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Learn more, do nothing

August 29, 2010 By

Learning in Action (cc 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisemandarine/2411122894/)

The New York Times reported this week that researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found that rats don’t learn from experience until they take a break from the experience.  The break gives them time to process and create persistent memories.  Furthermore, the researchers believe that their findings almost certainly apply to the way humans learn. Uh oh…

Why uh oh?  Because many humans are increasingly connected to our ipads, blackberrys, smartphones, and laptops, keeping our brains engaged continually throughout the day.  And while all of that ubiquitous connectivity offers us the possibility of reaching heretofore unreachable levels of efficiency and productivity it seems that it might come at a price:  The Times reports that “when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas. ”

Having recently started a new job, I can attest to the fact that there’s nothing like a silent drive or a brief nap to process and organize a great deal of new information.  My 45 minute commute home might be the most productive part of my day, as that’s where all of the sense-making is happening.  Strange as it may seem, sleeping has also been incredibly productive as I awake many mornings with a number of ideas synthesized from the previous day’s conversations, observations, and readings.

So as we come to the end of another summer and start getting geared up for the busier days of Fall let’s take a moment to remember:  There might be no better way to learn than by stopping, unplugging, and doing absolutely nothing.

Peter Bromberg

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Alternative Assessment with VoiceThread

August 26, 2010 By

Assessment continues to weigh heavily on my mind here at the beginning of the 2010-11 academic year.  While I have worked with students using VoiceThread as an alternative learning artifact, I had not considered using it as form of assessment or digital portfolio until friend and colleague Diane Cordell pointed me to this fantastic post, “VoiceThread as a Digital Portfolio”, in which Chrissy Hellyer, a teacher who was working at an international school in Bangkok at the time of the posting, used VoiceThread as part of student led conferences (you can also read a cross-post of how this teacher implemented VoiceThread here).  In these posts, Hellyer thoughtfully outlines the steps she took before, during, and after the creation of the digital portfolios, including reflections on what she would do differently.

One of my goals this year in my work with our teachers and students, particularly our new cohort of Media 21 students (now called Learning 21), is to help students take a more active role in articulating what they are learning.  After reading this post, I think VoiceThread is a perfect medium for this endeavor; not only could students showcase learning artifacts they feel reflect mastery of course performance standards, but they could also use this digital portfolio to share other key learnings, insights, reflections, and learning tools they feel are an essential part of their story as a learner.

As I start to lay the groundwork to pilot this form of assessment in my collaboration with teachers and students, an additional blog post by Silvia Tolisano, a Technology Integration Facilitator and 21st Century Learning Specialist, is also informing my planning for helping our students create digital learning portfolios.

Are you using VoiceThread or other tools a means of student or learner led assessment in your library environment either with staff or with students?  If so, what advice would you recommend for those embarking on this endeavor, and which web-based tools have you found most effective for creating digital learning portfolios?  I look forward to your sharing your experiences and examples, and I will also be blogging on our own student created portfolios later in the semester!

Buffy Hamilton

Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: ,

Time to Say Good-Bye

August 25, 2010 By

It’s been a good ride, but it seems I need to hop off of this bus to put my efforts into other areas.  Due to my workload and priorities right now, I will no longer be able to remain as a contributing author to this blog.  I feel very honored to have been asked to be a part of this wonderful effort, and I look forward to following the blog as a part of my personal learning experience.  I truly admire my fellow authors and can’t wait to see what they have to say next!

Stephanie Zimmerman

Stephanie Zimmerman is the Training Coordinator for the Library System of Lancaster County (Pennsylvania), a federated system with 14 member libraries, three branches and a bookmobile, which serves 490,562 residents. She designs and implements technology and development training and consulting to the member libraries. This includes training on Innovative’s Millennium Integrated Library System, Microsoft Office Applications, emerging technologies (i.e. social media) and various other areas. Her goal is to remove the fear of technology and help others to realize the amazing possibilities it provides. Teaching others to do things for themselves and see their excitement when they break through their barriers is her greatest reward. Stephanie has been a software trainer for 15 years. Her past employment involved training on federal and county government applications. She also worked for a private industry marketing company where she traveled across the country showing manufacturers and retailers in the consumer packaged goods industry how to use geodemographic targeting software. Always wanting to help others, Stephanie graduated from Millersville University (in Pennsylvania) cum laude with a BA in Social Work. She was also a student in the Computer Information Systems program at Harrisburg Area Community College. She is a member of ASTD (American Society of Training and Development). She is also a regular contributor to the T is for Training podcast which focuses on training in libraries. She was a trainer for WebJunction’s Spanish Language Outreach project and has done training for Commonwealth Libraries. She is grateful to have landed in the world of libraries. When she began her current job in January of 2004, there were no other library trainers in her immediate area. She turned to the social web to begin networking with other library trainers across the world and immediately realized her passion for social networking and social media. All of her continuing education has been done through these networks and she can’t help but push others to discover the immense opportunities available through online collaboration. Stephanie lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her family which includes husband, Bill (a self-employed stay-at-home-dad) and two children (ages 2 and 4 months). When she’s not being Mommy, or working, you’ll most likely find her singing. Stephanie can be reached at szimmerman[at]lancasterlibraries.org.

Filed Under: LearnRT News Tagged With: ,

Put on Your Hard Hats!

August 24, 2010 By

Do you have an activity that works well for a customer service class?  Have you created a humorous video that learners in your classes always enjoy?  Maybe you’ve done a detailed study of webinar platforms and would like to share that information with others who could use it.  With the Learning Round Table’s new ALA Learning Wiki , you now have a platform to share your knowledge.

Over the course of the past several months, LearnRT has been constructing a dual-purpose wiki: a destination to serve as a comprehensive clearinghouse of tools and resources for those interested in learning and training in libraries, as well as providing an open forum for free-flowing discussion about training and learning.  We’re halfway to the finish line, but we could use the help of those who follow our blog.  The backbone of the ALA Learning Wiki is complete – that is, we have a structure in place to host tools and resources for learning and training, but we have very little content available thus far.  We invite you to help us build the wiki by adding tools and resources to the site that you believe can be useful to your fellow colleagues.  For our heartier readers, we also hope to discover a few wiki champions – people who’ll commit to posting at least five items per month through the end of December 2010.

The wiki is divided into seven broad sections:

Managing Training – Best Practices: Big picture issues of planning and managing a training program, and could include examples of curriculum plans, approaches to evaluating effectiveness, and policies and procedures for training programs.

Training Events – Best Practices: Tips and tricks for putting together effective classes and other training events.  This area also will include a wealth of resources on All Staff Days developed as a special project of LearnRT’s Emerging Leaders.

Training Materials and Resources: Materials related to specific class topics, such as outlines, lesson plans, activities, video tutorials, and slideshows.

E-Learning: Links to free and affordable self-paced courses and live webinars.

Trainers’ Tools: Recommended resources, reviews, advice, and comparisons of everything from webinar platforms to flipcharts.

Connections: A directory of colleagues who are involved in staff development, consultants, and professional organizations (e.g., the American Society of Training and Development [ASTD]).

Learn More: Reviews of books and articles, recommended websites, professional journals, and certificate and degree programs all relating to the training function.

It takes a village to raise a wiki, so we’ve made submitting content relatively simple.  Just sign up to become a member of the site and then follow the easy contribution guidelines to post.  With your help, the Learning Round Tables hopes to reach a critical mass of resources by January 1, 2011 so that we can officially launch the wiki to the rest of library land at ALA Midwinter in San Diego.  We feel confident that we can reach this goal, but we need the help of our readers, even if you only have one or two things to add.

Put on your hard hats, hop over to the wiki, and start helping us build!  Feel free to contact your wiki administrators Jay Turner (jturner@gwinnettpl.org) or Richard Mott (rmott@coj.net) if you have any questions, need assistance, or have suggestions for improving the site.

Jay Turner

Jay Turner, Training Manager at Gwinnett County Public Library in Georgia, is responsible for all aspects of learning and development for a staff of 300+ employees. He considers himself a lifelong student, and delights in sharing his passion for learning with anyone willing to listen (much to their chagrin!) He is a library lifer, who began working in libraries as a teen and has worn almost every conceivable public services hat since. Jay’s diversity of experience helps him develop and deliver solutions that are creative, practical, and effective. He is a self-proclaimed information and tech junkie, who gets his fix by playing in his “digital sandbox” with new tools and neat ideas to make learning more accessible, more flexible, and more fun across any medium. He can be reached at jayturner[at]comcast.net.

Filed Under: LearnRT News Tagged With: , ,

Five Tips for Getting the Word Out

August 17, 2010 By

It seems like just yesterday that school and academic librarians were wrapping up and reflecting on the academic year. Today, schools and colleges are gearing up for the fall semester. With the start of a new year comes a need to get out there and meet the new teachers and faculty members to share the services you can offer, as well as teach a whole new batch of students.

And as tempting as it is to try and get your entire message out there, it’s sometimes easy to give so much information that the audience has a hard time remembering what exactly it was that you were saying. So here are a few tips for maximizing your message:

1. Know your audiencehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/larskflem/113453239

    Knowing your audience means you’re more likely to tell them something that they’ll want to know. Are you talking to freshmen in high school who have never done a research paper before? Perhaps you want to introduce them to a library that’s there to support research needs. Are you teaching college freshmen who have never seen an academic library before? New faculty who completed graduate school at another institution? In each of these cases you’ll want to clarify the roles of your specific library. Likewise, if you’re doing a refresher for returning students or faculty, it makes more sense to focus on new services they might not be aware of and existing services that haven’t traditionally been well marketed.

    2. Give them something to dohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/40645538@N00/3387387075

    The academic year kicks off with lots of listening for many people. There are orientation sessions, committee meetings, classes, and countless hours of the day are spent listening to others talk. When you know your audience has been on the receiving end of a lot of informational sessions, it’s nice to give them something to do. If you have access to clickers, even that small level of activity engages the audience and can even be used as a platform for discussion. If you don’t have clickers,  you can replicate the interaction with colored sheets of paper or having people stand up or sit down based on their answers. I’ve had great luck using worksheets to guide student note taking. Even the act of reading the worksheet to know what we’ll cover, waiting for the pieces of information to fill in the blanks, and participating in small group activities to complete the worksheet has meant library instruction sessions having a higher level of engagement.

    3. Give them somethinghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/29231115@N00/556409822

    Even if you pay attention to the characteristics and information needs of your audience, and even if you use good active learning techniques in your presentation, your information can still be lost. When flooded with a lot of new concepts, information, and facts it’s hard to keep everything straight. Giving out your business card or a handout means your audience will have a way to get back in touch with you. Later, when they’re going through all the things they’ve accumulated in these early days of the academic year, seeing the handout or card will trigger their memory to remind them that someone from the library came to tell them something. And sometimes that trigger is enough to get them back through the door (or into the email inbox).

    4. Be virtualhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/83542829@N00/4225307113

    Something good to put on that handout (or on your business card… think a sticker with extra information on the back of it) is a URL pointing to more information. If you have a lot for people to learn but you doubt they’ll remember it after they leave the room, giving them a place to find it later can be a good way to make sure they’ll have the information at a point of need. Creating subject guides about library services, in addition to subjects, can be a quick and easy way to put information out there where people can access it later. Make a quick web-based video introducing yourself, and you’ll help them put a face to a name. (And show them how friendly you are in the process!)

    5. What’s your number one goal for them to remember?http://www.flickr.com/photos/81096161@N00/2733969100

    Any my personal number-one-technique is to have one major point that I want the audience to remember. Most of the time it’s that they can always contact me for further information on the topic, whether that’s how to do women’s studies research, implement a new technology in their teaching, or think about the future of publishing. One of the first things I say in a session is that I’ll be going over a lot, so it’s okay if they forget. The one thing to focus on remembering is how to get in touch with me. When I introduce topics and can see that some people are struggling to keep it all straight in their heads, I say it again. Typically by the end of the session I’ve said it at least a dozen times. Sometimes I hear from people sometimes I don’t, but by the end of a session when I get them chanting “get in touch with you” when I ask “what should you do if you forget what I’m showing you?” I know they are remembering the one piece of information I’ve identified as most useful, and it’ll probably stick around in their heads for a while.

    Do you have any tips for getting the word out?

    Image Credits:

    Beautyproof by larskflem

    Free School Child’s Hands Choosing Colored Pencils by Pink Sherbet Photography

    A Wedding Present by lechampiondumonde.com

    Geocaching by William Hook

    Ghetomundial Youngfolk by d_runk

    Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. She also blogs at Lauren’s Library Blogs and spends a fair amount of time on Twitter, too.

Lauren Pressley

Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. In this role she works with librarians and faculty to improve the design of their teaching and to share information about integrating appropriate educational technology. She also works with emerging technologies. Lauren’s passion is helping people learn about the changing information landscape and think about what that means for them as consumers and producers of information. Recently Lauren published So You Want To Be a Librarian and Wikis for Libraries. She was an ALA Emerging Leader in 2008 and was a recognized as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2009. She frequently writes and presents on education, instruction, technology, and the future of libraries. Lauren also blogs at ALA Learning, tweets as @laurenpressley, and can be reached at lauren@laurenpressley.com.

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Filed Under: Presentation Tips Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Tension between “Learn It Fast” and “Learn It Well”

August 4, 2010 By

As trainers, of either our customers or other staff, we often deal with dueling priorities.  Twice in the last month I’ve been confronted, as a trainer, with the tension between “Learn It Fast” and “Learn It Well.”  It’s a very stressful tension, and one that is not easily resolved by those of us who train, those who manage staff, and those who coordinate staff development and learning.

The “Learn It Fast” faction wants staff training and learning to not take very much time away from duties that they deem to be more important.  This faction wants learning to be instantaneous, efficient, and speedy.  They want learners to spend as little time as possible on staff training, period.  This faction tends to prefer webinars, online learning, and self-paced learning…which in and of itself is not a problem.  But when it’s the only learning that’s allowed, no matter what the topic, then we have a problem.  This faction tells instructors to cut a two hour class to 20 minutes, content be damned.  This faction tells training agencies that their staff can only spend 1 hour per week on a self-paced 4-week online learning class…and they still want to get the continuing education credits for it so they can tell their Commission or Board that they’re contributing to staff development.

The “Learn It Well” faction values the stick-to-it-ivness of training above all else.  They want learning to count, to stick.  This group allows for diverse training methods and media, as well as diverse training approaches.  They want to ensure that if they’re going to give staff time to go to training, that the time actually means something.  I’ve heard folks on this side of the line say “I’d rather give my staff 5 hours to go to a class and know that they’ll remember the content, than have them attend a 1/2 hour webinar that they can put on their performance review but which won’t help them in their jobs.”  This faction tends to like training evaluations, assessments before and after training series–all to make sure that the training is worthwhile and has the highest impact potential.  Those continuing education credits are like gold trophies to this group. Occasionally, this group values training almost too much, so much so that they over-complicate the process of training and creating training materials…thereby setting the barrier to entry so high that sometimes no training happens at all as a result.  Perhaps only face-to-face training is allowed, or online learning doesn’t “count” toward an employee’s development requirements.  Making things too long, too hard, can be problematic too.

There is a happy middle road–a common sense approach to training, the flexible “just get it done” approach.  Make what is useful to you, share it with others in a variety of ways depending on topic, don’t waste the learner’s time, and make sure you are always following best practices for learning and training.  That’s it.

To me, libraries (and anyone, really) should never, ever sacrifice quality and impact for ridiculous expediency.  Likewise, libraries shouldn’t over-complicate training to the point of never allowing the quick-and-dirty learning too.  As trainers, our primary duty is to our learners.  Just remember that, stick up for good training practices to those in charge, and you’ll at least know you’ve done your job.  And if you find yourself in the center of a battlefield of the “Learn It Fast” and “learn It Well” armies, hold up your white flag and scream for compromise.

Sarah Houghton-Jan

Filed Under: Learning Styles, LearnRT News, The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,