Monday, April 25, 2011

The Next Steps

Last Wednesday, April 20, I finished my first year of graduate school in Information at the University of Michigan.  The final assignment that I had to complete was a project working with the Chelsea District Library, helping them gather information so that they can start revolutionizing the way their library can work with youth in order to empower teens and the Chelsea community as a whole.  It was quite an interesting project that coincided quite a bit with my visit to Chicago's YouMedia Center, that I wrote about a few weeks ago, and one to which my prior knowledge contributed. 

I worked with the Chelsea District Library to find metrics of other successful youth organizations across the state, country and world.  Metrics included such information as what does the program look like/how is it organized?; board members, development, and responsibilities; sustainability; and partnerships.  I put this information into a report that also included recommendations for their own youth initiative, a framework for them to outline their specific goals, and policy information that they will need to consider as they move towards implementation.

It was a very exciting project and I felt very lucky to be a part of it.  It will be exciting to see the model that Chelsea creates as it changes the way it's community thinks about the possibilities of a public library.


Presentation - Chelsea District Library from alissa talley on Vimeo.



Sunday, April 17, 2011

Readings: Semadeni, Blowers and Reed, Fontichiaro,

Wow, final week for blogging for SI 643.  My goal is to continue doing so weekly, with a focus on my library work.  But for now, I'll discuss the readings for this last class...

Semadeni - When Teachers Drive their Learning
Semadeni's article about professional development (PD) in his district was quite encouraging.  The Fusion method of professional development for teachers based on coaching, mentoring and observing simply made sense and seems to be much more effective than what I know about other PD (where teachers mostly sit in a room all day and hear presentations).  The interactive ideas of involving teachers in their learning process in a real way seems effective and motivating.  I also like how time is set aside for this (and he makes great points about the amount of time that teachers don't have outside of school) and also how it provides teachers choice in how they develop professionally.  Finally, the idea of fostering leadership within schools is something I see is lacking - it is quite hard to "advance" professionally in a traditional school system while this method provides teachers with those opportunities.

At first I thought, why are we reading this?  We aren't going to be teachers.  But, we are, in our own ways - we will be in instructors who have a say in how things are run in our libraries and we can bring these ideas of professional development with us.  Why can't librarians do this for each other?  Maybe not in exactly the same way, but in a similar way - coaching observing mentoring.  I bet that anyone in a new position could use an approach to professional development that is highly engaging and where they can direct their own learning.

Blowers and Reed - The C's of our Sea Change: Plans for Staff Training, from Core Competencies to Learning 2.0
This was an interesting article - written in 2007 but still applicable today.  It seems that staff do need to have core competencies when it comes to technology but that very few libraries take the time to do training on things that are assumed people would know.  I like the Four Tier's model and the idea of play - a lot.  When people get to play, they don't think of things as work.  Further, this model pushes collaboration which provides automatic community building among staffs.  The more collaborative and "fun" something is, the more people will want to discover how new Web 2.0 tools can be useful to them and their work.  And, I'm betting that those who needed this instruction in 2007 most definitely need it in 2011.  With all of the new tools available online, it can be overwhelming to jump into one that people have been using for years now (ahem, Twitter). 

This article, in it's own way, applies to something on which I'll undertake soon.  For the Enriching Scholarship, U of M's week-long technology symposium, I'm co-instructing a Computer 101 class.  We'll talk about what a browser is, how to open multiple tabs without closing a browser, what right-clicking can do, how to download something from a website, how to put a usable link into a PowerPoint presentation... etc.  These all may seem like things people know how to do - but they don't and it hinders their efficiency and abilities to understand how to use computers and not fight them in their work.  I'll follow up with a blog post about this in the first week of May :)

Fontichario - Planning an Online Professional Development Module
What I liked most about this article was that it recognized the changing needs of staff and how, even in tough financial times, librarians can do outreach for instruction and purposes of getting others excited about new tools.  Again, the idea of "play" was emphasized and I cannot express enough how glad I was to see it.  Even children don't play enough anymore in schools - their experimental classes like music are being replaced with training for standardized tests.  So, the ideas of adults playing - and passing that passion onto students - is pretty exciting.   Further, this module forces instructors to pave the way for thinking about how Web tools can be used personally AND professionally and to consider the privacy and safety issues which are still being defined overall in the world of the web. 

This week's reading, like many of the others, provides me with resources to consult when thinking about technology instruction and training, and how to truly engage the learners in the process.  Paired with the Fusion model, I can envision a comprehensive PD program involving both social and technological learning.  Pretty exciting stuff :)

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Webinars!

Welp, I'm not even sure we're supposed to write this week, but it kind of feels wrong not to.  So, I'll do a brief reflection of the webinar experience up til this point.  I've tagged one-shot workshop here too because I realized that a webinar really is a type of one-shot workshop, perhaps even more challenging due to the lack of face-to-face time.  Anyway...

Can't believe that was our last "assignment!"  I have to put assignment in quotation marks because again, it's a really practical thing that I am so glad to have had the opportunity to do.  Because we worked in groups of 4 this time (instead of partners for the book club and workshop), the task was different and more complicated.  Further, being able to speak on a topic for 20-30 minutes instead of being able to have full on discussions and activities as one would in a workshop made doing a webinar definitely a new experience. 

Two things I'll say with authority: 
1) it was so nice to have time to work on this in class.  Even though my group didn't actually do a lot of our research there, we did create our work plan AND got to know one another better during that time.  It was really helpful to have a chance to talk with people with whom I would be interacting in a professional space.
2) I was so glad to have watched another webinar before my group did ours.  I added some slides about the webinar basics, take-aways, and saw some of the technical issues that could and did arise for other groups.  This helped me know solutions to some of these and also helped me see what to avoid.

Overall, I think our webinar went very well.  We got good feedback, with the trends showing that people thought we did a good job and were very prepared.  They also seemed to learn a lot about a topic about which they didn't originally know very much.   Our participants would have liked to see more images in our slides (I agree) and they also had trouble with the sound (apparently we sounded like chipmunks at times).  These would both be things I would fix in the future (adding more images to the slides and investigating sound issues prior to the webinar).  Our group worked very well together and it seems the webinar was a success.

It's also been great watching other webinars!  People have overall done a great job and I've learned a lot about interesting topics.  I saw the webinar on teens in the library on Friday morning and learned about a group I'd never thought to include in libraries- young professionals.  The Saturday morning webinar on visually impaired patrons was also very interesting.  Today's webinar on limited English speaking patrons was a great topic too!  People have done a swell job of being prepared and knowledgeable about their topics which has made the webinars go smoothly.  It seems that the only real negative has been the technical stuff, even getting into some of the webinars.  Unfortunately this is a large barrier because it is a big part of the webinar experience.  The content can be great but if people can't access it, hear the presenters, etc., they can't get the content.  Luckily, I've been able to see and hear all of the webinars I've attended which is great.  It's been wonderful to hear my peers be so professional and have knowledge on such interesting and important topics.  Yay to everyone!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

T...T...T....Twitter

So, Twitter.  I actually can't wait to read people's reactions to this "assignment" (rather, to this professional development opportunity).  The tweets thus far have been interesting, informative, and some of them, kind of funny. 

I joined Twitter circa 2009, started tweeting a bit about ed tech, and then stopped once my job didn't require me to read article after article after article on education.  Before class on Monday, I rejoined the Twitter world and started following some professional library people but also news and tech sites, really trying to get a feel for Twitter before this week's assignment (rather, this week's professional development opportunity).  I tried using TweetDeck and then found that HootSuite might be a better fit for making "streams" and fully utilizing Twitter.  I actually tweeted and retweeted my five #si643 hash tags all week (instead of once an hour on Sunday) so I've been engaging with this social media tool now for a couple of weeks.  I must say, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Its SO MUCH INFORMATION (talk about info overload, fellow si500-ers) so short it almost makes my head hurt.  I also got the HootSuite app for my android phone, so I'm fully plugged in.  It's been fun seeing what others have posted with the si643 hashtag and I must admit it is fun when someone starts following me and when I get a RT.  I'm even thinking (kinda sorta not really) about changing my name on twitter because it has nothing to do with libraries.  But, we'll wait and see cuz I'm getting a follower-base and don't want to lose that.

As for the part about starting to follow professional people based on the blogger's we followed followers (say that 10 times fast)... I couldn't find two of them on Twitter (Librarian is In, Information Wants to be free - though her blog is down right now and has been for the last 2 hours), one must approve my request (Not so Distant Future), and the other doesn't follow many professional folk (Gypsy Librarian).  I searched the two I couldn't find by name, by blog name, and searched their blogs if I could.  Not so Distant Future actually listed her witter name on her blog (what a concept! ;), and Gypsy Librarian took a minute to find because his twitter name is gyplib and doesn't come up when I searched Gypsy Librarian or his name.  So, needless to say, I had to step outside of the box to find my network of 25 (I can't see Not so Distant Future's followers yet because she hadn't approved me).  So, I defaulted to Bobbi Newman and Buffy J Hamilton - tweeters I know are big time in the Twitter world.  They both have HUNDREDS of followers and follow many tweeters, so I was able to build a solid network of professionals.  One thing that was slightly annoying was that I had to scroll through all of their followers and browse instead of searching for terms within the followers (like library).  I could have used ctrl+F but didn't, so I did a lot of scrolling.  It was interesting to build the network; I tried to find a variety of academic librarians, organizations like ACRL and ALA, and those interested in ed tech. 

I think I'll continue to use Twitter, to get my name out there, and get information, but I might have to spend sometime setting up my HootSuite so I'm not feeling so overwhelmed.  It makes me wonder though, do people always see everything on Twitter?  Do people enjoy getting this much info all the time?  There is always something to miss on Twitter, so how can I keep up with it all?  Another question is, on Hoot Suite, is there a way to remove tweeters from the Home Feed once I put them into a list?  That would be more helpful...

Again, interested to read other's Twitter reactions and maybe get some feedback on my experiences.  I must say though, ultimately, this assignment is great.  If you couldn't tell already, I'm really viewing this as a professional development opportunity - a chance to build a professional network AND get credit for it.  Pretty awesome...

Reflection of March 28, 2011 Class

Class last week was kind of a whirlwind - lots of topics, engagement, and interesting discussion.

First, what a treat to have Paul Courant in class.  It was too bad I was totally and utterly swamped the previous weekend through last Wednesday and sat in the back of the class for the first time all semester.  I'm just going to go on the record and say that I think that Dr. Courant is the person to look to for issues in the future of libraries.  I think his economic background, connections across UM and the world, and his realistic and optimistic views of what's happening today and what needs to happen are pretty spot on.  Not that I agree with absolutely everything, but most of it - and most of all, I respect his progressiveness.  It makes me want to be him one day!  (Look for me, circa 2035 Dean of Libraries? :)   I truly appreciated that he took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to engage with us.  However, what I took away most from his talk was his suggestion to be optimistic and don't list the reasons something is hard to accomplish.  I've actually been struggling with this idea this semester.  I've got some big, wild ideas for libraries (school, public, and academic, and communities) but every time I mention them to someone inside the institution, I'm brushed off.  People will say "well we tried that, people weren't interested," or "too many logistics involved..." stuff to that effect.  I will take his advice and keep it with me as I move around the library world and not let those things stop me!  Anything can be done if it's done right with the right people.  So, there.  :)

After Dr. Courant's informative talk (which I did enjoy - learned a lot about the Google Settlement and DPLA, and more), we discussed embedded librarianship.  This was a pretty interesting discussion, many ideas thrown around and it became clear, once again, that we all have different views of what this means.  Maybe its a good thing!  I think embedded librarianship gives people a chance to define their roles in libraries - something that is continually happening more and more and is needed for us to "stay relevant" (boy I'm getting sick of that terminology :)  Our discussion showed that the embedded librarian term can mean so many things and really opens lots of possibilities.  What's to say people won't be come entrepreneurs in this field?  Create this field?  Work from home and become consultants to people who've never thought that librarians could be useful to them (we even discussed an embedded librarian in the mall...).  Pretty exciting stuff... and lots of opportunity here.

Finally, we talked webinars and found our groups.  I'm pretty excited for this... we've got a diverse group and chose to focus on institutional repositories.  Should be fun and challenging.  As I wrote last week, I've not been a huge fan of webinars in the past, so I'm excited to make a good one.  :)

In short, a busy week (filled with sorrow for Prof Frost, overloaded grad students, and interesting topics) that is leading up to the end of my first year of grad school.  Already can't believe it and am excited to move into continuing to use the skills I've learned in this class in my professional practice.