First Information Literacy Meeting!

Discussions held: 1 (good); People attending: 3 (good); Percentage of conversation contributed by self: 85 (bad, and that’s counting lines not words)

Yesterday held first Information Literacy (IL) discussion in office. Not publicised much at all so no surprise that v. few people turned up but was what wanted really as enabled it to be Learning Experience though also hopefully not waste of time for others.

Was based on IL research map created for RL conference earlier in year. Map is on wall in office and can also download it from http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Had created v. large version of map in advance and positioned it under office so could slide it up around to highlight bits was talking about. Had wondered about positioning it in air above office, but wondered if this might be too difficult for others flying about it. Think will try this out with colleague Yuxuan who was one of those to attend, to see which he thinks is best.
Was question early on about Delphi study (is type of survey, used when you want to get expert consensus, 3 pairs of students have done studies quoted on poster) so actually spent lot of time explaining that. Will put up extract from the explanation when get back to office, am currently away) On going back see that Yuxuan actually picked up on a particular point on the poster and I just steamed on regardless. Note to self: need to improve “SL listening skills”.
One question that came up was IL research and Continuing Professional Development for practitioners. At legal librarians conference that spoke at in June, when talked about legal librarians’ ideas of priorities for IL, a couple of people said that the Delphi method sounded interesting & they might use it. Thought this was encouraging in showing that learning about research methods can be interesting to professionals, when can see application in their own RL.
Also raised was whole issue of literacies. Yuxuan (shown in final photo) said “I think there is a danger in presenting literacies (e.g. computer literacy, e-literacy ... even information literacy) as if they exist in some objectivist way. It seems to me that [ultimately] everyone has their conception of a particular literacy, although there seems to be more agreement about some literacies (e.g. information literacy).” Also later Tiana mentioned SL as vehicle for literacy and possible interest in looking at overlap between IL and ICT literacy. Apart from twisting Yuxuan’s arm to lead a discussion in future, also thought that having session(s) on “literacies” might be interesting crossover event IL/education/ICT people.

Event v. useful in thinking how could do things better. Obviously can ask people to look at notecard or outside-world item like pdf or ppt, but not everyone wants to do “homework” before an event. This one was actually flagged up as me explaining, so think it was OK me saying a fair bit. Am thinking about ways to make next one more interactive, though also some people just like to listen and shouldn’t be forced.
One thing I thought was that could identify some colleague in group to IM with questions about SL basics e.g. for people who aren’t sure about moving round or touching things so can ask privately. First photo shows Tiana, Kristina (typing), Yuxuan and me (standing up)
On a more serious note, as you will see, wore almost same outfit as to CITASA conference. Different black top had shorter sleeves, exposing wrists and neccessitating trip to EARTHONES store to get bracelets matching necklace.