Information Literacy in the Real World
Friday April 5th, 2013
9:00 am – 3:30 pm
San Jose State University, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
One Washington Square
San Jose, CA 95192
2013 Marked the first year that CCLI ran a poster session during the conference. To see a list of abstracts for the poster sessions that were featured, please see the Poster Session Descriptions page.
Keynote Speaker
Wikipedia and Education: Adventures in Knowledge Sharing
Rod Dunican, Global Education Program Director, Wikipedia
Over the last several years, the Wikimedia Foundation has been partnering with university professors, librarians, and teaching & learning centers to help them incorporate Wikipedia appropriately and effectively into the classroom. And we’ve learned a lot in the process. Through a series of case studies, we’ll share with you some of the challenges, successes and benefits of using Wikipedia assignments for learning. We’ll surprise you with student motivations, contributions and impact on the world. This presentation will also examine ways Wikipedia content can be used for achieving course learning objectives. We’ll look at how instructional librarians and professors are helping students critically evaluate Wikipedia articles.
Poster Sessions – New this year!
Conference attendees can attend the Poster Sessions during a scheduled break, or browse the posters during the conference.
Breakout Sessions
Learning Curve: How College Graduates Solve Information Problems in the Workplace
Michele Van Hoeck, Project Information Literacy
When it comes to finding and using information in the 21st century workplace, what are the expectations and challenges faced by recent college graduates? What do employers look for and how well do new employees perform? Project Information Literacy asked these questions during interviews and focus groups with employers and recent graduates for their 2012 “Day after Graduation” study. Just how relevant are research assignments and information literacy instruction to a non-academic workplace? You may be surprised by what we heard. This presentation will describe the findings of the “Day after Graduation” study. Michele will also discuss opportunities for instruction librarians to make connections between academics and our students’ first jobs.
Search Education and Connecting Users to Your Content
Julian Prentice, Search Quality Analyst, Google
Knowing how to find answers on Google is an important skill in today’s digital age. This talk will cover Google’s search education initiatives which aim to help users find the information they need. Julian will also discuss how search engines work and how to better connect your patrons with the content you want them to find.
Sharing Our Craft of Teaching: Articulating Intention and Reflecting Upon Action through Collaborative Peer Conversation
Dale Vidmar, Information Literacy and Instruction Librarian, Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library
There are obvious benefits to sharing ideas and observations about teaching, but colleagues rarely have the opportunity to engage in collaborative conversations. More often, they are observed and evaluated as a part of an infrequent summative process used for promotion and tenure. Collaborative peer conversation is a formative assessment process that happens regularly and frequently to enhance the personal craft of teaching. By engaging in structured conversations with a colleague, the teachingpractice is transformed into a personal textbook. This workshop actively demonstrates collaborative peer conversation—a process by which colleagues articulate intentions then reflect upon the actual experience afterward. Simple, direct, and meaningful is the best description of this process to encompass intentional and reflective conversations amongst colleagues. After a short description of the process and theory behind the process, attendees will have ample opportunity to practice both planning and reflective collaborative conversations with the intent of discovering something about themselves and their teaching. We may learn by doing, but we enhance learning by reflecting upon what we do.
Information Literacy as a Soft Skill for Professional Success
Michael Germano, Business, Law and Economics Librarian, Adjunct Professor of Marketing, California State University, Los Angeles
Success in today’s highly competitive workplace requires the right mix of technical and soft skills. While technical skills can come from a variety of places including study in the major, work experience and internships, soft skills aren’t necessarily acquired in a specific program of study or a readily identifiable professional context. Unfortunately, this leads to confusion from students regarding the identification, importance and application of soft skills, especially in future work environments. Compounding the problem is the reality that employers increasingly expect students to arrive their first day on the job armed with an arsenal of soft skills including the ability to think critically, read effectively, solve complex problems and act ethically. Librarians are in a unique position to influence some of the most important soft skills demanded by employers since information literacy, a soft skill itself, also encompasses other soft skills like analysis, literacies, critical thinking and evidence based problem solving. The following session will look at the presenter’s own experience creating and teaching three new credit bearing courses in information literacy for professional environments that were significantly influenced by his previous professional experience as manager for a large Fortune 10 media company.
Critical Information Literacy: Bringing the Real World into Library Instruction
Gretchen Keer, Online Learning & Outreach Librarian, California State University East Bay
This session flips the conversation about information literacy in the real world by exploring the ways in which the “real world” is already present in the classroom. We will examine how theories related to critical pedagogy can be applied in library instruction to enhance the learning/teaching experience for everyone involved. Questions we will consider include: How do we turn an “inappropriate” topic into a learning moment? How do we create an inclusive classroom environment during a one-shot? How can we (and why should we) diffuse the teacher/student hierarchy in library instruction? This session will also include definitions and a brief survey of critical information literacy concepts.