eLearning at TIGS: Di Epoff’s Blog

What does a Dream Library Look Like in the 21st Century?

Monica Watt has asked me to consider what an ideal or ‘dream’ library might look like in the 21st century. Well, I’m not a librarian, however after attending the Learning Technologies 2008 Conference two weeks ago, I have some ideas about what type of 21st century learning environments will create the setting for meaningful student engagement with any kind of learning process.

However, before we can answer Monica’s question, we need to ask more questions:

What is a library today?

A library today is quite different to what it might have been several years ago, as users needs have changed significantly.

What do library users need from their library?

If we dont know the answer to this question, then a library runs the risk of being unnecessary, redundant.

What do users need to do there?

Do they need to use the library as a resource centre? A skills workshop? A private space? A service provider? A help-desk? A classroom? A portal to global communities? An information hub? A social networking site? A learning community?

Most likely a library needs to be all of these things and more.

Essentially, a library  should help facilitate information access and processing. Yet today, most information is accessed online using computer technology rather than via print, and the ways in which this information is accessed and shared is changing minute by minute! So, libraries need to be adaptable and flexible to remain or become relevant to existing and emerging users. I think a library needs to focus more on teaching users how to process information, and this means providing the skills needed to process information in a predominately Web 2.0 online environment. This may be require a paradigm shift for librarians as the focus moves from information itself, to information pedagogy.

The 21st century library should foster 21st century approaches to learning.

George Siemens, of elearnspace.org,

explains that networks and connectivity lie at the heart of all learning today. Watch this YouTube video :

Library 2.0,

to understand what learners today face in terms of information overload. Are we teaching students the life skills they need to be capable of filtering and processing all this information? How can we help them safely and purposefully negotiate the complex information networks and communities they encounter online?  How can a library help them do this?

In their own time, our students use ICT to search, access and share information, predominately for the purpose of online social networking. This has accelerated to the point where it is almost out-of-control. Perhaps a dream library is a network of information that enables students to learn how to search for, access, share and use information wisely, ethically, intellectually, skilfully, and most importantly, in meaningful ways.

In his blog, Library Walls, David Bogardus

circles the same issue I am raising (also published in CSLA Newsletter). He asks:

“What is the ideal school library? How do we create a space that allows students to be constructive with the information and ideas stored there? How can creativity be archived for others to build upon? We need to go well beyond Dewey to access the answers.”

Bogardus, an American school librarian, reflects on how Gen Y students access and share information online, in much the same way as a gopher builds mounds: erratically and haphazardly, with play being the central focus. He refers to their use of MySpace.com to illustrate this point:

“I wonder if our students’ hunger for content and self-expression often lead them to adopt my gophers’ model. Students will invest days on their MySpace page if they feel it will have an impact on their dating life, but often overlook the connection between the pursuit of knowledge and the eventual lasting contributions they will be able to make to their future family and community. As librarians, we can help build bridges between the tunneling for information and personal success. Our best work may be realized when we work one-on-one with a student and connect the classroom content to this student’s own goals and aspirations”.

It seems easier to know what a dream library needs to do in the 21st century:

It needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to process information using the technologies they need and wish to use in their daily lives. The role of the library needs to be active, rather than passive - it needs to direct students to make good choices in the consumption and distribution of information. It needs to help students filter and process, to link authentic learning experiences with the technologies they play with and need for their life ahead of them.

Tony Wagner in his article The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It

lists 7 essential skills for 21st century survival:

1. Critical thinking & problem solving

2. Collaboration and leadership

3. Agility and adaptability

4. Initiative and entrepeneurialism

5. Effective oral and written communication

6. Accessing and analysing information (I would like to edit this for our purposes: access, analyse, filter and process information)

7. Curiosity and imagination

A dream library should develop and implement pedagogies that help our students achieve these life skills. A dream school library in the 21st century needs to be more than what we have come to expect from a traditional library. It needs to be like a 21st century classroom: a dream classroom, that focuses less on delivering content and more on helping our students learn how to effectively learn with, and manage, information and technology.

Then what does the dream library need to look like to achieve this?

Wow! thats a tough one! That requires a few questions to be answered first. And then perhaps another post!

Some tutorials for you to try

This post will help the participants in my beginners Blogging workshops. Try these tutorials when you are having a play with your blog.

There are a number of good free WordPress tutorial sites on the net. Note: we use WordPress 2.6 version. If you search for tutorials on the net, make sure they are for version 2.6

Open your favourite web browser, check you are connected to the internet and try these:

The following tutorials are screencasts: audio visual tutorials.

iThemes Tutorials

The following screencasts are from the Likoma Design website

How to Edit a Simple Post

Uploading Images and Captions

The following site has some comprehensive information about the features of WordPress. It will take you some time to read through it, however its a good way to learn all about your blog and what the various buttons and menus can do. It doesnt contain tutorials but does provide a concrete background to blogging

The author describes it as a beginners site:

Blogs@Baruch

I have written this article in response to the Learning Technologies User Group’s online pre-conference forum of the same name. I am attending the LTUG Conference in QLD from 5th-7th November 2008.

This is specifically a response to Mark Bauerlein’s evidence that literacy standards are dropping in our schools, due to students’ increasing reliance and use of technology.

Before we take away their laptops….

Before we take away their laptops, perhaps we need to consider Mark Bauerlien’s discussion in the light of what we are really trying to provide for our students through education.

Gen Z, born from 1995 onwards, will live, work and participate largely in a technocentric culture, which I imagine will be radically different to ours. They will need new skills and new literacies to adapt to the complex social, cultural, environmental and technological issues they will surely face as they reach adulthood.

I have often thought the same things that Mark mentions – the drop in what we call student ‘literacies’ and ‘standards’. However some research has reminded me that the term literacy, like technology, has radically changed. It has, in fact, kept abreast of technology.

“… literacy is more than just being able to read and write; it is the ability to comprehend, interpret, analyze, respond, and interact with the growing variety of complex sources of information”. This definition was written by Roger Sensenbaugh in 1990! Since then we have witnessed a proliferation of literacies: computer literacy, scientific literacy, emerging literacy, visual literacy, conceptual literacy, cultural literacy, and many more.

A current definition is offered by the Centre for Literacy in Quebec: “Literacy is a complex set of abilities needed to understand and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture – alphabets, numbers, visual icons - for personal and community development. The nature of these abilities, and the demand for them, vary from one context to another.

In a technological society, literacy extends beyond the functional skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening to include multiple literacies such as visual, media and information literacy. These new literacies focus on an individual’s capacity to use and make critical judgements about the information they encounter on a daily basis.”

Are current education systems and institutions up-to-date with the real literacies being invented by new generations of students who have grown up with digital technology? I think not.

The students I teach today are so different to the students I taught only 5 years ago. I have had to completely adapt my own teaching practice to meet the learning demands of these students. These students don’t want to read and write to learn about things. They want to experiment, practice, play and experience how things work. They want to invent their own way to decipher and deliver information, and devise their own literacies in the process.

I am convinced that Gen Z will transform our idea of what literacy means and what ‘standards’ are important in education. In fact, these young people are already rewriting and inventing new literacies as we have this discussion. This happens for many of them on their computers at home – because – at school, they are still engaging with 19th century learning practices!

The “proficiency” of Gen Z is set to challenge us. They may not “create prose that is precise, engaging, and coherent,” and may not be able to “write well enough to meet the demands” of archaic institutions. But they may well be the generation to create the revolution in education we are discussing.

As educators, we have the power now, to stretch the parameters of our own thinking and engagement with technology, to help them create a sophisticated revolution: one where technology is used in meaningful, relevant and contextual ways to sustain a lifelong process of learning, as well as support life on this planet.

Lets not draw “deeply flawed conclusions” about how the literacies of younger generations match up against our own. Rather, let us find some sense of recognition and value in the native digital language of these students, help them identify, refine and utilize multiple literacies, to help equip them for the brave new world in which they will need to survive.

The revolution, the new paradigm of technology-supported education will only be achievable and sustainable when students and the literacies they need to live, work, play and survive in the 21st century, are placed at the centre of the learning process by educators.

I recently came across this great site for both beginners and confident users of the internet. Its a website dedicated to helping you master the net and is designed to take you through the various sections at your own pace.

For those who feel intimidated by the internet, you’ll find easy-to-follow and understand how-to-topics, ranging from surfing the internet to netiquette.

For intermediate and even advanced users, you’ll find gems of information in the how-to-topics, ranging from setting up web domain names to downloading and installing plug-ins.

Just click on this link:

Learn the Net.com