Getting the Word Out

Some days I have to look for the inspiration... particularly long about the end of February. But I usually manage to find it. My uplifting March moment came this year when I was asked to work with Glynis Asu, the Coordinator of Information Literacy at Hamilton College, to do a workshop on informed learning for some of the librarians at Hamilton and a few visitors. The workshop, based on the one Hilary Hughes did at Colgate, will focus on the 6 frames model for understanding different pedagogic approaches and how to leverage them to enable students to learn to use information as well as subject content. I am very excited at the idea of planting more informed learning seeds out in the world and see what comes of that. Much to be gained for learners I think!

As of Today I am Renaming This Blog!

Ah, I got it. I started this blog when I started my doctoral studies and then promptly realized that I wasn't ready to share a lot about my initial journey at that point. Too much new thinking to do. Yeah, yeah, maybe that is a reflection of leftover 20th century ways of going about things. Anyways, hence I did not produce too many blog entries. But now I think I have found the path and thus plan to communicate in this forum more regularly having now figured out what it is I want to talk about and discuss.

My journey of researching information literacy has led me to focus both my research and practice on "informed learning," which you will remember from an earlier post is a theoretical construct identified by Christine Bruce (2008). At the heart, informed learning is a pedagogy that emphasizes teaching in ways that enable students to learn how to use information while learning the subject. I believe the pedagogic ideas inherent in informed learning are key to developing learners capable of successfully navigating the evolving information environment.

I can already hear colleagues saying, well what about other emerging theories, such as transliteracy. I have been listening on the fringes of late to the conversation about the implications of transliteracy to information literacy. For my part, I think transliteracy extends the concepts underpinning information literacy very nicely and the two fit together quite well. I think the same is true of transliteracy and informed learning - one big happy family of theories for understanding the complexities we live with and need to work out daily. But lets save going deeper with this discussion for another entry.

Onward!

Bruce, C. (2008). Informed learning. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Nercomp Special Interest Group on Library/IT Collaboration

I recently worked with three colleagues (Janet Simons & Glynis Asu from Hamilton College & Alex Wirth-Cauchon from Mount Holyoke College) to put together a Nercomp (Northeast Regional Computing Program) Special Interest Group session on library/IT collaboration in future support of learning and scholarship. Because of Hilary Hughes' wonderful workshop (see Nov 7, 2010 post) at Colgate, we decided to start off our day-long workshop by introducing informed learned and in particular the six frames of informed learning. The six frames describes different approaches to teaching and their implications for using information to learn. As a group, the organizers & the 60+ attendees discussed each approach, e.g., content frame, personal relevance frame, etc., & also speculated about the implication for using technology to learn. Pretty neat really! The rest of the day, led by Janet and Alex, was devoted to imagining future assignments and scholarship and exploring aspects of collaboration to support these endeavors.

More information and our PPT slides are available on the Nercomp event site:

Seeing 2020: Exploring the Future of IT/Library Collaborative Academic Support

For information about the six frames, see this 2006 article in Italics by Bruce, Edwards & Lupton.

Image adapted from Microsoft Office Clip Art 2007.