ACRL-VWIG Program February 16, 2014

"Digital Citizenship, Librarians and Information Literacy"
Sunday February 16, 2014, 12-1:30pm SLT (Pacific Time)
Dr. Valerie Hill, (Valibrarian Gregg)

For this program, Valibrarian Gregg shared information about Digital Citizenship, how information literacy is changing and how each learner is responsible for learning to become good digital citizens. Val outlined the 7 elements of Information Literacy  and showed how they could be modeled for learners in a digital participatory culture.

Step 1 was to Identify ones' information needs.

Step 2 was to use critical thinking to ask what you already know.

Step 3 Learn to use many formats and search tools.

Step 4 Requires that learners question and analyze the enormous amount of information available in various media formats in order to locate and access useful information.

Step 5 involves learning how to become ethical digital citizens by learning cyber-safety, respect for intellectual property and good communication skills.

Step 6 involves providing learners with opportunities to create content through both individual and networked activities.

Step 7 requires self-assessment.  Learners must reflect on how well they did.

In a global digital culture, digital citizenship cannot be separated from information literacy.

The program ended with Val reviewing some of the ways librarians can teach Information Literacy Skills and Digital citizenship by providing users with help in: evaluating websites, learning the in's and outs of intellectual property, providing cyber-safety/privacy help and by providing content curation.

ALA Midwinter Meeting, January 25, 2014

Joint Meeting of the

ACRL Virtual Worlds Interest Group (VWIG)

and the

ALA Virtual Communities & Libraries Interest Group

at the ALA annual Midwinter Conference
 Saturday, 25 Jan 2014, 3 pm - 4 pm ET 
Philadelphia, PA.

 

 Valerie Hill (Valibrarian Greg) & other "real life" conference attendees in Philadelphia braved the snow to meet in the Jefferson Boardroom at the Loews Philadephia Hotel.  Val moderated the real life meeting in Philly. 

 Joe served as moderator for the in world meeting from within Second Life.

 

Attendees in Second Life gathered at the Virtual Communities Library meeting space.

Since June 2013, the ACRL-VWIG has put on 6 programs ranging in topics from MOOCs to Conference reports, to a workshop on avatar appearance.  At this business meeting, we reviewed the accomplishments and programs of our group during the last 6 months.

Joe created and is writing a blog for the ACRL Virtual World Interest Group this year to report on the groups' programs and activities.

Esther created a Pinterest Board in order to create a visual record of the groups activities. Members of the group have also been adding photos to the site.

Upcoming programs include a discussion of the revisions to the ACRL Information Literacy standards and a joint session with the ALA Virtual Worlds Committee on embedded librarians.

We also talked about Virtual Community Library plans for 2014, which include an exploration of libraries and librarians in other virtual worlds such as Inworldz and Kitely.

The meeting concluded with question & answer period. The attendees' in Philadelphia were very interested in knowing the kinds of activities librarians were engaged in within Second Life.

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Program, December 13, 2013

"Avatar Librarians: Fashion, Appearance and Identity in Second Life"

 

presented by:

Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond, Instructor, Monterey Peninsula College

(Zinnia Zauber in Second Life)

and

Marcia Meister, University of California, Davis

(Hyacinth Cortes in Second Life)
 

 

For this program, Marcia provided an introduction to concepts and implications of avatar appearance and it's impact on Librarian identity in Second Life.

 

 

 

She examined how stereotypes and self-image  might influence how librarians are perceived as professionals in vitural worlds. She pointed out that immersive environments aim for authentic, realistic representation and, that appearance and dress are two of the important tools librarians have of constructing identities for themselves as professionals in Second Life.  These aspects really do have an impact on relationships and interactions in virtual worlds.

 

 

 

 

Marcia provided an overview of current research on avatar appearance in virtual worlds and  highlighted the findings of a study that examined how librarians establish "professional identitys" in Second Life.  A study by Lorri Mon found that an upgraded avatar appearance was necessary to convey credibility, help create professional identity and build levels of trust while provding information services within Second Life.

 

 

The current literature suggests that one of the tools avatar librarians can use to help establish strong social networking connections and a sense of authenticity in their interactions with Second Life residents is achieved by upgrading avatar appearance.  Findings suggest that avatar appearance and dress DO help convey professional credibility to residents of virtual worlds.

 

 

  For the second part of this program, Renne Brock-Richmond highlighted activities and principals  she uses in her workshops, to help virtual world educators & librarians create authentic avatars.

 

 

Using comparisons with story elements, she demonstrated how virtual world professionals could create awareness and highlight their own identities by working on their avatar's appearance.

 

Renne's holistic approach considered everything from the mission of librarians in virtual worlds to facets one should consider when developoing one's avatar appearance.

 

 

 

The activities that participants of her workshops engage in are designed to show, that, for librarians and educators working in Second Life, ones' avatar is a visual representation of  who you are, and what you represent.  Ones' avatar becomes an expression of ones'  prefessional reputation.

 

 

 

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Program, November 17, 2013

 

 

"European Conference on Information Literacy, Oct 22-25, 2013"

Conference Report

 

presented by:

Esther Grassian, Adjunct Lecturer, UCLA Information Studies Department

&

Sheila Webber, Senior Lecturer, School of Information, Sheffield University, UK.

 For this program, Esther and Sheila presented their reports on the ECIL conference which they attended in Istanbul, Turkey at the end of October.

 

 Esther began began by providing information on the conference. There were over 350 participants from 59 countries.  Keynotes were given by Paul Zurkowski (the man who coined the phrase "information literacy") and Christine Bruce from Queensland University of Technology.

 

  

 

 Shiela provided details of the programs she attended.  She pointed out that participation from so many parts of th world, the variety of perspectives and the participation of people key to the development of IL showed the fields energy, maturity and relevance.

 

 

Esther finished by presenting more indepth info about several of the programs she had attended. These included the Keynote by Paul Zurkowski on Universal Information Literacy.

  

 

Andrew Walsh's presentation on "Game-Based learning for information literacy offered some suggestions and examples of how instructors can utilize games and play in IL instruction.

 

 

 

Esther also provided an overview of the workshop she did at the conference.  We hope to get her to provide more detailed information about this at a future ACRL-VWIG program.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who attended.  Both Esther and Sheila made their information available either via notecard or online.  Here's the link for Esther's slides: 

https://sites.google.com/site/esthergrassian/home/ecil-2013

 

 

 

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Program, October 27, 2013

 

"MOOCS and Constructivist Information Literacy"

Valerie Hill, Texas Womens University; Michelle Keba, Nova Southeastern University;

Ilene Frank, University of the People

Val, Michelle, and Ilene gave a fantastic presentation on MOOCS and Information Literacy and librarianship.

Michelle Keba (left),  Ilene Pratt (center), Valerie Hill (right)

Michelle provided a brief definition of MOOCS and outlined their development and history.  She went over the different types of MOOCs and talked about a couple of the providers such as Coursera, and edX.

Ilene went over the in's and out's of Copyright and MOOCS. Included was information on who has access to the materials and the course as well as what kinds of resources and uses are permitted.

Valerie explored what MOOCS have to offer and why libraries should be interested in them.  She presented examples of MOOCs that had virtual world components, such as the Anne Frank MOOC from Fall 2012.  In this MOOC, educators meetings were held, and assignments for participants, were presented inside Second Life.  Participants felt that this virtual worlds component made the MOOC experience a more powerful, immersive experience and a better tool for learning.

Finally, she provided examples and details of how librarians are exploring and participating in MOOCs.  These include bringing their expertise on doing content curation and selecting appropriate, scholarly resources for use in MOOCs.   The program was very well attended and a lively discussion followed.  

ACRL-Virtual Worlds Interest Group Program on September 22, 2013

"Blended Information Behavior in Second Life"

Sheila Webber

Sheffield University Information School

Sheila Webber aka as Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life presented the results of her research on Blended Information Behavior of  users of Second Life.

Using an interview format, Sheila conducted 91 one-on-one interviews of 49 educators, 21 librarians and 21 other professionals and students who were using Second Life.

Research questions focused on the information seeking behavior of people who were using Second Life and seeking information about a Second Life Activity and whether models of information behavior which have studied the real world are applicable in a virtual world.

Found that 45% of the information incidents in the study involved "information encountering", a concept identified by Erdelez in 1999.  So real life models of Information Behavior seeking, do seem to be applicable to Second Life and other virtual worlds.

This study suggested that users were exhibiting Information Literacy behaviors at a complex level to be able to find, evaluate and use information via a variety of channels.  She called this behavior "blended information behaviour" to indicate that participants were able to blend online, offline real world information in an effective manner.

Pinterest Basics for Librarians

On Sunday, August 18 2013 the ACRL VWIG presented another ACRL and Community Virtual Library's program.

This program, presented by Alexandria Knight (Esther Grassian), retired librarian from the UCLA Library provided a great introduction to Pinterest, what it is and how libraries/libraians can use it in their day-to-day work.

 

 Alexandria covered the basics, what is Pinterest, how to use it.

 

She also made comparisons to other photo sharing platforms such as Flickr.

 

 

The program was was well attended.  Over 25 librarians/educators from across the country were there to learn and share ideas. 

 

 

 

  The discussion was lively and there were many good suggestions for how libraries can and are using Pinterest to do everything from promoting library services and events, to uses for classroom instruction.

 

For the full transcript of the meeting click this link:

 

VWIG Pinterest Meeting Transcript August 18, 2013