Are you my mentor? An exploration of the intersection of Twitter & mentoring relationships. In the real world mentors are usually organic relationships without specific titles, goals, or responsibilities. Mentors are simply experienced people you get to know and look to for advice, informally and organically. They’re people you go to coffee with, people you ask for guidance, and people you call when there’s a big decision to make. (Barr, 2013, para. 14) Ideas about mentors and mentoring have changed a lot over the years, particularly with the advent of social media. As an avid Twitter user, I was curious […]
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Today, the first draft of a new Framework for Information Literacy has been released for comment. ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force has been charged with revising the info lit standards. (For the record, I am a member of this committee but I do not speak on behalf of the committee here.) The task force’s work address the recommendations made by a previous review group . The task force is working on a product that I believe will be qualitatively different than the existing standards. The “Old” Standards The current (old) ACRL Information Literacy Standards were […]
Recently, journalist Clive Thompson was on the Circulating Ideas podcast with Steve Thomas. They discussed Thompon’s book Smarter Than You Think. I wanted to share this because I have read the book and found it to be very appropriate and timely for libraries. (I also wanted to share it because Steve does a great job!) The book’s main point is a shot across the bow of the Google-is-making-us-dumber argument (Nicholas Carr). Thompson builds a compelling argument that technology (including Google) is, in fact, making us smarter. Many new technologies are a form of extended cognition that enhance and ideas. Thompson is […]
In May, I posted about our simulated zombie outbreak (see: Humans vs Zombies as an Active Learning Event by TTW Contributor Troy Swanson). We adapted the popular Humans vs Zombies game into an experiential-learning event. I am happy to report that we survived our own zombie apocalypse. I wanted to share our write up in American Libraries, One Book, Many Zombies . I am also wanted to share this video we created that summarizes our zombie game. World War M: Humans vs Zombies (Summary Video) Troy A. Swanson is Department Chair and Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community […]
The concept of “evaluating” information runs throughout the existing ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education. They highlight the different ways we teach students about information at different points in the research process. Here are the primary points: Standard one: The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed. Performance indicator 2: The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources for information. Outcome C: Identifies the value and differences of potential resources in a variety of formats (e.g., multimedia, database, web site, data set, audio=visual, book). Outcome D: Identifies the purpose and audience of […]
Context Book Assignment: The Shallows by Nicholas Carr For my context book assignment I admit that I picked my book solely based on its title. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr was my first choice as I found the title very thought provoking and I immediately asked myself “What is the internet really doing to my brain? Has it really done anything at all? How do I know if it has? I knew it was the book for me when it got me thinking before evening reading the first page. After reading The Shallows, I was […]
After completing Dr. Stephens SJSU online course in Fall of 2012, I was inspired to develop a personal blog on library innovations and social media in libraries. In many of our course assignments and projects, we explored and played around with Web 2.0 tools, and using templates developed by Professor Stephens, we trained on how to implement these tools in our libraries and personal lives. We learned how to talk about them with others, from our patrons to our administrators. Blogging about my two loves – social media and libraries – would become a worthwhile cause. The Social Media Plan […]
I have long been interested in the idea of why we believe what we believe. I have been interested in this relating to information literacy instruction. How do we evaluate sources and how do we make decisions about what counts as truth? Recently, I have been doing some reading in psychology and neuroanatomy focusing on the complex ways that the brain utilizes outside inputs to make decisions. This research highlights some disconnects and points where our practice, as instructional librarians, may be falling short with these new developments in the literature. Over the history of the 20th century the emotions […]
The study “Judgment of Information Quality and Cognitive Authority in the Web“ by Soo Young Rieh is one of those studies that I keep coming back to throughout my career. (I have mentioned Rieh’s study in previous TTW posts Things We Do in Private, and I Don’t Get Discovery Platforms) I like this study, because Rieh gracefully hits upon a key difference between expert and novice searchers, which is the ability to make predictive judgments. Expert searchers have a feeling for the domain of knowledge in which they’re searching. They have an expectation for a quality and scope of information […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about attending a seminar in San Diego put on by the Special Libraries Association. The theme was connecting the dots of creativity and innovation and since we’re on the topic of maker spaces this week, I found my mind repeatedly flashing back to one speaker in particular. Her name was Kathlin L. Ray and she’s the Dean at the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center at the University of Nevada and she represented a really cool space. Mentioned by the American Libraries Magazine in an article earlier in the year to be one of the top 3 makerspace models […]