Internship @Berea College: Day 26 (Entry 26)

Finding out what kinds of tools and different things can be used in library instruction to get the students attention and make the lesson interactive is a hard decision to make. Julia and I will be discussing the pros and cons of may different tools and such over the next weeks, especially once we know from the RPS data what needs to be hit in instruction (before, during, and after).

An article by Nedra Peterson, "It Came From Hollywood," discusses using film clips in library instruction to show the search process and start a discussion about the search process. She gives three short examples from The School of Rock, High Fidelity, and The Ring. The clips do not have to be accurate. For example, the newspapers from The Ring have moved online. The point is to start the discussion with material that is interesting and has a lot of information to glean from it. These clips are short, but have a lot of information to take from the search process. Using clips is a great use of prior knowledge and convenience (getting a lot of information across in a short time).

Lilie Lou's article, "Web2.0 integration into Information Literacy Instruction," states that web2.0 is being used to teach information evaluation, information organization, and copyright. She that librarians choose to use web2.0 technologies because it meets these three motivations:convenience, personal enthusiasm, and relevance. Many librarians are integrating web2.0 into their instruction. I do not know what form it will take at Berea, but we are also looking at integrating web2.0 into library instruction. I think the most important motivation should be relevance. The tool should resonate with the students. The students will remember the lesson better if they know what the tool is or that the tool reflect and connects to what is being taught. The tool has to have a context. Convenience and personal enthusiasm should be on the list as well. These will make sure the librarian is using their instruction time effectively, as well as knows the tool enough to make the connections for the students and make the instruction interesting.

Technology is a great thing and we all want to be great teachers. We want to be relevant and understand how our students learn. However, we also need to be flexible and try different strategies. Just focusing on technology will not fix the problems or teach the students the information literacy standards that they are not getting. Once Julia and I know what the students are not getting that we want them to get, we can take the context and use it to inform what types of tools can be used and what steps can be taken to improve the instruction. What we will keep in mind will be technology, but we will also be talking about the pros and cons of technology as well as other ways to get the information across. Technology should not be the "thing that is missing and we need to add is everywhere." It should be something that will make getting the information across fit the three motivations above: convenience (to save time in the instruction), personal enthusiasm (the need to understand, use, remember, and be comfortable with the tool), and relevance (the students know the tool, the tool teaches the information in a memorable way).