Week 2 Reflections

I found this week's readings to be much more applicable to teaching in a library setting because the focus was more on one-time workshops and instruction. Although it was interesting to learn about good teaching techniques from week 1, it seemed a little difficult to apply to one-time workshops where you know little about the students. Even though in class we discussed possible ways to apply the information to libraries, I still thought that many of them would not work. Tiered courses and taking a skills inventory at the beginning of the class rely too much on the students' knowledge (and honesty) about their level. Also, as someone who was frequently paired with someone of a lower level, I would feel terribly guilty using the technique of pairing more skilled and less skilled people together. I would worry that the more skilled person was not getting anything out of it if they had to spend their time helping someone else.

I appreciated the honesty in the Introduction of Creating the One-Shot Library Workshop regarding the feasibility of going through every stage of instructional systems design (ISD). Many times I learn the time-consuming step-by-step process that is the "best" way to analyze or implement a program and wonder just how practical  it is to do that in real life (501 comes to mind...). Here, Veldof and other librarians she quotes stress that the full process may not always be beneficial or necessary. That being said, I could see the benefits in the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) stages and how they could save time in the long run, especially after reading the Yelinek et. al. article that put the steps into practice. It seemed like their online tutorial was much more successful than the one that had been in place because they took the time to analyze the users and interview the instructors. Also, after they put the tutorial in place, they spent time surveying and testing the users to determine what changes needed to be made.  Without this article, the ADDIE stages would have been hard to picture.

Nicole Johnston's article was the most difficult for me to follow. She studied an online learning module for developing information literacy skills, and mainly focused on the evaluation process. Based on a survey of the module's users, as well as on a focus group, she found that the online learning module was beneficial and a success. I thought the questions she asked almost forced that conclusion. To me, ease of navigation has little to do with whether a format is actually beneficial. Similarly, the students thought they had an improved understanding of information literacy, but "improved" could mean anything from full understanding to just a slight improvement. It is possible that using other methods could have made a larger improvement. I may be slightly biased because I just did an online module for another class and although I learned from it, I think I would have benefitted more from a face-to-face lesson.

In SI647 I learned about the growing importance of virtual reference in libraries, especially for better serving children and teens who are more accustomed to using technology. However, it was also stressed that librarians have not received the proper training for providing good virtual reference. An important part of reference is to explain to patrons how to search for sources and find them on their own. Simply giving them a source is not nearly as beneficial. Virtual reference makes it even more difficult to provide instruction because librarians cannot demonstrate a search or show what they are doing. The many free screencast tools discussed in the Griffis article seemed perfect for this. It allows librarians to explain things visually, even in a virtual setting and that is so important.  I look forward to learning how to use some of these tools.