Instructional Technology: It’s a Team Thing Session

Beth Filar Williams, Lynda Kellam, Amy Harris, Hannah Winkler
University of North Carolina-Greensboro (I think)

Will be presenting a story of their situation in technology tech planning.

Beth perspective

Meeting about instructional technology, developed goals, brainstormed what they wanted to do (games, JIT instruction, clickers, podcasts, blogs, and more). But what would be priorities? Used High Impact/Low Impact/High Effort/Low Effort matrix to prioritize. Considered the skills already present in the library.

High Impact/Low Effort best: wikis, clickers, pod/vodcasting/BB content/NetOpSchool.

What would work would vary at various institutions.

High Impact/High Effort: JIT instruction; Outcome-based assessment; tutorial toolbox; pre/post in BB

Low Impact/High Effort: Virtual Worlds; other games

Low Impact/Low Effort: BIZ game; subject specific content in info lit game.

Also decided who would serve on the committee about instructional technology on a regular basis.

Meet in collaboratories in the library. Have monitor mounted on the wall; different laptops can be plugged into it; different laptops can be shared.

Lynda

Team organization:

Beth was the one with the tech experience; good leader (organized); she also found all the new tools and shared them with the staff.

Hannah is the digital designer for the library; also enjoys podcasting & videowork

Amy: information literacy & instruction librarian.

Lynda: is the data librarian; screencasts & tutorials interest.

Group started to fit together like a puzzle. “Teamwork is how stuff gets done.”

Amy

Group had a lot of great ideas in the pipeline going. Then, the great budget freeze of 2009. Everything came to a stopping point, and had to be re-prioritized. The group had to decide what they could do without any money.

• University Teaching & Learning Center had video cameras; the library borrowed those cameras to create tutorials; also used Jing from screencasting.

Now, the library has some extra money available. Because they have priorities already identified, they were able to buy clickers, buy software (Camtasia), buy a fancy video camera, and buy a boom microphone.

Hannah

After the halt of spending and no time, suddenly the flood gates opened, and the staff had a mad scramble to use their resources in a certain amount of time. Staff created plagiarism tutorial/podcast. Team used their skills to get these projects going.

Process for Plagiarism Tutorial:

Step 1: Amy — resources & experience what professors were looking for, what students were looking for & knew, and what they still needed to learn. Her previous knowledge & experience helped in knowing how to creating each step of the storyboard.

Step 2: Lynda — idea person. Great resource for putting together large projects. Good at coordinating the details, the scripts, and the coordination efforts.

Step 3: Beth — she had the mad skills (digital ones, esp). She also went above and beyond in learning how to use the tools (learning how to use audacity, camtasia, storyboard editing, using video equipment, etc.)

Step 4: Hannah — pick up the pieces left over — converting SWF files; trial versions of software; last-minute editing; last-second grab actors; little details of the technical process.

UNCG Libraries Plagiarism Tutorial

Team capitalized on each individual’s strengths & skills to build the tutorials. They were not required to be on this team, volunteer basis. Other barriers and time constraints come into play — come from different departments, and have other jobs, too. Team used blog for communication, for archival purposes (staff-turnover), furthers the community around their content.

What did the team learn?

Requirements to be successful:

• Flexibility — KEY
• Creativity
• Innovation

Decided to NOT do everything. Not enough people, time, or money. Taught them to prioritize stuff and users.

Jing videos can’t be redone, aren’t as polished, but do still work and work well.

Have learned to share. MCLITE (Multi-Campus Library Instructional Technology) — share with Duke, UNC, etc., and learn from one another

Followup/Future Plans

MCLITE, inviting smaller colleges in the area, that don’t have instructional technology teams or librarians, who might be interested in using the resources that other libraries have, or the tools that they use.

Assignment Calculators…

Demo tools virtually or in the library, to do both internal training for librarians, for faculty at the campus, etc.

Tutorials page at UNCG

Working to build 10 total modules for research skills with games, screencasts, information. Hope to add capability to allow for work to be saved, so students can go back

Instructional Tech Portal built in the future: tools available, ways to use those tools, how it works, and who has the expertise with the tool on staff. Looking to get a grant to get student help to help with the information.

Podcast that the team works on and releases. Its schedule is intermittent, as the team has time.

“Other tutorials UNCG has created and embedded into CMS and course guides http://bit.ly/b9Bz41 #cil2010″ –@kmdevoe

Discussion

Computer students at a small university had to create tutorials as part of their class; some came to the library and helped the librarians create some new tutorials for the library. Both groups win — the students learn new skills in tutorial creation & the library gets great tutorials, without much effort on the library’s part.

Does UNCG use LibGuides? Not really right now. Just getting LibGuides use off the ground. Doing some usability testing on what students want and what the students want to see.