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Refurbed Card Catalog becomes Awesome eReader Storage

March 17, 2011 By

How many of us have emply card catalogs gathering dust in the back halls of our our libraries? Linn McDonald, Library Media Specialist at the Bloomington Jr. High School in Illinois, came up with a creative way to take one of these treasured relics into the digital age. “I have received many many positive comments from fellow librarians as well as faculty and students in our school.” she says, “We found that both our Nooks and our Kindles fit in the drawers with their covers on.”

Linn adds that “the cabinet is perfect for organizing our eReaders as we have them in groups of six, and each column in the cabinet has six drawers. Most ebooks can be purchased once and placed on up to six Nooks, so each column represent one group. Each group is registered under a separate email address. That way, it’s easier for us to keep track of what books are on each group. I have labelled each column/group with a separate name. Our 4 groups are Eliot, Maya, Voltaire, and Beatrix, with each Nook in the group labelled as Eliot1, Eliot2, and so forth.”

She also mentions that they are balancing the use of thier Nook collection by checking out three groups to reading teachers and one group to individual students who return a form signed by a parent or guardian. The reading teachers are using the Nooks with groups of six students. “Some struggling readers, some very high-level readers – so we can reach a wider range of students in our school. Some groups are creating video or podcast book trailers after finishing their book. I’m sure other ideas will follow as we use these with our students.”

Thanks for sharing with us, Linn, and please keep us up to date on those new ideas!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: e-readers, Feature, Free Stuff, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Training for Change: a 6-Step Program

May 5, 2010 By

As I get older, I have come to realize that embracing change is like drinking from a fountain of youth. Change keeps the brain healthy. The brain thrives on learning new things and forging new neuronal pathways. An active brain supports overall health and quality of life.

Riders on the STP

Riders heading out from Seattle, courtesy of joshua_putnam on Flickr

There are many types of change that we welcome in to our lives—travel, children, new languages, athletic challenges. But even when change is voluntary, there are times when it makes me feel old and tired, like I’ve been asked to adapt too often for too long. That’s because the mental muscles get overworked, according to Switch, the new book from the Heath brothers of Made to Stick fame. The brain muscles for creative thinking, focus, and persistence, which are key ingredients for effecting change, can get exhausted, just as the body’s muscles fatigue from strenuous exercise. Preparation for significant change in a person’s or an organization’s life is critical. It is akin to preparing for an athletic event. If I want to participate in the annual bicycle ride from Seattle to Vancouver (RSVP), I would set myself up for failure if I were to embark on the ride without any prior training. Planning for any major change is no different. Create a training program for change and enhance your probability of success.

Here is a 6-step training program to prepare for change.
(This plan is based on much of the Heath brother’s book. It uses some of their terminology, without going into their elephant/rider metaphor. You’ll have to read the book.)

1. Know where you’re going
For the RSVP, the destination and direction are straightforward. I can look up the route, the distance, even the location and elevation gain of the hills (obstacles). There is little ambiguity about what I’m aiming for and what success entails. This kind of specificity feeds the cognitive part of the brain, the part that grasps logical sequence and strategic analysis.

It is too often the case that organizational changes are vague. “Everyone in our library will be web 2.0 savvy by next year.” “Our library will become a learning organization.” What does that mean to each individual involved? What is desirable about the change and how will we know when we’re there? What is the distance and where are the hills to be climbed, i.e., when can we anticipate the tough spots and potential setbacks? It’s not possible to predetermine all the variables in a big project but the more specific and clear you can be, the more you engage the cognitive processes of each of your team members.

2. Get the feeling
It is crucial to motivate the emotional side of the brain, that ancient lizard brain that can put up amazing resistance to the rational, cognitive side. If it’s not on board, the change is not going to happen. For the RSVP ride, it’s not hard to feel enthusiasm, to be caught up in the excitement of my team members and to imagine the satisfaction of crossing the finish line.

For any organizational change, find a way to appeal to the emotions of your team. Create a vision of the library thriving in its ability to reach new users by telling stories of how social network tools dramatically extend that reach. Frame a learning effort as a fitness program with near-term targets and rewards for small steps toward the goal. Emotion is infectious—both positive and negative. Get ahead of any negative tendancies by identifying early enthusiasts and working with them to infect the rest of the team with their excitement.

3. Cultivate identity
Identity is a powerful aspect of emotional engagement. It promotes a “growth mindset” in which the entire brain is geared toward success. If I start calling myself a power cyclist and start thinking of myself as someone who can go the distance on a bike, I increase the likelihood of actually becoming that person. The Heath brothers cite some convincing examples: a Brazilian tin can manufacturer calling all of its employees “inventors” and thereby inducing thousands of suggestions for improvements to their production; a class of disadvantaged students calling themselves “scholars” and leaping ahead in scholastic achievement. Notice how these identities eliminate hierarchy or elitism. Everybody is an inventor or scholar or power cyclist.

I would love to find a strong identity for people who work in libraries. I would start by ditching that strained differentiation between librarians and library staff. What if we all started calling ourselves “catalyzers”? Everyone who works in a library has the potential to catalyze information access, research, community connections, demonstration of impact, etc. Everyone is invited to envision better ways for the library to thrive.

4. Clear the path
It is a major point in Switch that so often we tend to blame character flaws of individuals and ignore the impact of the situations in which they are involved. The Heath brothers repeat throughout the book that “what looks like a person problem is often a situation problem.” Let’s say that I’ve been on a few practice rides building up to greater distances. While I’m improving my stamina, I’m still frustrated that I seem to always lag behind the rest of my team. I start to think that I’m just too old and out of shape. When three of the other women on the team tell me how much their performance improved by switching to road bikes with high pressure, low friction tires and light frames, I get a clue about how my situation on a heavy, fat-tired bike impedes my progress. Getting a faster bike clears my path for success.

In your large organizational change effort, think about how you can reduce the friction and smooth the way. Avoid the tendency to label individuals as flawed: “that person is a luddite and just won’t adopt new technology.” Take an objective look at the situation surrounding the resisters. Are there structural changes that will make it easier for people to adapt? If team members are resisting the switch to a new technology, look for unnecessary hurdles that can be removed. If staff are not finding time to achieve their learning goals, look for ways to build in time by letting them start an hour before opening or reserving an hour/week in a quiet office. Pair up learning buddies to learn together and coach each other.

5. Chunk the change
elevation of the RSVP bike rideYou may be clear about the direction and still see the end point as daunting and unattainable. For the RSVP ride, the elevation gain in those hills lights a bit of fear in my gut.  It would be ridiculous to try to ride the 183 hilly miles on the first practice runs. It’s just common sense to start out with easier near-term goals, building up from 25-miles to 50- and 100-mile rides. A cycling performance recommendation is to increase your mileage no more than 10-12% per week.

Think about the achievable increments in your organizational change. What are the small wins that will help people feel like they are advancing? Knowing that you are 20% toward the overall goal is a sense of accomplishment that increases motivation to go the rest of the 80%. If your overall goal is to get staff up to speed on 23 web tools, set weekly targets with a way to check off the achievement—it worked like magic for the 23 Things programs. When you construct a learning plan for staff, make sure there are some easy successes early on in the plan to build up that “money in the bank” motivation.

6. Find the bright spots
It may happen that I’m following my training plan but find that I’m struggling and getting discouraged. This is a good time to look around and see what’s working for others, or in Switch terminology, “find the bright spots.” If one of my teammates tells me that she makes sure to ride at least 5 times a week, that may be just the tip I need to improve my path.

Organizational change on a large scale will inevitably hit snags. Some of these will have been identified in step 1 so that the team is mentally prepared to encounter and overcome obstacles. It’s those unanticipated obstacles that can cause a plan to founder. When it does, look for examples of people or teams who seem to have surmounted the difficulty and figure out what they are doing that is enabling them and promote the solution to everyone. If one person is keeping on top of blog and Twitter news while the rest of the team claims to have no time, it may be that the exceptional person has her computer set to logon to those accounts so it’s the first thing she sees in the morning. If something is working for one person, it just might work for the many.

Good luck with your training and may the change be with you!

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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

9 Reflections on Co-presenting

April 27, 2010 By

I recently had the pleasure of co-presenting a full day preconference with my wife Suzanne. (The workshop, entitled, “What’s Your Style? 9 Paths to Personal and Professional Development” was based on the Enneagram personality System)  I’ve co-presented with others many times over the past 15 years and strongly believe that, for a number of reasons, co-presenting can be very beneficial and raise the overall quality of the workshop and the experience of the participants.

For starters, if you are co-developing a workshop as well as co-presenting it (which is common), the quality and organization of the material greatly benefits from a joint perspective. With two brains reviewing the content, errors are reduced and points are clarified.  Likewise, the logical sequencing of the content will also be improved.  We all know (probably from some amount of bitter experience) that what is crystal clear and logical to us as presenters, is not always so clear to those we present to.  The benefits of co-developing a workshop are magnified when presenters have different styles, and if you have a choice I encourage you to find someone most unlike yourself to present with.  Be warned that presenting with someone very different can create friction.  But you can choose to reframe that friction by reminding yourself often that the differences which cause friction are the same differences which will improve the quality of your presentation.

Based on my very recent experience in co-preparing and co-presenting with someone who had a VERY different style than me, here are nine reflections on co-preparing and co-presenting a full day workshop.

On Preparing

  1. Play to your strengths: Inevitably, you and your co-presenter will have different strengths. If you don’t know each other well and/or haven’t presented together before, spend some time discussing what each of you does best, and then make an initial plan to divide the duties and tasks based on your strengths.

  2. Set benchmarks.  Assess progress. Reset benchmarks. Working with someone else will generally take more time than working alone.  Also, it’s not uncommon for two people to have very different senses about when certain things need to be done.  For example, I can be cool as a cucumber even when I haven’t finished writing a talk a day before it’s going to be given.  My wife is stressed when she doesn’t have a talk written and practiced two weeks prior.  Setting benchmarks for progress and frequently checking in on progress is a useful way to keep everyone’s stress level down, while moving forward on deliverables at an even pace.

  3. Work separately and together. Schedule Business Meetings. I found great value in coming together with my co-presenter to set goals and deliverables, moving apart to work separately, and then coming back together to review, refine, and integrate each other’s work.  Setting regular business meetings, on a calendar, with an agenda of what you would like to accomplish, goes a long way towards creating a high quality, well-sequenced presentation in a way that is manageable, and not overwhelming.

  4. Have a Full Dress Rehearsal. No matter how good your lesson plan is, you WILL find problems and areas for improvement during a full dress rehearsal.  Better to find them during rehearsal then during the actual presentation.  ‘Nuff said.

  5. Mind your version control and coordinate backups. My wife and I used a shared dropbox folder to share all materials.  She could see and revise what I was working on and vice-versa.  On the off-chance that dropbox disappeared overnight, I also had our home computer backing up to an external hard-drive.   When all documents and powerpoints were finalized, I put one complete set of everything on three laptops (two were mine, one was my wife’s) and also put a complete set on two flash drives, one for me and one for her.  When we made the inevitable last minute changes, I made sure to update in dropbox and refresh all backup copies accordingly.  Being the least detail-oriented person in the world, I’m also the one to overcompensate the most when necessary!

On Presenting

  1. Set Ground rules with each other. It is possible that you and your co-presenter have different ideas about what is appropriate behavior when one is presenting and the other isn’t.  One of the biggest areas of possible conflict involves whether or not it is ok to interject, correct, or otherwise interrupt your partner while they are presenting.  One of the great values of co-presenting is that your partner is well-positioned to read the facial expressions and body language of participants and is likely to be more cued in to times when participants are confused, and in need of clarification.  For that reason, I encourage everyone that co-presents to open themselves to the interjections of their presenting partners, and allow for a free back-and-forth regardless of who has the floor.  Additionally it is good for each presenter to….

  2. Have complete copies and understanding of each other’s script and materials. Having complete copies of each other’s scripts (and/or outlines, and/or key points) can greatly increase the quality of the presentation for two reasons:  1) It ensures that no highly relevant points are forgotten or glossed over (if they are, your co-presenter can either alert you or interject.) and 2) It frees each presenter up from having to memorize or read excessively directly from notes.  It frees us up to make more eye contact, speak more naturally and conversationally, and connect more deeply with the audience, because we know we have a safety net of sorts; our co-presenter won’t let anything important get missed.

  3. Leave specific timing off of the participant agenda and modify timing/content on the fly. I suppose this could go under “Preparing” too…  I highly recommend having a few versions of how the actual presentation can play out–a few different agendas that you share with your co-presenter but not with participants.  Additionally, it is good to have additional modules (activities) and content that you don’t necessarily plan to use, but could slot in depending on timing (if you’re running short) or the interest of the participants.  When my wife and I recently co-presented, we noted on our private agenda where certain portions could be expanded or moved, and where other modules that we had “in the can” could be inserted.  Throughout the day we adjusted our presentation.  The participant agenda was worded broadly, and only noted beginning, ending, and lunch times, which allowed us to keep to their agenda while making significant adjustments to ours along the way.

  4. Restrain yourselves from talking too much.  My growth as a presenter over the past few years has been to present less, and facilitate more.  When I present, especially when I present on a topic that I’m passionate and knowledgeable about, I want to cram 20 hours of material into 8 hours of workshop.   A few years ago Dr. Marie Radford shared some invaluable feedback with me after I guest lectured for her.  In a nutshell, she said, “Less is more.”  She advised me to cut, cut, cut the material, and spend more time talking with the students and less time talking at them.  She suggested I give them the concepts and then invite them to reflect and discuss, and in that way the learning would be grounded in their own experience.   So I pass along Marie’s helpful advice, as it becomes doubly tempting with two presenters to, well, present!  Be extra mindful to structure your presentation in such a way as to present the key concepts, and then allow the participants to speak, question, reflect, challenge, and discuss — even if that means you don’t cover everything.  (That’s what handouts are for!  And websites.)

I firmly believe that a co-presented workshop — especially a full-day workshop — has the potential to be better organized, more complete and nuanced, and more engaging than a workshop presented solo.  Yes, it’s likely going to be more work for you (if you’re counting the hours and minutes of prep time), but it is also an opportunity for you to learn from someone with a different style, a different knowledge base, and a different viewpoint.  Ultimately, preparing and presenting a workshop with another person can be an engaging and rewarding experience for all involved, and I encourage everyone to give it a try!

Peter Bromberg

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

A Model for Librarian Training: The Media 21 Program

March 26, 2010 By

I am most fortunate to work in a school district (Cherokee County) that has invested time and resources into technology integration training not only for teachers, but also for school librarians.  Our school district recognized early on that our hardware and network infrastructure could not be truly utilized to the fullest extent without instructional support to help district educators effectively integrate technology for improving student learning.  Our district’s innovative Teach 21 and Media 21 programs focus on strategies for engaging students and creating a learning-centered, participatory environment for students.  Ultimately, the overarching program goal is to increase teacher and school librarians’ Level of Technology Integration (LOTI), which is assessed with a pretest and then a final assessment with the rubric for each participant’s culminating Capstone Project.

The Media 21 program, launched in the Fall of 2007, provides school librarians in my district an opportunity not only to hone their teaching craft and expand their toolkit of learning strategies to use in the library, but school librarians can also obtain strategic equipment or hardware that may be needed to support learning initiatives that they have collaboratively planned with classroom teachers.  Jackie Hopkins, Assistant Superintendent of Accountability, Technology and Strategic Planning, explains the significance and value of the Media 21 program:

The MediA21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the school media specialist and the classroom teacher, integrating information literacy skills and competencies into daily classroom lessons and projects.

Esther Brenneman, Instructional Technology Facilitator for my Cherokee County School District, cites five positive benefits of the Media 21 program:

  • The Media 21 program provides collaborative opportunities for the media specialist and classroom teacher.
  • The program provides extensive professional development training in both pedagogy and skills development with latest web 2.0 tools/technologies.
  • The program can help establish the school library media specialist as a leader in her/his school (new Empowering Learners role) as they provide professional training, collaborative efforts and become recognized as a curricular expert.
  • The program is a great opportunity for personal and professional growth..what a great role model for others in the school building!
  • The program establishes information literacy competencies for the entire school, promoting digital citizenship for all (both students and teachers as well as administration).

School librarians apply to the program in the spring of the year they wish to begin enrollment.  The program, which is designed to be completed in a two-year period, begins with a course “The Engaged Learner” that is a mandatory prerequisite for all participants.  In this course, participants explore contemporary learning theories and educational research related to technology and new media literacies; the focus is on how teachers and librarians can apply that research and those learning/teaching paradigms to their practice.

Once you  have completed this introductory course, you then have a mix of required and optional classes you can take over the course of the program.  Courses may include but are not limited to offerings such as SmartBoard/Promethean Board 101 and 102, Podcasting 101, Blogging, Digital Storytelling (Beginning and Advanced), Information Literacy, Scratch, Google 101, Wiki 101, and Web 2.0.  Most participants complete their coursework within the first 12 -18 months and follow the suggested timeline so that they have a solid foundation for the culminating Capstone Project.   Participants also complete a virtual course in online safety so that they are better prepared to teach digital citizenship and have a better awareness of how students can use the web safely.  Another feature of the program is ongoing blog entries participants compose to actively reflect and engage in metacognition on their practice and activities/concepts they are exploring in their coursework.  Throughout the program, participants build a learning portfolio housed on the district’s SharePoint site that includes the blog reflections, student learning artifacts, and librarian created technology integration projects. Technology integration project guidelines are available by viewing this document; in addition, librarians may submit ideas for additional tech integration projects for approval.

The Capstone Project, which is completed during the final year of the program, provides school librarians an opportunity to design and implement a learning initiative that focuses on one or more aspects of information literacy.  Project proposals are submitted in the spring and once approved, may be implemented anytime during the subsequent academic year.  The proposal consists of a mini-research paper on the technologies and/or learning theories associated with the project, a proposal that outlines what information literacy skills will be integrated into the project and how the librarian’s Level of Technology Integration (LOTI) will be improved through the project, and identification of standards addressed in the project, which may include ISTE’s NETS-S for Students, ISTE’s NETS-S for Teachers, the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners, and Georgia Performance Standards.  Each participant presents his/her project at the district’s annual Capstone Expo held annually in May.  I will be presenting my Capstone this spring and am excited that my collaborating teacher, Susan Lester, and some of our Media 21 students will be helping me present our project.

For me, the Media 21 program and my Capstone Project I have implemented since August 2009 have provided a vehicle to develop and pilot a rich collaborative project that has focused on information literacy issues including digital citizenship, social scholarship, cloud computing, evaluation and assessment of the authority of information sources as students have planted the seeds of a personal learning network/environment.  This collaborative project I have co-piloted with classroom teacher Susan Lester has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my librarian career and one that I believe is having a meaningful impact on learning for the students who are in our two classes in this pilot project.  Media 21 has opened a door to the kind of collaboration of which I once only dreamed, and it is a program model I believe that could support other school districts’ efforts to enhance 21st century school librarianship.

You can read, see, and hear more about my Media 21 Capstone project by visiting either my personal Media 21 Capstone Project page (this version is hosted independently of my internal district portfolio) or visit this page to hear more about it, view some terrific supporting videos, and watch an archived version of a webinar I recently participated in as part of the CRSTE Cyberconference in Feburary 2010.

What do you think about this model of professional development for school librarians?  Do you see possibilities for this model to be used in other settings, such as public or academic libraries?  Please share your thoughts!

Buffy Hamilton

Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

10 Smart Phone Apps to Help You Be a Better Trainer

February 16, 2010 By

Many of us carry smart phones with us wherever we go.  Whether you have an iPhone, an Android phone, or a Blackberry, you likely have access to thousands of applications that can make your life easier.  As a new Droid owner, I found a number of apps that I thought could help me as a trainer in my face-to-face classes.

Below is a list of apps that can help you while you are training or teaching, making you seem super-smart, tech-savvy, and creative.  I mention specific apps for the Droid and iPhone, but similar applications exist for most smart phones.  The specific names are just my recommendations — but every phone, every app list, and every person is different.   See what you can find in each category that works for you!  All are free, unless otherwise marked.  So load up your phone, and get ready to impress your next class!

  1. Music player – I find that students always love it when I have music playing before the class starts, as well as during the breaks.  I recommend installing the Pandora app, which is available for most phones.  It’s amazingly easy to use, and lets you play music on the phone while you are doing other things. You can choose one of the other many music players, like iMusic, some of which come with quick downloads of legal or semi-legal MP3 tracks as well.  Incidentally, there are many small portable speakers to plug into your phone if the internal speaker won’t do the trick.  This would be particularly helpful when your classroom has no wi-fi, so there’s no way to access streaming music.  I usually do a search for something calming, like “Meditation” and have Pandora create a nice soothing music station around that term. 
  2. Stopwatch or Timer – It’s easy to lose track of time when training, and so many of us don’t wear watches any more…instead relying on our phones. Many apps offer fairly deluxe stopwatches or multi-phase timers that can help you pace yourself and make sure you don’t run out of time.  Some timers even have really nice self-selected alarms, including flashing lights and/or non-obnoxious noises.  I like just plain Timer. 
  3. Chimes – It’s a good idea to have some kind of nice sound to indicate to students that you’re ready to re-start the class after a break or group exercise.  Nice, soft sounds can get people’s attentions just as much as the loud teacher-yell: “We’re ready to start back up now!”  I’m now a fan of White Noise Lite, which offers a number of nice nature-y sounds like windchimes, rain, etc., along with simple visuals for each.  Just start the sound, hold up your phone, and watch the learners reassemble.
  4. Tether – Tech is unreliable, and I can remember a half dozen classes where I expected an internet connection and there wasn’t any.  Now with unlimited data plans on phones and tethering applications, you can connect your laptop to your phone, and use the phone’s connection to access the web.  Granted, it’s slower than a typical wired or wireless connection, but if you need to use live demos in your class it’s a lifesaver.  That being said, you should always bring back analog (read: print) back-ups for your class materials.  As to what app to use, there are a lot out there.  I’m using Android-Wifi-Tether.
  5. Presenter Pro – Presenter Pro costs money ($1.99), but is worth every penny.  This program is for presenters, teachers, and trainers.  The program provides presentation tips, including video and audio examples of great presentation ideas.  The program can review your specific presentations and give tips geared toward your needs. Nice!  It’s like having a training coach in your pocket.
  6. Quote Dictionary – Use one of the many quote-filled apps meant to give you something to think about, or to give you something smart to say to your class!  I recommend 501 Inspirational Quotes, as most of these are applicable in a classroom environment.  Provide a quote at the start of class, throw out a few more throughout to sound really smart, and your students will classify you as a bookish fountain of knowledge…just what you wanted!
  7. Voice Recorder – My favorite voice recorder is simply named Voice Recorder.  You can use it to record quick notes to yourself about things to bring up later in class, or even tasks you need to do once class is over.  You can also use it to record the whole class – as long as your SD card has enough capacity, you can record your class and then save it as an audio file that you can review later to review your class’s successes or places you could have done better.
  8. Yoga Program – Sitting at a desk or computer all day is really tiring on the shoulders, back, and arms.  Use a free yoga program like Yoga Trainer to walk you through a few simple exercises to get your body back in shape.  This is a great thing to do with the whole class during stretch breaks.  Every time I’ve done this, students have thanked me profusely and even said they learned a new exercise for their desks!
  9. Presentation Remote App – Apps like i-Clickr ($9.99) or Logitech Touch Mouse (free) turns your phone into a presentation remote, letting you click through your presentation slides using your phone screen.  Again, one less gadget for you to carry with you when you travel to train.
  10. Documents Program – Make sure you have a documents program on your phone that will read Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files (or their equivalents).  The app that many iPhone users seem to like the best, Documents to Go, costs $11.99, the most expensive app I’ve seen so far.  But the ability to sync up your documents from computer to phone is super nice, and for on-the-go presenters, it’s a huge benefit.  I’m using QuickOffice, which is free and works just fine for reading documents that I’ve manually transferred to the phone. Never again worry about transferring files over to your flash drive—just plug your phone into the presentation computer and you’re good to go.  One less device to carry!

So many other programs are out there that help too – time and expense trackers to keep track of what you need to bill to your clients, mobile blogging apps so you can post to the class blog/website on the fly, Twitter clients to help you create live classroom conversations, cameras and Flickr uploading tools so you can share class photos, mobile Skype to help you bring in a guest speaker for free through your phone, restaurant finding apps to help your students find good nearby dining for your lunch break, and even spy-cams (Sec-u-ret spy cam) to use the camera to auto-photograph you while you’re teaching.  Look around with an eye for your life as a trainer and you’re bound to find many more ways to make yourself look like the super-awesome trainer you are!

Sarah Houghton-Jan

Filed Under: LearnRT News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Wow them with Wii hacks

April 15, 2008 By

There is clapping, cheering, and laughter from the audience for this TED talk, in which innovator Johnny Lee demonstrates how to turn a Wii game remote into a trendy teaching tool. Lee is highly motivated to bridge the divide between those organizations that can afford to experiment with the cutting edge of technology and those who can only sit back and watch.

In this video, Lee demos how to create an affordable interactive whiteboard by taking advantage of the “high-performing infrared camera” that is in the tip of a Wii controller. He combines the motion-sensing camera of the Wii with a $50 infrared pen (available from Radio Shack)—you just have to see the video to appreciate it.

Since posting this idea on his website, there have been over half a million downloads.

“Teachers and students around the world are already using this.”

Check out Lee’s website for other “little great ideas.”

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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Filed Under: Cool Tools Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Post-it™ Way

February 25, 2008 By

post-it1
“… the widespread use of Post-it™ notes and cheat sheets reveals a lot about the way people learn and how they apply that knowledge to their jobs.”

This is from an intriguing post by Tom Kuhlman on the Rapid E-Learning Blog: What We Can Learn About Instructional Design from Post-it™ Notes. I have to admit that I recognized myself in the description of a typical e-learning designer, who has a tendency to include “more information than is necessary to learn the task.”

After reading it, I did a quick tour of my office to see how many people had post-it notes scattered around their desks. Fourteen out of sixteen desks had visible post-its or equivalent note scraps. Why is the Post-it note such a winner?

  • Its small size forces you to record the bare essence of a thought or instruction. In Kuhlman’s words, a note does not contain all you need to know, but what you need to do.
  • It can be stuck on things to easily catch your attention.
  • It can be grouped with other Post-its and rearranged as needed.
  • Only the most immediately relevant bits of information stay within view, limited by the area of your desk.

I’m not going to convert all my training materials to Post-it notes, but I could do more to apply the “what you need to do” filter to instructional design. Along the same lines, Presentation Zen tells us we need to choose between deep or wide scope. “How much can I cover today vs. how much can my students absorb today?” Why not think of a PowerPoint presentation as a series of Post-it notes? Pare each slide down to the shorthand essence of what you want to convey.

Think Post-it! This is my new mantra. I have a Post-it on my laptop to remind me.

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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

Online tutorial pedagogy and design (with a few examples)

October 23, 2007 By

“The potential benefits of online tutorials are many. Instruction can be scaled, increasing the ability of library staff to reach large groups of students. The variety and styles of web-based tutorials can accommodate different learning styles by using image, audio, and text simultaneously or in combination (Hook). Tempelman-Kluit found online tutorials to be a potential way to “reach those users who cannot or will not come into the library.” Because such users are increasingly able to fulfill academic assignments using full-text resources found online, and because users are increasingly expecting to be able fulfill assignments utilizing online resources, libraries find that online tutorials make sense in terms of adapting instruction to users’ needs. Those same users often have expectations about access in a time frame that doesn’t incorporate waiting for answers, or visiting the library to ask a question during hours the reference staff is traditionally available:

“Online tutorials are a lifeline when reference assistance is unavailable or when a user is accessing library resources from off site . . . [they] allow users to learn when it is most convenient for them to do so. And because tutorials are self-teaching, they allow a patron to internalize information at his or her own pace.“ (Hook)

Additionally, online tutorials, when teaching skills related to online resources, take advantage of situated cognition. Hook writes, “knowledge should be acquired in the same context in which it will be used.” Placing users on the computer, within the browser they will use to access online resources, and where they can instantly put to use what they have learned, makes educational sense.”

The text above is the beginning of a section of an Independent Study that one of my former students, Sara Zoe Patterson, completed over the summer ’07 semester. The completion of this (including a nice bib/webliography) and several examples of how she incorporated screencasts/online tutorials into a school library/media center homepage can be found:
http://eden.rutgers.edu/%7Esarazoe/howto/

I’m sharing this for a few reasons:

  1. I like her bibliography/webliography as it list some great sources of research in this area and, to me, goes a long way to take screencasting and online tutorials from the “flashy” to the necessary.

  2.  She makes use of a technology called Jing. While we both have our reservations about this service; I think it’s one we should keep an eye on.

  3. She also makes use of Spresent, another technology that I think is worth a look.

  4. Lastly, I think her work shows nice specific uses of the technology in a school library/media center environment

Steve Garwood

Filed Under: Cool Tools, E-Learning, Screencasting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,