March 27, 2011 Much to cover: all about engaging with students via technology!

Chapter 7 in How People Learn discusses how teachers can teach subject matter that students have stereotypical trouble grasping, such as math, in ways that help students grasp overall concepts, not just facts.  Certain teachers were singled out for their understanding of the important concepts of their particular discipline and the best ways for their students to learn those concepts (hint: it wasn’t by memorizing data or facts). They figure out that way by knowing the challenges of their particular discipline, knowing their students and knowledge of academic content. Another important lesson noted by the authors was that a set of general teaching strategies will not simply apply to all disciplines or even all classes and these great teachers were learners themselves.

Montgomery 2010: “Online Webinars!...”

This article discusses the ways librarians are reaching out to a new generation of college students who are actively engaged online and prefer to communicate online in many situations. Beyond using chat, email and text services, academic librarians are starting to use webinars to help their users, especially when they are embedded in specific courses.  Matos et al. goes further to expand on virtual interaction between librarians and classes, noting the difficulties and benefits therein. I really liked their point about how virtual library sessions accomplish two important things: “integrating library instruction” without actually taking time away from the scheduled lectures and exposing students to a form of technology that they might use in their professional lives.

The webinar I watched was “Crisis Webinar” by Chris Harris and Buffy Hamilton and moderated by Gwyneth Jones and Carolyn Foote. The webinar was about the crisis in the job markets school librarians are facing today. Chris Harris reminded me a lot of Eli Neiburger, he too believes in the digital shift away from print books. Except he’s not a librarian, he’s an administrator, oooh. Anyways, in general one of the things I noticed thanks to this webinar is that it is very difficult to listen to the speaker, visually process the slide show and also pay attention to the conversation progressing in the chat window.  I think that wasn’t a huge issue for the webinar we watched in class because Bobbi Newman’s talk centered on our questions; she didn’t really have a prepared lecture. Thus, slides would have added to her webinar, not distracted. Mr. Harris actually said it was hard to keep up with questions while reading his notes, on his end. I know you can archive it, as one of the moderators mentions, so maybe we should be encouraged to ignore the chat unless we have a question and focus on the lecture, then go back later and read the chat. I’m not sure… I can’t decide if it’s worth it to have all three: a prepared lecture, slides, and chat operational. Thoughts?

Also, Mr. Harris’ slides didn’t transfer from his Keynotes software very well, definitely a reason to preview and test our webinars first. Buffy’s portion of the webinar echoed much of our readings for this week, in that she voiced the need to pay attention to the types of technology our students are constantly using and take advantage of that notice. And wow! does Buffy have a thick accent! It was rather delightful to listen to as a nasal Midwesterner. I felt that Chris’ talk was a call to action and Buffy’s talk was specific examples of how school librarians can act today, now, in this moment. A webinar that was very well balanced in terms of content and I think for a soon-to-be graduating school librarian, essential to watch. (I’m not one, but the perspective was great to hear as a public librarian I want to collaborate with school librarians.)