Learning and Practicing Academic Librarianship by Design
8
1. Summarize what the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community (BLC) is.
2. Explain the various means by which the BLC assists librarians in professional development.
3. Identify the benefits and challenges of the BLC.
OBJECTIVES
called for a venue that would be accessible to everyone, where people could come together to learn and share ideas about blended librarianship—in other words, a web portal that would allow anyone to learn more about blended librarian- ship. We also applied design thinking to create a sustainable community where librarians could learn more about blended librarianship and have opportunities to acquire the new skills needed for this new role.
This required us to assess the demand for such a community, to design a framework around which it would be developed, to develop or identify a technol- ogy and communication infrastructure that would support our design, to proto- type and test our design, and then to engage our colleagues in the community so that we could learn from their experiences in making further improvements to this community of blended librarians. This process took us through several stages of design and development:
U Communicating with colleagues about our idea for a blended librarians learning community
U Researching the components of learning communities and understanding how they achieve sustainability
U Identifying an appropriate technology infrastructure to support a learning community
U Configuring a website to serve as a portal for blended librarianship and a gateway to the learning community
U Identifying key partners who would help build the community and later serve on an advisory board
U Developing a strategy to use discussion boards and resource areas as a way to get community members to engage with each other and contribute to the community
U Identifying a model for delivering ongoing continuing education events that would offer quality programming to community members
In this chapter, which focuses on the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community (BLC), we will discuss how we moved from our initial design think- ing to actually developing and building a community for our colleagues who desired to learn more about blended librarianship and integrate it into their own professional practice. Here we will explore how the BLC contributes to the pro- fession through professional development, the sharing of ideas, and the further development of the blended librarian concept. We will cover the benefits and challenges of this online community and the virtual learning that takes place there. Since collaboration is critical to blended librarianship, we will identify the
ways in which we partnered with colleagues to make this project work; achieving it required help from others. Finally, we will assert that the BLC is an important means by which librarians can further their own professional development and acquire additional skill sets (i.e., design thinking, instructional design and tech- nology).
FINDING THE RIGHT COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE
The rapid pace of change in information technologies challenges the relevance of the services offered by the modern academic library. However, if used properly, advances in information technologies can allow the library to become more rel- evant and play a larger role in the teaching and learning process in higher educa- tion. Throughout this book, we have shared our ideas about how to use blended librarianship to enhance the library’s relevance by capitalizing on design thinking and instructional technologies to further the library’s integration into the class- room, both physical and virtual.
Our ideas about blended librarianship expressed in this book and elsewhere have only just begun to engage librarians in thinking about blended librarianship as a way to shape the future of their libraries. For blended librarianship to play an essential role in helping libraries stay relevant in the future, it must continue to evolve. And for it to evolve in a meaningful way, people (i.e., librarians, faculty, and support staff) who care about these issues must come together and have the opportunity to share and learn from one another.
Fortunately the Internet, along with other communication technologies, had advanced to the point where we were able to partner with a company (Learning- Times) that could provide the necessary software and infrastructure to support our goal. As described in chapter 1, the webcast workshop series sponsored by the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group in conjunction with the Associa- tion of College and Research Libraries led to the partnerships we formed with Steven Gilbert of TLT and Hope Kandel of the LearningTimes Network, and as a result, with the support of LearningTimes we were able to establish the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community. The first community members were the attendees of the workshop (about eighty people).
Initially, we wanted the community to be a place where participants could discuss blended librarian–related issues as well as explore new ideas, share useful resources, and continue to learn from one another. Over the next two years, the community grew and evolved as we offered more TLT/ACRL-sponsored work- shops, began a blended librarian webcast series, and created an advisory board.
We realized that in order to sustain and grow the community, it was vital to get
members involved in it. We created an advisory board to help us brainstorm ways to get members involved. The advisory board has been invaluable by helping to put into action the following initiatives:
U Asking for community members to volunteer to assist with the blended librarians website, facilitating discussion forums, and summarizing webcasts
U Planning webcast presentations
U Advertising the BLC with “Are you blended?” pins
Today the community has existed for a little over two years and has more than 2,000 members from all over the United States, as well as several other countries.
The BLC offers numerous opportunities for professional development through webcast presentations, workshops, discussion forums, meeting rooms, file reposi- tories, synchronous chats, voice boards, survey polls, and recorded archives. It is these activities that have allowed the community to grow and the concept of the blended librarian to evolve.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE COMMUNITY
The LearningTimes Library Online Community, or LearningTimes LOC, pro- vides the venue by which the members of the BLC can come together to share ideas and learn. There are a number of features, both synchronous and asynchro- nous, that a community member can use. These features include sharing images and bios, live and archived webcasts, discussion forums, polls, an online file cabi- net, resource lists, instant messaging and text chat, and a virtual meeting room.
All of these features contribute to the development and growth of the community.
The following section will examine in detail the various tools and their uses.
Images and Bios
The images and bios section of the LearningTimes LOC allows members who join the BLC to post biographical information as well as related media (i.e., pic- tures, audio files, video files, Flash files). Members are encouraged to share their personal and professional information and learn more about other members in an asynchronous virtual environment. This allows members to get acquainted with each other without directly contacting and interacting with other members of the community.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. Members who are shy or less out- going may feel empowered to share information about themselves that they might not otherwise have shared if they were in a face-to-face environment. However,
because the environment is asynchronous, it is not always easy to form personal relationships and strong connections with other members of the community. This is because it is not possible to directly contact and communicate with other mem- bers unless they specifically list contact information.
Live and Archived Webcasts
The BLC also offers live webcasts through the LearningTimes LOC, which uses Elluminate Live virtual classroom software (see figure 8-1). This package allows the BLC to invite speakers to present in an online, live collaborative environment.
To make these presentations as high quality as possible, we require presenters to use a practice classroom prior to giving their presentation online. This helps pre- senters get more comfortable with the technologies they will be using, as well as allowing us the opportunity to share the “best practices” we have learned through our extensive use of webcasting technologies. We feel that these training sessions help prepare our presenters to deliver the high-quality webcasts that members of our community expect.
Some of the more useful features of the webcasting technologies include a VoIP communications system that allows participants to converse using micro-
FIGURE 8-1
Archived webcasts on the LearningTimes LOC website
phones hooked up to their computers; a virtual whiteboard that allows the speaker and participants to share ideas; a virtual classroom that lets the speaker conduct polls and surveys, lead an Internet tour of websites, and perform desktop sharing (in which participants see on their computers what the presenter is showing on his or hers); and a message board where participants can post questions and interact with other participants.
The BLC strives to offer webcasts on timely topics that are of interest to its membership and are relevant to the field. A sample of some of the recent pro- gramming is listed below.
“Tales from a Librarian-Instructional Designer Partnership: Sharing Resources and Knowledge to Support Course Development.” When librarians and instructional designers work together, great things can happen. This archive discussed how a librarian and instructional designer at North Carolina State University work together to support graduate-level dis- tance education courses.
“A Look at Newly Emerging Positions at Academic Libraries.” This session discussed various new roles for librarians that fit more of the definition of blended librarianship. The guest speakers, Kathryn Shaughnessy and Sean Cordes, spoke about their experiences as librarians in an academic library setting, and the discussion focused on how the role of librarians is evolving.
“Designing Library Experiences for Users with Aradhana Goel of MAYA Design.” This session explored how the physical design of the library can affect the way in which users experience the library and the resources it houses.
“Shifting the Balance: Faculty-Led Information Literacy Instruction with William Miller.” This archive records a discussion about faculty-led infor- mation literacy instruction.
“Powerful PowerPoint: Tips for Ending PowerPointlessness.” This is a record- ing of a discussion led by Kristopher Wiemer on effective uses of Power- Point for delivering engaging educational presentations.
“Developing Multimedia Teaching and Learning.” This is a recording of a discussion about various software programs that allow one to build tuto- rials, starting with screen capturing and audio recording. The presenters, Sarah Swart, Dan Gall, and Karen Frade, spoke about technical issues,
“best practices” for building tutorials and other teaching aids, and assist- ing faculty with building learning content.
“A Knowledge-Driven Organization in an Information Age.” This records a discussion with R. David Lankes about knowledge versus data, the changing role of information, the changing knowledge needs of those seeking library services, and how librarians today can meet those needs.
All of these webcasts are archived within the LearningTimes LOC so that mem- bers both past and present can access and view them.
The benefits to participating in a live webcast are that participants can inter- act with the speaker and other participants. This allows participants to ask ques- tions of clarification as well as share their own perspective or examples at their institutions. The archive does have some benefits as well. While participants are not able to interact with either the speaker or other listeners, they are able to listen to and watch the presentation at their own pace. The archive allows the member to rewind or fast-forward through the presentation so that they can review specific sections and make sure they did not miss important information. Also, at times listeners can experience technical difficulties, and the archive allows members to return to the presentation so they can get any information they might have missed due to such difficulties.
Webcasts offer a number of benefits that traditional face-to-face workshops cannot. These benefits include increased convenience, decreased costs, a self-serve customized environment, and more individualized interactions. The convenience of the live and archive webcasts cannot be overemphasized. The only condition that needs to be met in order to attend a session is to have a computer with an Internet connection. Today most professionals have these technologies both at home and work. Therefore, potential listeners’ only primary obstacle to attending on online webcast (besides any possible techno-fear) is another conflicting event or meeting scheduled. It is important to note that while it is possible to multitask during a webcast, we strongly discourage this, because no matter how talented listeners are at multitasking, one’s complete attention is diverted from the presen- tation. If you are planning on multitasking, we recommend only doing so while viewing the archived event—should you miss anything, it is easy to rewind.
The fact that you can choose the location from which to join the webcast presentation is a major convenience because it is unnecessary to spend time and energy planning a trip (i.e., travel means, directions, and travel time). This greatly increases the work productivity of participants because they don’t have to spend time traveling, which takes them away from their primary work responsibilities. The only time commitment is the time they participate in or watch the archived event.
Another advantage is low costs. Registration for a webcast is often less expen- sive then a traditional workshop because there are no additional physical facilities that have to be dedicated to a large group. The BLC is fortunate to be able to offer
its current programming free of charge because of the generosity of Learning- Times, the guest speakers, and the Blended Librarians Community Advisory Board.
The environment of the webcast can also be advantageous. The advantages of participating in a live or archived webcast include a self-service location and a dedicated terminal. The self-service location means that participants can choose the location that they participate from. Ideally participants should choose a loca- tion that provides them with minimal distractions, comfortable conditions (e.g., good climate control, good ergonomics, good lighting, good technical equip- ment), and ease of access. A dedicated terminal means that unlike participating in a live face-to-face workshop that may have over a hundred attendees and be located in a large room, participants in BLC webcasts can sit directly in front of a computer and adjust the screen and sound level so that they can maximize their ability to hear and see the presentation.
Finally, the increased interactions allow for more engagement between the guest presenter and the participants. As mentioned previously, there are a number of tools associated with the Elluminate virtual classroom; these tools are similar to other web-based collaboration software packages. The tools include a virtual whiteboard and presentation space, an instant message board, a desktop-sharing application, virtual website tour capability, a polling tool, and interactive buttons for clapping, raising your hand, expressing happiness, and expressing sadness. All of these tools can be used to increase the interactions between the speaker and participants. For example, in many BLC webcasts, presenters will do one of the following.
U Have a “voice of the chat” that will keep track of the instant message board and ask the presenter questions that arise
U Include an instant poll to survey the participants
U Make use of the virtual whiteboard or instant messaging to solicit participants’ feedback
U Use the virtual website tour tool to take participants to specific websites Perhaps the biggest advantage to participating in the webcasts is simply that the BLC could not offer these sessions in any other format. There are some chal- lenges associated with webcasts, however. These include lack of face-to-face inter- action, technical disruptions, and increased work or home distractions (if partici- pating directly from work or home).
The lack of face-to-face interaction affects webcasts because it can inhibit the informal meeting and gathering of participants after the webcast is concluded.
This type of interaction is quite common at library conferences and leads to pro- ductive collaborations—a good example being the authors’ experience that led
to the development of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community.
However, this interaction can occur virtually. For example, the authors never met face-to-face with Hope Kandel before and during the creation of the BLC in the LearningTimes Network.
The increased dependence on advanced Internet communication technolo- gies can also discourage participation in the webcasts. There are a number of reasons for this. First, having the technologies needed for the webcast and feeling comfortable using them are prerequisites. While these technologies are not dif- ficult to use, they are more involved and complex than established technologies such as a telephone. Second, because there are a number of technologies involved, the number of technical difficulties multiplies and can lead to frustrations such as losing a connection with the webcast, losing audio, or losing video.
Finally, the convenience of being able to participate from home or work in the webcasts can also be a detriment if participants are unable to remove distrac- tions from their environment. For example, phone calls, visits from colleagues, and e-mail can serve to interrupt participants during the presentation if they do not isolate themselves from these potential distractions.
Discussion Forums
The BLC has electronic discussion forums available in the LearningTimes LOC (see figure 8-2). These forums allow community members to discuss blended librarian topics. It is common for participants from the BLC webcasts to post dis- cussion topics based on issues that were raised in a previous webcast. This allows members to share and respond to each other and delve into the webcast topics more deeply than can be achieved in a webcast that is sixty minutes long.
There are number of discussion topics, some of which have many responses, while others have relatively few. The following are examples of some of the topics available in the BLC. Discussions related to past webcasts include
U “Shifting the Balance: Faculty-Led Information Literacy Instruction Questions”
U “User-Centered Design in Your Libraries”
U “Is PowerPoint Evil?”
U “Digital Learning Materials Primer”
There are also quite a few discussions that have been posted that are of inter- est to community members but that are not necessarily directly related to BLC programming. Some of these discussion threads include
U “Looking for Colleagues Who Work in Teaching and Learning Centers”
U “Most Youths May Be Tech-Savvy, but They Lack ‘Digital Literacy,’ Report . . .”
U “Social Learning Technologies”
U “Blackboard Patent News”
Finally, there are discussions that relate to getting more involved in the blended librarians community. Examples of these include
U “Inviting New Members”
U “Looking for a Volunteer”
U “Please Submit Your Profile for the Blended Librarian Workspace”
The discussion forums help develop a deeper sense of community, continue to develop and refine the ideas behind the blended librarian, and allow members to review previous discussion topics. They also help the community to identify possible topics of interest for future webcasts.
The advantage of having a discussion forum is that it gives all members a voice and the opportunity to raise questions and thus to actively participate in developing concepts related to blended librarianship. This is done in an asynchro- nous environment that allows community members time to think about their responses to posted topic threads. The discussion forums also allow members
FIGURE 8-2
Discussion forums on the LearningTimes LOC website