Popculture Multi-Media and Library Instruction

CyberZed Shed: “Popculture Multi-Media and Library Instruction”
Nedra Peterson, Director, Library, Woodbury University

Nedra Peterson demonstrated film clips related to information literacy concepts that she uses to capture students’ attention, illustrate the concepts, and encourage discussion in a library instruction class. Film clips are good for visually oriented learners, but they also trigger emotions which stimulate brain activity, thus enhancing memory and learning. She suggests using the captioning feature so if the sound is not great, students can read the dialogue. For ACRL Standard I (organization of information), Nedra shows a clip from High Fidelity where the main character is organizing his record album collection. This humorous clip spurs discussion about the many possible ways of organizing information, and how it is important for an organization system to be useful to many users. For Standard II, a scene from The Ring shows the research process in action, including a keyword that becomes a clue to find more information, appropriate research methods, related terms. The protagonist even has to go to PRINT RESOURCES to find what she needs! For Standard I & IV, a scene from School of Rock is used to explain how research builds upon previous research, the same way musicians “sample” earlier pieces of music and build upon them (always giving credit to the original source!). Other media Nedra uses include a tv episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “I Robot – You Jane”, which questions this issue of quality control on the internet. The song American Idiot by Green Day includes the lyric “one nation controlled by the media” which can also spur discussion about evaluating sources. Nedra says she just notices these things in her normal television and movie viewing and they make for great lesson components.

Snagfilms.com

This website was just added to Librarian's Internet Index and looks like a fantastic resource! They provide streaming video of over 600 documentaries apparently for free. It seems quite legitimate and LII is supposed to put a lot of effort into their review process, as far as I know. Supersize Me is on there and some other recognizable titles, and a lot of Nova and PBS documentaries. It's http://www.snagfilms.com.

YouTube and Info Lit

There has been a lot more talk about bringing videos and other multi-media into the information literacy classroom. Here is a description of a presentation from the LOEX conference describing a lesson that starts with a news clip and has the students find additional information using the research techniques we model.

Problem Based Learning meets Web 2.0: Using a YouTube video to teach information literacy in a Problem Based Learning format
Frances A. May (University of North Texas)

Most of the available knowledge about NetGen or Millennial students indicates they are visual and kinesthetic learners, who like to work in groups. In addition, they get their information primarily from news media on the web. To capitalize on these trends, a powerful way of teaching information literacy was developed, combining Problem-Based Learning techniques with a 3-minute BBC news clip on YouTube. They were asked to list facts, define the problem, determine what other information they needed, and then shown how to find books and articles on the topic. They were then asked to propose a solution based on what they had learned. The librarian acts as a guide on the side, asking questions of the students to draw their knowledge and experience into the class, thus creating more interest and buy-in on their part. The skills thus learned are transferable. And it can be done in a 50 minute session.

The widespread lack of knowledge of media and visual literacy are limiting the ability of our students to think critically. It is a broad generalization to say that most people get their information from news broadcasts via television or web; however, it is probably an accurate observation. Therefore, incorporating visual media into an information literacy instruction session helps students of any age to be better informed citizens and more critical information consumers.

Libraries and Millenials

A recent article from LJAN discussed the popular topic of our millenial students and the expectations they bring to college. This article mentioned Richard Sweeney from NJIT who performs a lot of research on millenial students and how they view/use libraries. There is also an interview of Sweeney by Marie Radford (of Rutgers) and Robert Lackie on Marie's blog, Library Garden. Throughout the interview, Richard discusses many advances and changes academic libraries will need to make in order to best serve our incoming millenial students. It's interesting to me that this article is from 2006 and change is clearly slow in coming. I think these resources all point to changes many people are still resisting and illuminate a growing disconnect between what we wish our students would do and what they actually do. Just some food for thought.
-Megan

More fun metaphors

I love the metaphors (or similes) that instructional librarians use to get points across to our students about some of the more complex ideas. Here's another great one recently posted to the CJC-L:

On a related note, I like to tell students Academic Search Complete and Proquest Research Library are like Wal-mart and Target. They have multiple departments and there is overlap between the two but there are some items you can only buy at Wal-mart and some only carried by Target. The subject-specific databases are like the shoe stores, sports stores, bookstores, etc. you find at the mall that cater to consumers looking for a particular item. (-Christina Teasley, Savannah Technical College)

If you have any of these great metaphors, please share them. I think it makes our classes more interesting and understandable when we get away from "library-speak" and make our concepts relevant to students' "prior knowledge" (to get all pedagogical on you!). One of the first ones Julie shared with me was using "hurricane" to explain the lack of context when keywording search (i.e. the word "hurricane" could refer to a storm, a lamp, a boxer, a movie, a Bob Dylan song, an alcoholic bevarage, an NHL hockey team, etc). I still use that in English I classes (thanks Julie!!).

-Megan

-Megan