JISC Podcast - Interview with Philip Pothen

On Friday 28^th, November last year Christine and I attended  the Scottish Library and Information Council Further Education  conference, at the invitation of Catherine Kearney, Assistant Director of SLIC to whom, Many Thanks. At the end of the day we were interviewed about our work by Philip Pothen, at that time, the JISC Press and PR manager. JISC has now posted the interview on its website. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/02/podcast71johncrawfordchristineirving.aspx

There are a few Ahs and Ums but the main points are there.  We spoke to Philip about the role of information literacy in the education sector, the workplace, in libraries and how government agencies can be encouraged to promote it. We also emphasised that information literacy is the democratic right of every learner and citizen. The noise in the background is the sound of librarians consuming the free food and wine thoughtfully provided by JISC.

Librarians should get out there ... and start knocking on doors

Brilliant article about school librarians in TESS includes our very own Ian McCracken, Govan High who is a project partner and on our project advisory group. Article also includes quotes / case studies from other activists in the field: Duncan Wright, convener of the School Library Association (Scotland) and librarian at Stewart Melville's College; Wendy Pieroni, learning resource co-ordinator at Blairgowrie High in Perth and Kinross; Mary Sherriffs, Pitlochry High's librarian; and Ayr Academy librarian Heather Stewart.

Douglas Blane reports:
School libraries and the people who run them can play a central role in A Curriculum for Excellence, inspiring new initiatives and pulling various departments together.

I would certainly endorse that and have been saying so for quite some time. Advocacy at its best.

Read the full artilce 'Librarians should get out there ... and start knocking on doors'

Social Networking

Thanks to Carol Stewart who notified me about the BBC Learning Officer's blog in which Cathy Fraser talks about students and social networking. Here is her final comment from the blog posting.

"Students are certainly taking advantage of social networking on their own. Might as well tap into that passion and use it to improve the delivery of education. The potential value of online learning communities and global networking is too great to fathom. David Warlick, who was a keynote speaker I heard recently, said that educators are trying to prepare youth for a future that we cannot describe. I was struck by the absolute truth of that statement. Nothing is certain or impossible for that matter. December 4, I attended a technology in education conference myself and it was an eye-opening experience. I was heartened to learn that students have not lost their inquiring minds. They've simply taken them underground or online. What they're not asking in school, they are asking people in social networking situations and creating amazing things in the process. There is no doubt that the landscape of education is changing and that these changes are powerful and positive. However, I wonder about the ramifications of too much interacting online. Are young people losing their ability to conduct personal relationships face-to-face? Second Life is a place where people can develop alter egos which take the form of avatars. This "place" is being touted as a way for students who have difficulty relating to their peers to transcend these problems and succeed. At what are they succeeding? It's not real, or is it? Are they learning important life and coping skills by creating a graphic of themselves and existing in cyberspace? There has to be a balance. Humans will adapt to new technologies as soon as they're available in the mainstream, but at what cost?"
Cathy Fraser
Fri Dec 19 04:39:45 2008

Cathy raises some interesting questions and I know that Phil Bradley would agree that we should be taking advantage of social networking. Whilst I like to blog and email, for me nothing beats a face to face chat but then it's not always possible to meet face to face and I know of some people that are not comfortable talking face to face but are very expressive through other mediums. The old expression horses for courses springs to mind.

Meeting with Skills Development Scotland

We have had a couple of meetings before with the staff at Skills Development Scotland (SDS) which was formed earlier this year and incorporates the old Careers Scotland. The purpose of our meeting which took place on Wednesday 17^th December was to plan an information literacy symposium which will take place on 20th March 2009.  Christine, Ian McCracken and I met Douglas Govan and his colleague, Sarah Hall, from the Careers Division to plan the event.

Details are still to be worked out but we want to involve a combination of SDS staff and externals drawn from the work and skills community.  We want to bring representatives of these organisations together to locate information literacy within the wider skills agenda and to identify key issues and common themes. We are planning a half day meeting which will begin with a couple of introductory presentations followed by facilitated workshops where the participants can discuss what information literacy means to them and how it can be used in career choice, progression and work situations. This will be followed by a feedback session at the end of which concrete action points will be decided upon which will hopefully lead to further action.  We will be meeting with SDS staff again in the New Year to finalise details. We are particularly pleased that SDS has accepted the value of information literacy and recognised its importance in career planning and development and as an employability skill.

This brings to an end (for the moment anyway) a lengthy series of meetings in which we have successfully raised the profile of information literacy among both employers’ and employee organisations and organisations involved in skills development.  In the New Year we will begin to implement the findings of these meetings.

This may be the last post of the year so I hope you all have a peaceful and restful break.  Meanwhile I enclose a photograph from last Christmas of Jemima helping to open the  Christmas presents

Information Literacy and Web 2.0

One of the books on my reading pile was Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 by Peter Godwin and Jo Parker (2008). I found the book written by different authors for different chapters very useful to update my knowledge about Web 2.0 tools and to see how they are being used in different sectors / situations and countries. Although most of the writers are from HE and are writing about HE I think the information could be useful to other sectors too. I was particularly interested in the chapter by Sheila Webber on Educating Web 2.0 LIS students for information literacy which also has some relevance for educating teachers. Among the many things she said here are the ones that I thought were most relevant the project and what we are doing.

I agree with her that there is no need for a new definition for IL in a Web 2.0 world. “.. key issue is how you understand the concept of ‘information’.” “Commentators on IL make the assumption that ‘information’ in IL definitions refers to textual information, but that is not necessarily the case. The notes on IL skills which accompany the CILIP definition make it clear that ‘information may be available on paper (books, reference works, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc), digitally (on CD-ROMS, over the internet or the world wide web, on DVDs, on your own computer or network etc), through other media such as broadcast or film or from a colleague or friend’ (Armstrong et al., 2005). p40.

“Web 2.0 has made publication and information combination easier. This means that ethical and legal use of information come to the foreground, as well as issues of data protection and privacy. It also means that there are exciting possibilities fro encouraging people to develop their understanding of IL through creating a variety of information products.”
“… working with others in an information-literate way. Developing more effective habits in sharing information, and in managing information for use within a group, are skills which are essential in many workplaces. Freely available Web 2.0 tools for sharing and aggregating information can be used to develop such skills.” p42-43

“When it comes to librarians' skills in teaching IL, the European working party identified four main areas for learning:
1 Curriculum design and planning (one of the elements listed here is understanding appropriate use of technology in designing learning environments).
2 Understanding learners and learning theory (which includes understanding e-learning models and the needs of e-learners).
3 Understanding basic concepts, theories and practice of teaching.
4 Understanding the context for teaching and learning (e.g. issues concerned with the teaching and learner-support role of the librarian).

Learning to teach using Web 2.0 tools fits within these four areas: there is increasing consensus that 'good strategies for e-learning' are part of 'good strategies for learning', so that teaching with technology should not be seen as a strange and separate activity. It is always valuable to learn more about specific tools, to put theory into practice. However, technology changes so fast that it is more crucial to learn some of the underlying concepts. Thus you can develop an approach to teaching that enables you to evaluate new tools and see how they can been used effectively in learning and teaching.

One problem for LIS educators is fitting everything that needs to be taught into the curriculum.” p45

Other chapterrs which were of interest was John Kirriemuir - Teaching information literacy through digital games which is an interesting idea in it's early stages and Judy O’Connell - School Library 2.0: new skills, new knowledge, new future.

I had hoped for more in the chapter on Public Libraries but then it is still early days and the idea of using blogs for learners in Public Libraries to record their thoughts, experiences etc came from reading this chapter and the chapter on Engage or enrage: the blog as an assessment tool – Georgina Payne.

As always the Open University seems to be ahead of the game but then I always find the work Jo Webb and the OU team do is amazing and an inspiration to us all. It's not surprising that she is one of the co editors on this book. The chapters by Peter Godwin are good at setting the scene and the conclusions which the following are exerts from.

“In the world of information scarcity, publishers mediated the content which was published and added to the world’s knowledge. At first the web simply continued this process. Although at that time individual expression was possible on the web it was technical and difficult. Web 2.0 changed all this and in the age of the amateur, we are beginning to see the development of new forms of authority. “ p176

“The importance of the information-literate person being able to interpret the context of what is found, based on healthy scepticism of everything they see on the web of the future is crucial. In other words, we help students to construct meaning from what they find (Jastram, 2006). What has changed is that they will be doing this more often in a collabotative, active way because of the use of Web 2.0 tools. IL, the most important of the patchwork of capabilities which will help them make sense of their world, has undoubtly been greatly enriched by the availability of these new participatory tools.” p178.

Jastram, I. (2006) Information Literacy 2.0, Pegasus Librarian (blog), http://pegasuslibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/10/information-literacy-20.html

See the Information Literacy meets Library 2.00 blog for updates.