NELIG Annual Program 2009

Information Fluency: What Is the Educational Role of Technology in the Information Age?
Keynote Speaker: Donald P. Buckley, Professor of Biology, Director of Learning Technology, School of Health Sciences, Quinnipiac University

The emergence of the information age and the decade of the brain have brought us to the threshold of a new era in higher education, one in which instruction is founded on an understanding of how the brain functions in learning and facilitated by powerful learning technologies. Information fluency represents a promising framework to advance this grand convergence in a way that promotes learning with understanding and prepares students to flourish in the changing world of the Information Age.

Using Second Life for Library Instruction
Caroline M. Kent (Harvard University)

Real Time Global Instruction in a Virtual Environment - Barbara Mann (University of Maryland University College)

How do the needs for a real-time connection in the global, virtual world of learning get met? Librarians at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), a leader in distance education and one of the eleven degree-granting institutions within the University System of Maryland, are using Web conferencing software to provide real-time instruction sessions to its students around the world, including in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Through these interactions students located globally are able to experience library instruction as if they were actually sitting in a face-to-face class including two-way communication opportunities. These sessions are also recorded and added to the course management system so that those students unable to attend can still reap the benefits.

Includes in this presentation will be a discussion of the “nuts and bolts” of providing such learning opportunities, a demonstration of how this works, as well as assessment and lessons learned.

Humanizing the Virtual Classroom: Engaging Online Learners - Elizabeth Lehr, Matt Sylvain, and Kari Mofford (UMass Dartmouth)

We will present discoveries resulting from our efforts to create a strong library instruction component in an online foundation course for UMass Dartmouth’s Liberal Arts majors. Participants will learn more about using a web-based tool called Wimba to recreate a live classroom experience as well as using an online discussion board tool to help students develop and evaluate research logs. We will also discuss our use and assessment of online information literacy tutorials and share valuable tips to help first timers transition smoothly into online instruction.

Library Collections Meet Web 2.0 - Tools for "Wow!, Cool!, Awesome!" User Experiences - Michael Howser and Bill Miller (UConn)

Web 2.0 offers us more than just wikis and blogs to entice our users to explore digital collections. This presentation will highlight multiple tools and resources which you can use to showcase digital collections, maps, and library materials with minimal to no cost! Join us as we explore tips for making your users go "Wow!, Cool!, Awesome!" when exploring your web content.

Diving Into Sakai: One Librarian, Twenty Students, and a Brand New Open Source CMS - Amanda Izenstark (University of Rhode Island)

When a librarian participates in the process of selecting a new courseware management system and jumps in head first to test the waters, does she sink or swim? Hear about the successes and lessons learned from spending a semester using a newly-adopted open source tool to teach an information literacy course.

Personalized Research Portals at UNH Manchester - Carolyn Gamtso and Melinda Raupach

In an effort to minimize students’ feelings of information overload, librarians at the UNH Manchester Library have developed course specific online library guides to help students navigate through the many resources at their fingertips. Using LibGuides, they have created a personalized portal through which students may access a manageable amount of applicable resources. In their presentation, Carolyn Gamtso and Melinda Raupach describe how they developed, maintained, and used LibGuides during their pilot semester, how they incorporated the guides in and out of the classroom, and how they evaluated the resource at the end of the semester. Using LibGuides in library and information instruction sessions has transformed the way that the UNH Manchester librarians teach research and critical thinking skills. By engaging students in this new electronic teaching and learning environment, they are, in the words of an enthusiastic classroom instructor, “present[ing] them with a door with their name[s] on it.”

New Tricks (Old Dog?): Information Literacy Program at Champlain College - Paula Olsen and Michele Melia

Two librarians talk about their “journey” from traditional bibliographic instruction to “teaching librarians” in an information literacy program being developed in connection with the new CORE Program at Champlain College. These librarians go from teaching database searching to using the inquiry method to empower students to develop information literacy skills for lifelong learning. Learn about how they traveled that road!

The Cite Is Right!: A Mock Game Show about Academic Integrity
Laura R. Braunstein and Laura Barrett (Dartmouth College)

What are the most effective ways to teach students about plagiarism, ethics, and citation? At Dartmouth College, a collaborative team developed a mock "game show" called "The Cite Is Right!" to foster a lively discussion. Over 90 students in Dartmouth's first-year writing program used "clickers" (individual response systems) to respond to questions and case studies. This presentation will discuss our findings and conclude with an interactive demonstration of the event with conference attendees as the "contestants."