Information literacy skills - disipline-specific, online tutorials

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikesansone/2606565992/

You might like to check out these online, discipline-specific tutorials from the 'Virtual Training Suite'. The blurb on the site describes them as "a set of free Internet tutorials to help you develop Internet research skills for your university course", and goes on to say that "All our tutorials written and reviewed by a national team of lecturers and librarians from universities across the UK". The estimated time for each tutorial is one hour of self-directed study.

Evaluating feedback and collaborating at conferences

Image source (full size image available)

Bettina Schwenger and I recently presented at The student experience: HERDSA 2009 in Darwin. As part of the presentation we asked participants to add details to the mindmap pictured below - the original mindmap only included the nodes that have images. Participants collaborated in pairs or small groups to add to the mindmaps, and we collected all of their contributions at the end of the session. The results have been collated and added to the original mindmap, which has created an insightful visual resource into beliefs around Professional Development and the embedding of Literacy, Language and Numeracy into programmes.

At the end of the presentation we asked for evaluation of our session via sticky notes that were left on the door as people left, and received some very positive comments which have been collated below. In particular, it was reassuring to see the comments about the transferability and generalisability of the model in particular, and the approach to PD as a whole.

Resources

• Link to our presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/hazelowendmc/supporting-academic-development-to-enhance-the
• Link to our handout: http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/13811344/16po9clq1zj2zeys7rrp
• Link to the full paper: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17624375/Supporting-Academic-Development-To-Enhance-The-Student-Experience-Handout-of-resources-HERDSA-2009

Feedback from the participants at the session:

• Well presented and food for thought in dealing with resistant teaching staff. Thank you
  
• Great project. Well done
  
• Great model (transferable to any T& L context or group) for meaningful PD engagement of academics. (Could be replicated with students)
  
• Generalisable model. Thanks
  
• Inspiring. Good stuff
  
• Provoking. Thanks for some great ideas
  
• Thought provoking.
  
• Breaking down barriers
  
• Interesting pictures on slides
  
• Nice symbolism
  
• Used accessible terminology
  
• Excellent. Good job. Well done.

Mindmap
Link to the 'live' mindmap (pictured below): http://www.mindmeister.com/23798819/building-capability (you will need to access the online version to be able to view the full mindmap :-) )

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom....

An article from The NY Times has summarised the findings of a 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education (US). The key findings are:

"Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference."


I must admit that I haven't as yet read the report in full. However, yesterday (26th August 2009) I participated in a really thought-provoking session run by The Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation: TPA around literacies and the huge range of 'texts' we interact with and produce...digital, visual, audio, written, academic, multimodal. The conversation covered a variety of topics, and as the session progressed a couple of things occurred to me. Firstly, a lot of the participants seemed to think of digital literacies as basic ICT skills (i.e. turning on a computer, file management etc) - and by doing so, there was little recognition of the potential offered by digital literacy around empowerment, meaning making, scaffolding, communication, and building social networks. Take, for example, the opportunity to encourage, value and celebrate Freshman students' text creation (no matter what media they are using) - their identity, world view, culture, experiences and ideas - and how this might then be incrementally linked through activities such as reflection, to Higher Order thinking skills and research. Also, if words are most effective when they create images which in turn resonate with our emotions, the use of graphics, video and audio could offer opportunities to scaffold learners who are not fluent in print literacy, thereby supporting and embracing those learners who have previously been excluded from further and higher education.

I will, however, be studying the report to see if there are any recommendations around design, facilitation, assessment and evaluation that achieves the level of effectiveness and engagement indicated by the results of this study....