Learning Management Systems (LMS) Sometimes Feel Like Skynet

May 142012
 

In that they force humans to become slaves to the system rather than the other way around.

My institution uses the Desire2Learn platform for online courses (when applicable) and more commonly for managing course materials. As someone facilitating the former, best teaching practices would have me make my course as easily accessible as possible, and that would translate (sort of) into designing everything into or around all of those shiny widgets, tools, and document viewers. This would also mean I would have to teach students how to use it, maybe by virtue of a scavenger hunt or quiz.

But I’m stubborn.

When I use the web, I want freedom. I want to manage everything myself in an open environment. Desire2Learn seems like the exact opposite. It’s closed, sterile, and doesn’t make me feel like someone participating in a democratic environment—even in modules where I have instructor access!

Asking for an authentic environment is not unreasonable. That is, after all, an educational precept, right? Have students complete tasks that have real life consequences (or a close approximation)? The web is complex. It’s not nice and easily accessible. If this is a student’s first real in-depth use of a web tool or application, what sort of mental models are forming in their brains? They need to learn to access and evaluate information critically, and this corporate environment might not be the best introduction. On the other hand, if they are long-time web users, is it going to be engaging or even trustworthy (aesthetics are important!)?

But I’m working from the assumption that proprietary LMS systems are bad (or that social media interfaces are better). To me, they are bulky (not that other complex systems like Drupal aren’t), but they’re also not as good (or nearly as attractive) as systems like open learning environments such as P2PU, Coursera or iTunes. Desire2Learn, Blackboard, and similar systems feel too controlled, too sterile—especially given the lack of social media integration and sometimes ugly interface—perhaps even reinforcing a top-down learning model instead of a facilitated environment.

Then again, Facebook is probably the predominant model and users are accustomed to having very little say in the organization of data beyond photos.  People seem generally terrible at electronic personal information management (PIM), whether it’s managing bookmarks, naming files, or tracking citations. But at least the perception of choice and sharing is there.

Everything else is automated: messages, activities, interests, and other personal information. The type of communication that is facilitated is a waterfall-type flow of information. Most things appear by order of time, while others are the result of network popularity or hidden algorithms that try to guess at your interests. Put it altogether, and I guess the major benefit is this really effortless result of feeling connected to others, which is what will engage people the most in an online environment.

One of the major differences (and obstacles) is that the flow of information is instructor-driven rather than system-driven (though I suppose with the right release conditions, you could certainly imitate it).  Seems like a waste to try to reinvent the wheel. But I guess my flawed assumption is that the Internet SHOULD be like what’s popular in order to reach students.

My personal biases are probably playing a larger role here than I think.  Like other digital natives, I assume that I’m fairly competent at using the web. But like other digital natives, it’s mostly been improvised until I reached a point where I can “satisfice” my needs and from that point on, my habits have been continually reinforced. Who am I to judge the best way to be introduced to the web? And until I’ve developed a robust framework or model to do so (and would be scalable to other instructors for grading as well), then I can only use what I have. Even if an LMS isn’t the best representation, it’s one that can scaffold new users into the larger Internet and challenge existing users.

And if that’s the case, then I need to not only use the LMS as a way to deliver and facilitate engagement with subject matter, but also use the tool itself as a case study and opportunity to teach something about digital literacy (if that is indeed one of the goals of my course).

Follow-Up to #LOEX2012: Sequencing Information Literacy Course Content

May 062012
 

This past week, I presented at LOEX 2012 on designing credit-bearing courses, and while my presentation was largely theoretical and philosophical, I heard a question that I’d like provide a more practical and usable solution that speaks specifically to the intersection of course design and information literacy.

How do you sequence content? Or make a decision to teach one thing before another?

Well, there’s no one prescribed way to do it, but I think it requires first determining for your institution what the scope of the course should or could be. It also depends on how you perceive information literacy. Is it a discrete set of skills? Or is it more about critically thinking about the world from a meta-disciplinary lens?

Our course takes the meta-disciplinary approach. We believe there are certain skills associate with information literacy, but that there are deeper understandings that should be conveyed as well and that true information literacy means gaining independent thinking skills. And we cultivate those skills by virtue of the type of tasks and assignments we give to students as well as the type of assessment associated with it.

That translated into starting off with foundational knowledge about how information is organized and generally accepted metrics for evaluating it. Then we suggest an additional framework for evaluation that takes an interdisciplinary approach, but try to leave enough room for students to bring their own experiences and nascent subject expertise into the equation. Procedural knowledge is introduced as needed as tasks become more complex.

If you can figure out an end project or product that encompasses your course goals and objectives, then sequencing your course becomes a lot easier. Our final project is a group activity to revise and enhance a Wikipedia article. With an idea of where your activities are leading up to, you then have a guiding context. What does one need to know to:

  • evaluate sources in a Wikipedia article,
  • improve (or discard) how those sources are used in the article,
  • find and evaluate additional sources to enhance the article?

Broadly speaking, we think that generally means (as mentioned before) starting with the ecology of information, the introduction of an evaluation framework, and then how to search for information. Each of those ideas can be unpacked further, but you start to see how the larger project can help drive sequence.

This type of project would also provide a lot of opportunities to meet many of our goals. It’s an authentic and engaging problem, that with proper design of its individual parts, ensures that students become more mindful in their consumption and production of information. It meets documented needs addressed in research and locally, while at the same time expands on the traditional scope of information literacy without trying to be something it’s not (i.e. a first-year writing course).

Email me (leaf .7 AT osu DOT edu) if you’d like to discuss this further or work together on developing a more expansive/progressive model of information literacy instruction. 

Different [Design] Kind of Advice for Library Graduates

Mar 082012
 

Bill Buxton is the Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. Or at least he was at the time of this presentation. I haven’t looked into him anymore, but I think that he has something essential to offer in this video that can translate directly to librarianship–if you can focus for 45 minutes. And if all librarians (and others) thought this way, we might just do something great. Faster.

Bill Buxton on sketching experiences, Institute of Design Strategy Conference, May 2008 from IIT Institute of Design on Vimeo.

I always have a difficult time articulating any sort of advice for those who are still in library school or newly graduated. I’m sure there are certain classes and experiences that helped me get to where I am now or at least have shaped who I am today. But what would actually be useful for someone to hear? I never found career panels very useful. At best, they were a way to network. At worse, they were like being at a resume read-aloud.

Imagine my surprise when I was asked to give a talk about being successful (or something like that). Or even the month or so before when I was asked to write about it. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what makes good advice. It’s such a popular topic to write about in the blogosphere, but I always feel like something’s missing. I can’t say what that is, but recently I’ve been feeling like maybe I might take another stab at this.

I tried to write a list of things that I might say or write today instead of what I’ve said or written before, but I came up short. Part of that is because I tend to try to exhaust every subject, which is just another way of saying I can be terribly unfocused. So I’m just going to go in the opposite direction and offer one piece of advice as well as well as one video (above) instead of the lines and lines of text that I had originally written. If you want something written, you can check out an article I wrote for ARL Synergy.

I did a quick search earlier for other advice proffered by librarians, and I saw a colleague of mine posted a compilation of advice that she “curated” last week. What I really like about her list is that it’s more focused on general professional advice instead of libraries, and I think that gets to my “one piece”:

If you consider yourself to be a library professional, know that it’s no different than being a professional in any other service field. Some worry about the “corporatization” of librarianship. There’s a difference though between striving to make the world a better place and striving to make money. Being professional means taking a genuine interest in your clients (because you want to help), communicating your intentions (because you want to help), looking ahead for opportunities and obstacles (to make sure you can keep helping—sense a theme?), and knowing your limitations (because you won’t be able to help in every way–if that is indeed your goal). Work with your colleagues, not against them. Never stop learning. Never stop examining yourself.

Going Digitally Native

Jan 122012
 

Except for a brief period of time when I was learning how to walk, I’ve almost always had access to some sort of commercial computing device (the first I had played with was the Commodore 64). Since then, I have generally taken each new innovation for granted while dabbling in related activities (e.g. web design, programming) that interested me. Then I heard a funny term when I started graduate school that supposedly describes my generation: “Digital Native”. And it conjured up images of  Tron.

Still from the original Tron

Since then, I have read numerous research articles and at least one book on the topic, but my initial opinion regarding the term hasn’t really changed—it was actually affirmed. Like some other scholars, it’s not one that I particularly like. I think it’s misleading for those who haven’t done their homework. Digital natives aren’t (and scholars would argue that this isn’t their claim) all programmers or IT people, nor are they heavy technology users that are all comfortable with it; the lucky ones (if I dare define without citing my sources) are people who have grown up with newer technologies and are used to rapid innovation, and the unlucky ones face a huge disadvantage if they don’t get access before college. Yet the term and mis-perceptions  still persist.

What prompted me to address this is this past Tuesday’s ProfHacker article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author and some subsequent reactions seem surprised that students weren’t all gung-ho about using the iPad.   This particular professor prefaced the results with the following:

Nearly all of these students fit the profile of what Marc Prensky calls “digital natives,” those who have used digital tools their entire lives. They rely on text messages to communicate. They carry laptop computers. When they research, they go online. They subscribe to Netflix or use torrents, and listen to downloaded music. Multitasking comes naturally.

This seems to imply that they’ll take to the iPad easily as well, which I think demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of technology (though he does address the pitfalls later). Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying new technologies, but I would hesitate to make broad assumptions about its use or adoption. It isn’t a panacea for lack of engagement or a solution in of itself to increase engagement. It takes purposeful planning, iterative evaluation, and continuous development.

I’m reminded of the NY Times article regarding a seemingly failed infusion of technology into the Kyrene School District (which coincidentally was where I did my public schooling). Reading and math scores didn’t improve after money was poured into creating a 21st century classroom without any specific plan, and so some have leaped to the conclusion that it’s a waste of money or ineffective. While it’s not my goal to argue this particular point, it doesn’t take a lot of thought to figure out why that reasoning is faulty.

In  academic libraries especially, I feel like many of us are eager to jump onto the next big thing to respond to the needs of the current generation. In practice, those efforts end up being clunky or ultimately failing. We’re all very good at adapting it and talking about it, but practical application and widespread adoption by patrons leaves a little to be desired. We’ve become more of our own target audience than the ones we think we’re serving.

But responding and being engaged with the digital native is about understanding the ways in which today’s technology is being used (like the most recent study in Project Information Literacy has attempted) and the value it provides (unless you know for sure you’re a trendsetter). It’s also about knowing that iPads and other devices are not exotic machinery that’s only accessible by my generation or the only way to reach us–just as VCRs and pagers did not define communication for the previous generation.

I’ve only painted part of the picture, but what do you think? Is the idea or characterization of the “digital native” something you do, study, or find useful?

Brief Thoughts: Not Your Turf

Nov 142011
 

Saving libraries but not librarians thumb

About a week ago, a friend of mine messaged me with a link to this article called Saving libraries but not librarians.

me: He reminds me of philanthropists who think that improving education is just a matter of finding great teachers and not examining what it really means to assess or the obstacles that teachers have to overcome before they can even focus on content. The common factor? A fundamental misunderstanding of the issues.
Friend: lol, now that should go on your blog

Done.

Brief Thoughts: A Comment on “No Grading, More Learning”

Sep 152011
 

The following comment was posted on a compelling article called No Grading, More Learning. I don’t actually know what the etiquette is for reproducing comments, so I went ahead and copied the entire entry:

Today I Learned
Posted by Christine M. Hall, Ed.D. , Founder/Educational Consultant at CMH College Consulting on May 3, 2010 at 7:45am EDT

Dr. Arthur Shapiro, a long-time scholar and professor of Educational Leadership, currently at the University of South Florida and former professor at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, has used a similar method in his courses for decades. As an undergraduate in his course, my first impression was that the course was a joke. We too were assigned readings and required written responses as well as conducted class discussion. Each class ended with a round table discussion where we completed the sentence, “Today I learned…” Instead of our peers grading us, we were to grade ourselves. I took advantage of the system in place and learned nothing.

A few years later, older and more mature, I went back to earn my Master’s degree. I took another course from him hoping for an easy A. To my astonishment, my brain finally kicked in and I realized that the experience was unlike anything I had ever encountered. I learned to challenge myself, challenge my peers and simply demand more from everyone around me. This was truly an opportunity to gain vasts amounts of knowledge, not only from my own experiences, but from the experiences of those around me. It was, in essence, my first experience with understanding what it meant for a professor/teacher to be the facilitator of knowledge as opposed to the giver.

A former public school educator/administrator for over 22 years, I have always struggled with the inconsistency that surrounds teaching and evaluation. Too many school systems are focused on meeting standards and passing state level exams. Even more frustrating are the differences in grading scales seen across states, not to mention the differences in how grades are calculated from one teacher to another. Too many times I have asked young teachers to explain to me what it is that they want their students to learn and how will they assess that knowledge, only to be left with a blank stare, or worse, be told that they want them to pass the state test. Wouldn’t it be nice if all educators had the luxury of ending the class with a meaningful discussion focused on “Today I learned…” ?

Kudos to Duke for giving their students this opportunity.

Without diving too deep into my thoughts regarding the problems of assessment, I think this comment brings up a good point. The professor in the original article may have found success with her class, but there are many more factors that contribute to creating an environment in which the burden of grading can be transferred to students.

Like education in general, there is no one-size-fits-all solution–just better fits given certain situations. I think sometimes complexities in system are lost just because simpler alternatives seem more attractive or ideal. But any strategy or practice needs to be thought out and when considering a learner-centered classroom, one has to know the class…

Not to say the idea can’t be planted though. What alternative grading strategies have you utilized or seen? Were they effective?

Critical Review: “Does Library Instruction Make a Difference?”

Sep 022011
 

Recorded presentations of the 2nd Biennial Kathleen A. Zar Symposium are available online, and I happened to catch one entitled “Does Library Instruction Make a Difference?” The speaker was Melissa Bowles-Terry, and she reported on the results of an on-going student-centered study to determine: (1) the impact of instruction on student success,  (2) how it might be improved, and (3) if an argument could be made for tiered library instruction.

I found her presentation to be well-organized and inspiring despite a somewhat spurious finding. The backdrop for the study was the University of Wyoming, where students are required to take a course with an embedded literacy component (which involves visiting the library). With this in mind, she was able to take the following mixed methods approach: First, she analyzed student transcripts from the registrar to examine any relationships between grades, instruction, and the frequency of library instruction. Second, she conducted two focus group sessions to evaluate perceptions of the library and what students believed could be improved.

One of the slides showed the results of the transcription analysis:

In this chart (in case you missed it), 1000-level + refers to anyone who had taken the embedded 1000-level class and then another embedded class some other time. 1000-level classes were mostly presumed to have been taken during freshman year. Unfortunately, there apparently was not any meaningful interpretation because of how close the stats were to the median especially after considering the following normalizing factors :

  • Students who only took 1000-level only courses included a significant (presumably) number of those who had low grades in general and/or dropped out.
  • Upper division courses included a significant number of grads and professions whose grades are inflated (or so implied) in comparison to undergrads.

It would be nice to see the actual data, but I think it’d probably be a stretch to say any correlation is indicative of a direct relationship. Even if research skills do transfer to assignments, their impact on grades would be difficult to measure without say, for instance, the rubrics on which they’re judged.

Next steps in the project will be to break the results down by sub-groups such as major or degree type—it wasn’t fully explicated—and I’ll be interested to see the results and how they might be built upon. Using registrar data is fantastic idea, and I’m already thinking about how my own institution can do this!

Melissa also associated positive responses (from the focus groups) from students’ perceived impact of library instruction on their research with student success. Unfortunately, focus groups are not representative samples of the greater population. They are generally a means for creating a network effect to produce ideas, usually for some sort of product—thus their prevalence in market research (Bruseberg & McDonagh-Philp, 2002). In that respect, I think they’d be a fantastic tool for improving services; I would have liked to see more information about what students think about what the library could do better.

What I found myself in complete agreement with was one of her last thoughts: It’s helpful to think of the workshops (especially tiered ones) as part of a curriculum instead of siloed one-shot sessions. Also, the idea of tiered workshops intrigues me. I’ll have to tackle this another time, but I believe aligning new and existing literacy skills with research expectations and new standards in a more formalized structure will be crucial for libraries moving into the future and would vastly improve student outcomes.

References:

Bowles-Terry, M. (2011). Does Library Instruction Make A Difference? [Video]. 2nd Biennial Kathleen A. Zar Symposium (June 3, 2011).

Bruseberg, A., McDonagh-Philp, D. (2002). Focus groups to support the industrial/product designer: a review based on current literature and designers‘ feedback. Applied Ergonomics, 33, 27-38.

Information Overload: Scholarship and Chinese Whispers

Aug 302011
 

Ivan Walsh / CC BY 2.0

Information overload is what happens when we’re presented with too much information. How are we supposed to make good decisions when there’s so much to consider? One solution by Sax (2004) is through storytelling, which can help us make sense of the world around us. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it solves the problem of rampant misinformation. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to identify or spend time identifying BS (or subtle parodies of websites).

Sometimes I think we need to stop all new information from emerging for a year so we can take the time to examine what we have. While technology has made things easier to produce, there is evidence that the quality of research is decreasing (and further evidence – updated 10/12/2011). Plus, scholarship before the Internet Age was already too much to handle (Bush, “As We May Think,” 1945), and that’s not even talking about potentially “lost insight” (Bain, “In search of lost insight,” 2007).

1.09 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition states that:

Duplicated publication is the publication of the same data or ideas in two separate sources. [...] Duplicate publication distorts the knowledge base by making it appear that there is more information available than really exists. It also wastes scarce resources (journal pages and the time and efforts of editors and reviewers). The prohibition against duplicate publication is especially critical for the cumulative knowledge of the field.

And so on. It’s an ethical guideline that has been around in scholarly research, and it’s something that I think should be re-emphasized in scholarly research and considered in popular media. Granted, there’s a difference between adding to our collective body of formal knowledge and reporting  (but these days, in terms of reach, all one needs to do is share a link), but perhaps there should be a conscious effort not to regurgitate the news and potentially distort whatever truth someone is proffering.

One might argue that journalistic integrity in mainstream media is spotty and having as many sources as possible is a good thing. I agree; there should be a diversity of ideas and perspectives, but only if there are multiple access points to the same event instead of news that travels the grapevine–just consider for a moment the outcome of any game of Telephone.

Increasing Librarians’ Role in Education

Aug 232011
 

Dr. Robert Martin was the first librarian to head up the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and during his time there, he accomplished quite a bit. Not only was he able to increase their budget, but he also pushed outcomes-based assessment for grants, helped draft the ministerial statement for the first-ever U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva,  and created the inaugural grants–the largest ever for museums–for the “Museums in America program. I pulled that out of a press release in 2005 when his term ended, but those things are not really what struck me. Rather, it was in article in 2002 when Library Journal interviewed then-IMLS Director Robert Martin about his vision of libraries. He says:

“…the emphasis on information no longer serves us well. Public libraries perform a broad range of roles. Libraries are good at selecting and organizing information and connecting this information with their communities. But in articulating our purpose, our role, and our mission, it behooves us to focus on our educational role…. In my experience, education is the primary theme that will help libraries secure resources. I’m not speaking about what libraries and librarians do but how we talk about what we do….”

Aside from the functional reasons for focusing on education, I think there are many reasons to do this. Here are just a small fraction:

  • 68% of 8th graders can’t read at standards, and most never will
  • $300 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity due to 2007 dropouts
  • Sixty five percent of U.S. convicts are dropouts and lack of education is one of the strongest predictors of criminal activity.

Source: The Broad Foundation

One contributing factor is the fact that we have underpaid, overworked teachers. And regardless of your feelings about their effectiveness or quality, managing, teaching, and evaluating 20-40 students—20 laughably considered ideal—is not an easy task on a daily basis. One size does not fit all, and  the burden lies on the teacher to spend their unpaid summers (or taking menial seasonal jobs) and weekends to figure out how to reduce attrition in their classes and cater to individual students. Some students will, of course, rise above the rest. But when only a minority of students actually meet standards and go to college, you have to re-examine the type of support that is provided. Until there can be a complete overhaul of the system, I think not-for-profit institutions like libraries need to play a more active role in education. Librarians, wherever and whenever they can, need to take an active role in the lives of students. Some ideas for promoting this shift:

  • Assigning students to librarians and giving them assessment responsibilities
  • Hiring and embedding librarians into classes as assistant instructors instead of just doing a library visit once or twice a quarter or being “the available resource” (the latter is something aggressively pushed in some academic libraries)
  • Mandating pedagogical education for library and information professionals

Aside from existing services, what roles do you see librarians playing in education? What would you argue for (or against)?

Musings on Branding

Jul 302011
 

Gmail PaperSomething I’ve said often is that if one were to re-package and re-market a core library service today (*cough* reference), it would be in demand. In fact, one might argue it has been, and we call it “Google.” The problem isn’t that the community doesn’t recognize the value of information services–the problem is that it’s hard to distill and eliminate outdated associations that people have in their minds when they think of libraries. Those associations are typically positive, but they tend to bring about more nostalgia than thoughts of utility for those who haven’t visited a library in ages or aren’t aware of current library trends.

The New York Times published an article today about Bing’s continued campaign to toppled Google as the top search engine. It discusses their attempt to make Bing the best “decision engine” in the whole wide web. The idea seeks to be that better searches will result in better share. One developer on Microsoft’s team is quoted as saying: “Search is still essentially a Web site finder. It’s all nouns. But the future of search is verbs — computationally discerning user intent to give them the knowledge to complete tasks.”

However, I find myself unconvinced that Bing will be able to accomplish its task on a better search engine alone. I’m not even sure that people would necessarily judge Google as the best, nor do I think it needs to be. Why? Because Google offers more than just a good search engine. They offer a brand that people want to align themselves with. To be with Google is to be “hip” and “in the know.” It’s part of a lifestyle. While people may not completely believe the old mantra of “Don’t Be Evil,” enough look forward to annual traditions like its April Fools’ pranks (my favorite is Gmail Paper – “It’s paper, plain and easy. I sometimes find myself wondering: what will Google think of next? Cardboard?”) or are embedded into one of its other product lines like Google Docs, Google Reader, or Gmail. It’s the loyalty to the brand, not just the search engine.

However, Microsoft is smart and I have no doubt that they’re working on expanding services and applications that are associated or will be associated with Bing. When I examine these two competing companies, I’m not sure I know what the outcome will be, but I do know that there must be a lesson somewhere here for libraries. All three have a common trait: an established brand; but I’m guessing only two can boast hundreds of millions of consistent users—and Bing is not the underdog.

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