I did a presentation today for a speech class that is part of our honors program. They are doing deep research into a range of topics. The faculty member asked me to do a session for them about bias and approaching new topics. It was a fun session, so I thought I’d share my slides. Naturally, this session ended with a conversation about the Illuminati, which, I guess, comes with the territory (not a part of the slides below). Self-Protection: Your Brain, Experience, & Bigfoot ——- Troy A. Swanson is Department Chair and Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley […]
Monthly Archives: October 2014
10 posts
Thanks to all at #2014VLA! I had a wonderful time chatting with Virginia librarians and delivering yesterday’s keynote. The slides are here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/239835/StephensVLA2014.pdf
New column! http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/opinion/michael-stephens/always-doesnt-live-here-anymore-office-hours/ That said, I must comment on some threads of conversation I had at the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Las Vegas. In 2006, I wrote a post at Tame the Web (TTW) entitled “Five Phrases I Hope I Never Hear in Libraries Again.” It got a lot of traction back then, during the heyday of LIS blogging, and I used a slide of the phrases for many years in presentations. One of the phrases was: We’ve always done it this way. Back then I wrote, “I think it’s time to red flag any utterance of that […]
Here’s my June column: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/06/opinion/michael-stephens/in-the-moment-office-hours/ More than once, someone in the audience has expressed concern that children and young people are always looking at their mobile device, texting, gaming, or whatever. Recently the comment was this: “I want to take away the iPad and send them outside. They are not in the moment.” My reply was a reminiscence of my mother taking away my Hardy Boys books and sending me out to play one summer day. I was furious! The seminar room vibrated with comments: “It’s the same thing.” “It’s not the same thing!”
Oops – forgot to post this: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/07/opinion/michael-stephens/flipping-the-lis-classroom-office-hours/ I’m most excited about the requirement for student reflection blogging in this course. Discussion forums, landlocked inside the learning management system, are giving way to a WordPress-enabled blog community that all of our core students will work with for thoughts on the course content. I am a longtime advocate of the power of blogging as a means to foster critical reflection in a safe thinking-out-loud space and promote engagement with other students and faculty via commenting. The Sloan Consortium, devoted to effective online education, recently heralded a similar model: the University of Nevada […]
Here’s last month’s column – all about getting too hung up on citation formatting: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/09/opinion/michael-stephens/citation-fixation-office-hours/ But wait—shouldn’t we be teaching soon-to-be librarians how to cite properly so they in turn can deliver the gospel to their young charges in the university? And grading them down for every missed period or italicized article title? I’d argue that instead of citation fixation we promote reflection and consideration of the ideas presented in our courses. To synthesize is a sometimes overused verb in higher education, but it works in this instance. Students encountering new ideas and voices of any discipline are better served by someone […]
Together, we’d like to thank everyone who expressed interest in a second iteration of the #hyperlibMOOC. We believe our MOOC filled an interesting gap in the MOOC phenomenon by providing community-centered, large-scale learning specifically for library and information science professionals. Our reflections, both scholarly and personal, show that this experience was formative for ourselves as scholars and as a teachers. But more importantly, we recognize that the #hyperlibMOOC provided a new, engaging way for our students to continue their professional development and lifelong learning. At this time, we will be unable to offer another iteration of the #hyperlibMOOC. This is […]
Link: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/webcasts/participatory-continuous-connected-top-trends-from-library-2-014/ Participatory, hyperlinked library services; DIY and maker movements; emerging technology in academic and research libraries; Google Glass—the Library 2.014 conference covered a broad range of topics and these were among the most notable. Join us for this free LJ webcast, where we’ll cover the highlights of each one and offer key takeaways. Michael Stephens will discuss participatory, hyperlinked library services in a connected world of “continuous computing.” Susan Hildreth will reflect on how the DIY and maker movements—particularly as they relate to STEM education (with badges to certify skill development)—place libraries as central learning hubs for their communities. Samantha Adams Becker […]
Thanks to all the fine folks who attended my plenary talk today at the West Virginia Library Association conference. We’re up on Snowshoe Mountain in the “Quiet Zone.” The slides are here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/239835/StephensWVLA.pdf I’m staying over the weekend and will be spending the day at WVU Libraries on Monday. 🙂
Since I have shared some of our planning on my library’s Graphic Novel Symposium in TTW posts (see Behind the Scenes of the Graphic Novel Symposium & Grahpic Novel Symposium–#comicculture), I want to share our final video that summarizes our event. You can watch our faculty lectures from the Graphic Novel Symposium at: Moraine Valley Graphic Novel Symposium, http://www.morainevalley.edu/comicculture/. Graphic Novel Symposium at Moraine Valley —– Troy A. Swanson is Department Chair and Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College. He is the co-editor of the upcoming book from ACRL, Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How […]