Transformative Learning & Technology Literacies Round 2

In my Library Journal column “Office Hours,” I explored the concept of learning everywhere. Here’s a snip:

This semester, I’m teaching a new class based on Mezirow’s concepts of transformative learning, the work of Char Booth in the arena of user instruction, and the Learning 2.0 model…. We’re working with consultant Polly-Alida Farrington, who teamed up three groups of my students with two libraries and a school library consortium in New York State. Over the course of our 15-week semester, each group is adapting, designing, and running a “mini-23 Things” for its assigned organization.

It’s been a fun, chaotic, and messy experience. In our weekly group chats online, the mantra has become “Learn by doing….” Real-world messiness offers a level of experience unmatched by classroom activities. This high-tech/high-touch experience sets the students on course for getting jobs and taking on future projects.

We’re winding up the second iteration of #transtech – and I am knocked out be the work five students groups did for five project site libraries! This was truly a class on a global scale – the groups worked with libraries in the US, Australia and Japan:

Public Libraries

Boroondara Public Library, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

CityLibraries Townsville, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Four County Library System, Binghamton, NY

Academic

Rice-Aron Library, Marlboro College, Vermont

School

American School in Japan

Over the course of the semester the students adapted Learning 2.0 content and then ran a 5-6 week course for staff at each institution. Here’s the cool thing. We’ve archived all of the modules the students created for their programs here with the modules from last semester: http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/learning20/

We want them to be available for any future Learning 2.0 programs or just for individual library staff to explore. Please share far and wide.

I also want to take a bit of space here to thank some important folks:

Everyone at the project sites above who worked with my students and participated in the programs.
Special thanks to Polly-Alida Farrington, who volunteered her time to work with us via online chat and checking in our class site.
A huge shout out and thank you to Char Booth. We again used her incredible book Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators as our text. Char also gave her time answering questions in a group chat.
And, of course, a big thank you to the brave students who took this class.

The group was also excited to continue learning together and asked me to provide a clearinghouse for the exported blogs from our course site. Check out their blogs here: http://usablelibrary.org/2012/12/05/hyperlib-transtech-students-share-your-blog-urls-here I look forward to teaching the class next semester and will be looking around for libraries to partner with for the mini Learning 2.0s. 🙂