The keynote panel is comprised of the presenters of the different sessions today. Interesting idea. A way for everyone to hear at a least a bit from each of the sessions:
- Elizabeth Jones, OCU
- David Oberhelman, Hui-Fen Chang, and Helen Clements, OSU
- Dennis Miles, SOSU
- Amanda Lemon, OCCC and Toni Hoberecht, OU-Tulsa
- Kathryn Plunkett, SOSU
- Casey Ashe, TCC
Describe the project you will be talking about today, and the biggest roadblock you overcame on the way to implementing it.
- IM chat: not just supply the answer and but teach those at the other end how to find the answer; had to learn from others
- Widgets: Will be able to build a widget after this session; had to learn to code
- LibGuides — faculty embedding these in their courses online. Just getting started. What it is and what it can do to help reach out to distance learners.
- For-credit IL class online: Difficulties teaching in an online environment; switching from F2F to online environment; challenges were working with administration getting the course set up.
- new look at COIL: customizing IL for different subject areas and designing it to fit the different professors’ need.
- Second Life: facilitate teaching within it; challenges: takes a year to get used  to the environment (not like WoW)
Is it easier or harder to provide library instruction for DL than F2F students? Why?
- Toni: Distance ed lacks the human component. Hard to compensate for that in teaching. We’re going to have to make it work but it’s hard. (Comment: How can this challenge be overcome? Live video cameras? Live voice? Blogging? What types of interaction? Has research been done on what the students think?)
- Helen: Agrees; students said being f2f did make a difference, even if it’s just once.
- Casey: engaging them in the different parts of the process is difficult.
- Kathryn: it’s hard now bc it’s new, but it’s the future. It’s forcing us to be really relook at our teaching. Have to look at different ways of learning to reach different learners. Creativity & flexibility.
- David: competition from online universities; humans interact better f2f. Find ways to bridge that gap online. How to bring in the in-person interaction experience?
How can libraries most effectively connect with Distance Learners?
- Casey: much more important now to connect with the faculty in this environment; collaboration with the faculty much more significant
- Toni: Proximity is everything. Try to insert your access to students when they need you. Predict when the assignment begins; cooperation with faculty.
- Kathryn: chat is perfect example of this; students were there first and then we adopted it. They are already comfortable with this platform.
- Beth: marketing is important; make sure students know how to contact us. Make the library’s name prominent and easy to find.
- Amanda: online option to ask questions is important. Majority of her libraries’ reference qs come online. Students are so appreciative of the online interface to ask questions because they don’t like the phone.
- Text message reference experimentation: OCCC uses (not marketed much); it’s what’s next.
- Google Voice # for text chat and then shows up in the chat interface. Google Voice can be used for receiving texts in a chat <– will have to look into this.
- AIM hack through Meebo text chat is a free way. (but doesn’t work well)
What Web 2.0 technology do you think is the most overrated for distance library services or libraries in general, and why?
- Twitter (many on the panel don’t like it; don’t get it; Amanda sees both sides of Twitter’s uses)
- Library tutorial videos; Amanda spends a lot of time on them, but feels students don’t use them. Thinks they get used because professor sends link out. How to gauge their effectiveness? BYU video mentioned as a great video; many others are boring. Too long. 4 minutes; but that’s way too long, still. ASU library Minute videos are good. The length is the key. People show those in their instruction sessions. Atomic learning ones are really quick too. XKCD on library websites. In Plain English videos by Common Craft
What do you think Distance learning library instruction will look like in 5 years (at your institution and beyond?)
- More of it for sure
- Half f2f/half online in 5 years
- 5-10 years will be doing much more on cell phones & touch screens (5 years?? sooner than that!!)
- working from home.
- Digital divide discussion. Rural vs. urban? How are you going to provide distance learning to those in the rural areas who don’t have decent Internet access at their homes, remotely? Even the public libraries where these students could go are struggling to keep up with technology (fund it; pay for internet access; have enough computers to meet all needs).
Open Discussion
- Bring the legislators into the more rural areas and show them the reality of the broadband and cell phone situations. That’s a really really good point.
- Instructional content packaged for textbooks. Rather than giving them a website to go to, give them packaged content in a DVD. (Comment: schools, blocking social networking sites (wikis, youtube, etc.), this isn’t a good idea; issue here is working with the schools to show them how these tools are good and why they need to be accessible)
- Discussion on info lit teaching; missed some of the discussion.
- Web camera usage: open class period to talk over the web chat. It’s coming. The exchange is so much richer. It’s available now. It’s just getting the camera to use. Someone has used Skype and Dim Dim with her students. “Ignorance is nice.” “How did you do that? I don’t know. I hit the button and it works.”