Library Voice

I’ve been doing an evaluation exercise with many of my English 151 classes for the last couple of years.  It works pretty well, and I’ve had several instructors request that I repeat it again for their future classes.  Many of my colleagues have been asked about this exercise, so I thought I would put it down it writing.

First, a little background on our English 151 library sessions.  We generally get to see each section of English 151 for a 2-3 hour period, usually during the middle of the 10-week quarter.  We teach them how to use the online catalog, how to search for articles, a little about navigating our website, and usually a little about evaluation.  The English classes are our best bet in getting most of the first-year students familiar with the library.  Many students won’t ever have another library instruction session in their college career, but rather than try to teach them everything they could possibly know about the library, we try to address more general themes.  One of those themes is evaluating sources, and we all tend to teach this a little differently.  Here is one of the more successful exercises that I use to teach evaluation.  If you have any questions or if anything isn’t clear, please post a comment and I’ll try to answer as best as I can.

The Exercise

1.  I play the following YouTube video for the class. It takes about seven minutes.

2.  While the video is playing, I take notes on a whiteboard at the front of the class.  Basically I am writing down things the people say in the video that really stick out at me, things that I might want to question.  If you listen to the video, you’ll get the idea of the type of things that might raise a flag.

Notes on the whiteboard

3.  After the video is over, I ask the class what they thought of the video, and this usually generates some conversation.  If no one talks, I’ve got the notes on the whiteboard at the front of the class.  I’ll mention thinks like the “Luke Skywalker meets…..” comment, or ask them about what things the panel may have said that may cause them to be less credible.   I also ask them about the supposed “expert” on the panel, and ask what makes her credible.

4.  With the expert, I like to point out that she had not played the game that she was criticizing at all.  I also mention that the anchorwoman did not allow the real expert, the game journalist, to speak much at all.  We then talk about all the other panelists, and discuss what gives them the authority to talk about the game.  As an example, the anchorwoman “went on the internet” to do research, one panelist questioned “what happened to the days of Atari and PacMan” and that she felt “old”, and another panelist compared games to Playboy Magazine.

5.  In examining the clip, I like to specifically focus on one of the expert’s points about game statistics.  She alleges that teenagers are the majority of game players.  However, if you check the Entertainment Software Association’s website, you’ll see that the average gamer is actually 35 years old.  The expert also mentions a “new study out of the University of Maryland,” but I try to point out that there are numerous studies about video games, and nearly all of them contradict each other.  If you want to find a study that says video games make you kill people, then you can find that pretty easily.  If you want to find a study that says video games will make you smarter and a better team player, entire books have been written on those topics as well.  The point is to look critically at these studies and find other information that strengthens and weakens the argument.

6.  I then point to this blog post on Joystiq about the Fox News/Mass Effect controversy.  I explain to them what happened in a nutshell.  First, Fox News aired the video shown above, then someone (most likely an angry gamer) copied the video and uploaded it to YouTube.  (FYI, more than one video was posted). Next, multiple gaming blogs embedded the video(s) on their pages, whereby millions of gamers saw the video and became enraged.  Not content to just sit on their hands, many of these gamers went to Amazon.com and rated the expert’s book (which happened to be promoted during the video segment on Fox).  Amazon actually removed over 400 negative reviews of the book, but most of them said something like  <paraphrase>”after never actually reading the book, I can tell you that this book is an utter piece of garbage and the author has no idea what she is talking about.”  I can say this because, since I haven’t read the book, I am still an authority on the subject.”</paraphrase>   The expert later apologized publicly via the New York Times, but I don’t think Fox News ever ran a retraction of the story.

7.  The entire exercise, including watching the video and discussion, generally takes no longer than 15 minutes.  More than 15 minutes, and I find myself belaboring the point too much and their minds start to drift.  If you use this, try to keep it fresh and lively, engage the students for a few minutes, then move on to the next thing on your agenda.  I usually do the exercise after they we have had time for hands-on work and they have found a few articles or books.  It’s a good way to bring the class focus back together after the hands-on individual activities.

So what’s the point?

The point of the exercise is to demonstrate to the students that evaluation of information goes beyond  telling the difference between popular and  scholarly articles.  This exercise shows them that they should look at things critically, regardless of whether they are doing academic research, watching the news, buying a new camera, or trying to decide which movie to go see.  Even in real life outside of academia, we are required to make choices about the information that we ingest and digest.  Even when information is fed to us via Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, our professors, or our mothers,  it’s important to understand and look for bias and misinformation.  I get better with the exercise the more I do it, and by the conversation it starts with the students, I believe it really is effective at making my point.

I hope that this is useful to someone and that if people use it, they’ll make it better.  If you try it and it works, please let me know.  I’d love to hear what worked, what didn’t, and what changes you made to make the exercise better.

I’m also curious what other librarians and teachers are doing, as I’m always looking for new ways to be more effective in the classroom.  Have you seen something that really worked, or have you tried something that really made the point of evaluation clear to the students?  If so, I’d love to hear about it.

Over the past couple of months I have received numerous calls about the Biz Wiki.  The callers,  emailers, and IMers all have something in common:  they all own a business or work at a business whose name or contact information is incorrect on the Biz Wiki.  I even got a call recently from some lady in Mississippi who kept getting calls at her home  because people thought she was in the recycling business.  All of these people said they got their information from the Biz Wiki.  Actually, the did get their information from a biz wiki, but it was not The Biz Wiki.  I don’t have information about individual companies in the Biz Wiki, as it is a site meant to promote useful business research sources.  The other wiki is a collection of company names, addresses, and other information.   (I’m not going to link to the other wiki here out of spite, as I don’t want to increase it’s page rankings.   Google it if you want to see it. The address has something like bizwiki and .com in it.   )  While the idea of using a wiki as a company directory is a good one, it’s not so good if a lot of the content is just plain wrong.  Wrong information is irritating, as are the frequent phone calls requesting that I fix the inaccuracies.   Folks are even more irritated when I very politely tell them they’ve got the wrong wiki, but a little visual literacy could have saved them a phone call.

If we compare the two sites, they are not very similar at all, save for the words “biz” and “wiki.” I seriously wish I had trademarked the name.

The cheap Biz Wiki knockoff

The original Biz Wiki

Folks are likely finding me by searching for Biz Wiki, and then they see a guy named “Chad” with lots of different ways to contact him.  They’re good at Googling, or so they think, and they think they’ve found the root of all the misinformation about their company.  Unfortunately, their sleuthing isn’t good enough, as somehow they can’t figure out that the two sites (see screenshots above) are not similar at all.  A quick look at the two sites ought to alert them that something is different with my contact information page and the other web site.  A simple look at the address bar would tell folks that the sites are in two different locations, but perhaps they don’t know to look in the address bar.    The people are kind of miffed when I p0litely tell them that I’m not the guy responsible for that site and I cannot correct the information there.  Many of them ask who I should contact, but the contact information of the other site is very sparse (a email form with no contact info whatsoever).

These are basic skills that librarians teach in information literacy and library instruction sessions.  We teach our students how to look for authority in a website, how to look at the address (edu, gov, org, com, etc.) , look for the author information, and even to look at the design.  Hopefully the things we’re teaching them are sticking, so they’ll be a bit more saavy consumers of web information.  While the phone calls and email about the other biz wiki are a bit annoying,  they do lend evidence to the fact that librarians are still important in the education process.  My theory is that the folks who called me never had a library instruction class in college, or perhaps they’re the one’s who didn’t listen very well.  I know I’ll be a bit more deliberate in my libray instruction sessions from now on, and hopefully I’ll save some poor chap some phone calls down the road.

This week I had the pleasure of finishing Syphon Filter:  Logan’s Shadow on my PSP.  I’ve had the game about a month, and with off-and-on play times, I was able to finish it relatively quickly.  It generally takes me forever to finish games, but the game had a pretty good story that I wanted to see through to the end.   A couple of days after the fact, I’m very pleased to have finished the game, and am longing for the next chapter of the game.  This is my second Syphon Filter game that I’ve completed on the PSP.  I’m already looking forward to the gameplay of the next Syphon Filter game, but I also want to see where the story goes next.   While ultimately fulfilled with the game and its challenges, I longed for a deeper understanding of the characters, their histories, and their futures.

My buddy Paul Waelchli writes extensively about the game’s narrative and how he was initially looking for more in the game’s story.   He and I agreed that there was a lot lacking in the story compared to previous Syphon Filter titles.  However, after investigating the game further, as any good gamer should, he discovered that much more of the game’s story was revealed in the hidden evidence files that he collected throughout the game.   Ultimately, after reading the hidden files, he’s come away from the game completely satisfied with the game’s resolution.  After reading his post, I’m looking forward to going home tonight and reading the hidden files myself so I, too, can dig a bit deeper into the story.

After some reflection, I’ve wondered why the game designers didn’t just put the entire narrative out there so that everyone could see it.  The answer to this relies in one of the core fundamentals of gameplay.  Playing games is all about choice. While Syphon Filter is a fairly linear game, the player can choose to play the game however he wants to.  He can fly through the levels, blasting everyone in his path and causing a huge ruckus, or he can try to sneak around and use stealth to complete a mission. The player can take time to explore every nook and cranny in the game to uncover hidden evidence files and other secrets, or he can simply stick to the well-defined path.  The player can choose which weapons to use and how to use them.  There are even incentives built into the game that encourage the player to play the game in different ways.  For example, as a player I get medals (which unlock more guns and other goodies) for using my knife more, for using the environment more, for using my sniper rifle more, and for simply surviving a level.  Basically the game rewards players for playing how they are most comfortable, while offering incentives to play the game in an entirely different way.  By offering the hidden evidence (which unlocks more story elements) and the medals (which unlocks more guns and additional game content), the game designers are encouraging gamers to not only play how they are comfortable, but to test themselves with new ways of play.   The player is rewarded for trying something new, for stepping outside of his comfort zone.

What’s important here is that the game didn’t force any of this down our throats.  As players in the game, Paul and I could choose how we wanted to play. We both finished the game within a day of each other, and we both really enjoyed our experiences.  However, we both likely played the game in very different ways.  He may have opted to use his knife more, I might have chosen to use my tazer gun more.  Nevertheless, after finishing the game, we both reached the same conclusion.  Also, since the game encourages replay with all of the unlockable content, we’re both very likely to return to the game in the future and try to play the game in differnt way (harder difficulties, with different weapons, more exploration, etc) in order to unlock more content.  We were rewarded for our mastery of the game,  the game will continue to reward us when we master the game at a new level.

So how can I take what I have learned about this game and about myself and apply it to my daily life as a librarian?  Here are a few initial thoughts:

1.  Recognize that research is a game.  The goal may be a dissertation, an address of a long-lost-friend, or a statistic for a speech.  Trial and error helps the researcher unlock the information that they need, and each researcher may approach the process differently.

2.  Recognize the need of the patron.  Like the game, we need to realize that not every single researcher wants spend enormous time to unlock every single nugget of content.  Sometimes they just want three articles.  And that’s it.

3.  Wait for users to drive the research process.  If after showing the patron how to find three articles, and he asks “how do I know which one is good?”, then you can show him how to evaluate the resources.  We should not expect that all users will want to master research in the same way.  Just like the example from Syphon Filter, if they are left wanting more, they’ll let you know if they need more hidden evidence.

4. Understand that it takes time to hold the controller correctly.  When I first picked up a PlayStation controller, it took me forever to figure out where all the buttons were.  For each game, the buttons are assigned to different purposes.  However, gamers eventually figure out which buttons do what.  Likewise, we need to understand that each interface (Google, OPAC, Ebsco, etc) are likely to have the same buttons, but perhaps slightly different functions.

5.  Encourage mastery.  This may be as simple as saying, “If you need more help or get stuck, come back and see me.”  As librarians, we hold the key to unlockable content that can help complete the researcher’s story.  It’s our job to let them know we are available to be their guide.

I’ve been working a lot lately about how to incorporate some to the concepts of video games into new and existing library services and resources.  I’ve written before about how games make you learn by doing, and I’ve pointed to how specific games teach the player how to play the game.  I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading on the topic of learning and video games, which has helped me to look at playing games in a different way.  While I’m playing a game, I’ve been looking at how the game teaches me to play, how it encourages me to master the skills, how it keeps me engaged, and how it keeps me coming back for more.  As a librarian, I’ve begun trying to see how the things that make a game an engaging learning experience can be applied to some of the things that we do in the library.  Do we need a library video game on research or plagiarism?  Is that sort of thing scalable?  If we build it, who might play it?  Or should we just try to incorporate gaming concepts into things we are already doing—-teaching, library websites, catalogs, online tutorials?

Paul at Research Quest has been working with these ideas as well.  He and I had a pretty good conversation via IM last week where we discussed these ideas.  Paul and I truly believe that librarians can create engaging educational experiences based upon video games, and perhaps even game-based learning experiences as well.  These projects can be extremely time and resource intensive, so it only make sense to start small.  Paul sums this up nicely when he writes:

But I can’t overlook the small successes. Incorporating video
game strategies into our traditional instruction is beneficial and improves our
teaching. While I’m starting to discuss and play around with developing and
modding, I’m currently working on converting the content from a traditional
power point slideshow into an open ended, branching path review.

Video game strategies work to engage our students in
educational experiences both in the long term and the short term. As an
educator, we can start big or small. But the reactions from those who are
discouraged after starting big, suggest that small successes will be more
successful in building the political capital required for the bigger gaming
projects in our libraries.

Can we do it? Yes we can! And we should.

Here’s some articles/resources that might be of interest to some:

• Seven Things You Should Know About YouTube
• Seven Things You Should Know About Facebook
• Are College Students Techno Idiots?
• Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values
• Are Video Games Evil?
• New Media and Learning in the 21st Century
• Games in Higher Ed: When Halo 2, Civilization IV, and Xbox 360 Come to Campus
• EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, Volume 29, Number 3, 2006
• Games and Learning
• Serious Games: Incorporating Video Games in the Classroom
• Simulations, Games, and Learning

These resources and more can be found in the Information Literacy and Fluency  and Games and Gaming categories in the Educause Resource Center. 

This is sweet! Librarycasting SE: Screencasts, podcasts, tutorials and titles for the sciences and engineering.

Librarycasting SE is a compilation of selected educational and information resources for the sciences and engineering, with a strong emphasis on new media and communication formats such as screencasts (pc screen video), video, and podcasts (audio). Resources covered include those produced at Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, the VCU campus community, and the extended sciences and engineering world community beyond.

A major goal of Librarycasting SE is to make available a range of brief screencast and podcast tutorials answering specific questions, and demonstrating specific techniques, relevant to the sciences and engineering. Conveniently access these resources at any time from your Firefox browser bookmarks or RSS aggregator, through the subject-specific, automatically updated RSS feeds provided at this site. These tutorials are in constant production at VCU Libraries, and your suggestions for new tutorials in this format are always welcomed!

Pete Kirlew, Ph.D., MLIS
Reference Librarian for the Sciences and Engineering
VCU Libraries

This truly is awesome, Pete. This serves as a great model for other subject specialists. It’s a blog, it’s a podcast, it’s a screencast. No, it’s super-duper subject librarian outreach!!! Fantastic! Makes me want to go out and make some screencasts of business databases. Thanks for the inspiration, Pete.  You’ve got me thinking of new ways to expand my Business Blog.
Link via Library Marketing.

TangognaT has a great post about information literacy and faculty collaboration.

She makes several excellent points about the collaborative process:

if collaboration is bringing a class in for a library session when the students have a research assignment, I think faculty are open to that. I think that in general it might take something extra for someone to get to the stage where they think of sharing more information with the librarian as part of a discussion or consulting with the librarian about assignment design.

In my experience, a faculty member creates the assignment or project, and then asks me to give a library instruction session to the students. I am generally asked to help the students learn about finding the necessary information to complete the project. Usually I have to teach about using appropriate databases, reference books, and some search skills. The problem with this approach is that it is very resource driven. Because what I teach is often just pertinent to that one project, the skills that students learn do not necessarily transfer to future assignments. It is often very tough to squeeze in concepts of information literacy during the typical 50 minute class session. Generally, I try to talk a little about evaluation and quality during the 50 minutes, and try to make the best out of the time that I am given.

Most of my instruction is very subject-specific, as I am the business subject specialist for our library. What I am finding is that a lot more of the learning occurs outside of the library classroom. A few days after I deliver an instructional session, the students start contacting me for additional help. This works great for the students and for me. They get the intimate attention that they need, and I get the opportunity to really dig into the resources with them, while also sneaking in some good ‘ole information literacy. I also get a chance to observe what problems they are having with the assignment, as well as see what resources they find the most useful (and the easiest to use). This interaction often keeps me quite busy, as I don’t require any office hours or appointments. Appointments are nice if it is going to be a really in-depth reference session, but generally students just come to the library and ask if I am available.

One thing that I have struggled with is the fact that while I get to help students with their learning, I never get a chance to see the finished product. The application, or how one uses information, is one of the key components of information literacy. By seeing the outcome of their work, one can see how students applied the information to the project. I told a faculty member about this last quarter, and he told me that he and his colleagues would try to do better to include me in the final presentations. I actually got invited to a few last quarter, but was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts. I hope to try to get my foot in the door again, as seeing the final project may help to understand how students are using (or misusing) the information.

The level of instructional collaboration can vary with each school, department, curriculum, or professor. Some departments and faculty members are not very open to collaboration in the classroom, while others are quite proactive in initiating library instruction opportunities. I think it is important to start with a small group of folks who are enthusiastic about library instruction and information literacy. Word of the success of these initial partnerships will spread to others, and library instruction business will increase. It’s important not to get frustrated, as these relationships often take quite a long time to develop. As a librarian, it is essential to try to understand the academic culture, not attempt to change it. With each small success and new relationship, you will have the more opportunities in establishing new (or improving) instructional opportunities for information literacy.

LibraryInstruction.com has a wealth of resources about information literacy and library instruction.

This site contains library instruction lesson plans, articles about library instruction, a large library instruction bibliography, and links to library instruction resources. This site also includes material relating to information literacy.

The Lesson Plans section of the site appears to be really interesting, and could provide some good ideas for those whose teaching methods are stuck in a rut. One of the more creative lesson plans uses a Gin & Tonic analogy to teach boolean searching. The site’s author, Michael Lorenzen ecourages others to send him ideas to post as he explains, “This site will work best if others contribute.” If I come across any good ideas, I’ll be sure to send them Michael’s way.