My strongest thought on the readings for this week (which I admit I skimmed through rather quickly) was that they take an appealingly optimistic and can-do attitude towards things that we read about at the beginning of the semester. We started off reading about all the problems with current education, and ended up reading about all the empowered, progressive things people are doing to fix them. How lovely to come full circle and end on that positive note!
Last week's class was brief, and we spent most of our time working on the webinars. I had missed the previous class, in which how to produce a webinar was explained, so I was somewhat adrift when it came to the actual technology, but my group members clued me in fairly quickly. Overall, I enjoyed researching our topic and even had fun putting the presentation together, but I can't help but feel that our topic wasn't an ideal one for the format. There wasn't much we said or did that couldn't have been presented in a lecture or recorded format, with some slides. I envision webinars as being more like the seminars that their name comes from--topics that invite tons of discussion and collaboration, rather than a few people presenting knowledge to many others. On the other hand, being able to present a pre-researched topic, rather than trying to manage a full-blown conversation, was probably a huge blessing for those of us new to the medium--I had more than enough trouble keeping track of the chat frame when I wasn't speaking, I can't imagine trying to do both at once, at least not without a lot more practice.
Showing posts with label class work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class work. Show all posts
15 April 2012
25 March 2012
Week 10: Class Reflection
Last week was one-shot workshop week in class, and I have to say that everyone in my group taught me something totally new... so clearly they were a success!
The workshop that Laura and I did was intended to be an introduction to talking to patrons about ebooks and the issues surrounding them, a topic that we'd noticed was conspicuously absent from most of the blogs and had only been briefly mentioned in class. In my opinion, engaging patron interest and action in issues like these is key to deciding how we as librarians deal with them--after all, the ebooks are there (or not there) for the patrons.
Our 'icebreaker' went over extremely well... because it involved construction paper. People made some awesome signs to alert patrons to the ebook situation, and we posted a few of them in the SI lounge after class, to remind our friends and classmates that books do still matter (do I sound bitter? I'm only a little...). People had great ideas, and they definitely set the tone for the rest of our session. We'd have liked to have some more discussion about the ethics and advantages of involving patrons in this sort of discourse, but that will have to wait until we have more time.
Our whole group was primarily concerned with issues related to activism and the changing role of libraries, so everything worked together well--it was like our own little conference on controversy in libraries! Mary and Ashley once again provided a break from the theme (they had the only non-death-related reading for the book club) with a fun lesson on how to craft a thesis statement. I had fun reimagining my Pretentious English Major youth.
The workshop that Laura and I did was intended to be an introduction to talking to patrons about ebooks and the issues surrounding them, a topic that we'd noticed was conspicuously absent from most of the blogs and had only been briefly mentioned in class. In my opinion, engaging patron interest and action in issues like these is key to deciding how we as librarians deal with them--after all, the ebooks are there (or not there) for the patrons.
Our 'icebreaker' went over extremely well... because it involved construction paper. People made some awesome signs to alert patrons to the ebook situation, and we posted a few of them in the SI lounge after class, to remind our friends and classmates that books do still matter (do I sound bitter? I'm only a little...). People had great ideas, and they definitely set the tone for the rest of our session. We'd have liked to have some more discussion about the ethics and advantages of involving patrons in this sort of discourse, but that will have to wait until we have more time.
Our whole group was primarily concerned with issues related to activism and the changing role of libraries, so everything worked together well--it was like our own little conference on controversy in libraries! Mary and Ashley once again provided a break from the theme (they had the only non-death-related reading for the book club) with a fun lesson on how to craft a thesis statement. I had fun reimagining my Pretentious English Major youth.
29 January 2012
Screencast: how to store and search your twitter account
Here's a link to the screencast I made for class this week. I can't figure out how to embed the file in a blog post--does anyone know how to make that work?
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