organization?

 Laurel suggested a few tactics to focus creativity:

  • Work backwards from the end solution.
  • Ask the question, "Wouldn't it be nice if…" to help define outcomes.
  • Ask the question, "In what ways might we…" to help define options.
  • Challenge an assumption by writing down its opposite, identify advantages that could come from the challenges of the opposite assumption, study the challenged assumptions and identify new opportunities.

She recommended the book, Ideas are free: how the idea revolution is liberating people and transforming organizations for further reading.

]]> http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/06/09/loex-plenary-creative-collaboration/feed/ 0 Information behavior of the researcher of the future http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/01/21/information-behavior-of-the-researcher-of-the-future/ http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/01/21/information-behavior-of-the-researcher-of-the-future/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:18:47 +0000 Andrew Whitis http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/01/21/information-behavior-of-the-researcher-of-the-future/ Every librarian and faculty member should read the CIBER briefing paper Information behaviour of the researcher of the future (2 MB PDF). CIBER conducted this research for the British Library and JISC . The report focuses on information seeking behavior of students born after 1993 (the Google Generation). The paper also ties in research from OCLC's Perceptions studies. You may also want to listen to presentation given and Q&A's when the paper was released on January 16, 2008.

Found via Stephen's Lighthouse. 

]]> http://www.whitis.us/blog/2008/01/21/information-behavior-of-the-researcher-of-the-future/feed/ 0 The buried book: the loss and rediscovery of the great Epic of Gilgamesh http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/06/04/the-buried-book-the-loss-and-rediscovery-of-the-great-epic-of-gilgamesh/ http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/06/04/the-buried-book-the-loss-and-rediscovery-of-the-great-epic-of-gilgamesh/#comments Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:18:24 +0000 Andrew Whitis http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/06/04/the-buried-book-the-loss-and-rediscovery-of-the-great-epic-of-gilgamesh/ I worked with a world mythology class back in April. I didn't run this group through the normal modified PBL activity. The class was in a tech enhanced classroom, so we did live searching using topics that the students were planning on researching. One student was interested in researching different versions of the great flood story. We found articles, but I think I would have had an easier time with the topic if I had already read The buried book : the loss and rediscovery of the great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch.

I finished The buried book during my first week of vacation. I highly recommend it if you are interested in the story of Gilgamesh, the history of Mesopotamia, or Victorian era archeology. Damrosch recommended the books below for further study.

Books about Gilgamesh

Akkadian literature

Mesopotamian history

Victorian Era Archaeologist Writings

Victorian views on the Middle East

]]> http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/06/04/the-buried-book-the-loss-and-rediscovery-of-the-great-epic-of-gilgamesh/feed/ 0 12 Hours at Work…Fun! http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/02/28/12-hours-at-workfun/ http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/02/28/12-hours-at-workfun/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:05:27 +0000 Andrew Whitis http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/02/28/12-hours-at-workfun/ It's been an interesting week and it's only Wednesday. I find myself sitting at the Reference Desk twelve hours after arriving to work. Our Director is in Columbus for OPAL (not the one that gets all of the biblioblogosphere hype) and OhioLINK meetings. One coworker is out sick with something that sounds like bronchitis and another coworker is recovering from major surgery.  So, that leaves just two of us and Brian normally works late on Thursdays…so here I am writing this blog post.

I have been able to use this time to catch up on some recent journal articles. Steven Bell has a good article, "Stop IAKT syndrome with student live demos," in the latest issue of Reference Services Review. [OhioLINK link | everyone else link] Steven does an excellent job of laying out the benefits and challenges to turning over the keyboard to a student during instruction.

I don't think we are running into many students that are suffering from "I already know it syndrome" in our classes. If they feel that way, they are doing a good job of hiding their boredom.

Kate and I have been using students to demonstrate searches during instruction this academic year. We don't have student computers (yet) in our instruction room. We reserve computers in the lab on the first floor and have the students work together for about 15 to 20 minutes at the start of class. Then we go back upstairs and ask for volunteers to show us what they searched, what they found, and why they chose certain articles. It has worked out well for introductory speech, composition, and some disciplinary entry level classes as well. We have received positive faculty feedback. We have be doing 3-2-1 assessment and the student comments are positive too. 

So if you're still being the "sage on the stage", you might want to give this a try. 

]]> http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/02/28/12-hours-at-workfun/feed/ 0 2007 Horizon Report http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/01/22/2007-horizon-report/ http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/01/22/2007-horizon-report/#comments Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:01:28 +0000 Andrew Whitis http://www.whitis.us/blog/2007/01/22/2007-horizon-report/ The latest edition of the Horizon Report is now available for your browsing/reading pleasure. This is a joint publication from The New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. The technologies forecasted along with their time to adoption include:

  • user created content (1 year or less),
  • social networking (1 year or less),
  • mobile phones (2 to 3 years),
  • virtual worlds (2 to 3 years),
  • new scholarship and emerging forms of publication (4 to 5 years), and
  • massively multiplayer educational gaming (4 to 5 years)

The executive summary identifies several trends and challenges impacting higher education. "Information literacy increasingly should not be considered a given." [page 4] I agree with this statement, but would like to know who really considers information literacy a given in the first place? We try our best to teach students how to use our resources, but we know we don't reach everyone and even the ones we do reach are not always receptive to learning because it's all free on the web anyway.

The authors continue, "Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the information literacy skills of new students are not improving as the post-1993 Internet boomlet enters college." [page 4] Yep. The continual challenge we face is helping our students straddle the digital and analog worlds during information research. We are also challenged to help faculty understand that their students do not approach research the same way that they did 10-20 years ago when they were in college.

I enjoy reading/browsing this report. However, I am always concerned about how I can really apply any of these technologies locally.

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