NJLA 2016 Conference Talks

Beyond the CE: Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network

We live in a constantly changing world, and this does not stop at the library doors. There are more continuing education opportunities than ever ranging from Conferences and Unconferences to web sites, blogs, podcasts and social media. Everyone's personal learning network takes a different form, and this panel representing public, school and academic libraries will explore the broad landscape of professional development opportunities for librarians.

Presenters:

• Joyce Valenza, Ph.D., Rutgers University
• Robin Rockman, Youth Services Librarian, Oradell Free Public Library
• Valerie Forrestal, Web Services Librarian, College of Staten Island
• Alyssa Valenti, Electronic Resources & Web Services Librarian, Raritan Valley Community College
• Theresa Agostinelli, Moderator

Slides: http://tinyurl.com/beyondCE

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The Cats Are Herding Us: Neko Atsume and Mobile Usability*


Neko Atsume, a popular mobile app for smart phones and tablets, was an international hit despite the fact that gameplay was originally directed entirely in Japanese. This presentation assesses the usability of this app using Jakob Nielsen's "5 Aspects of Usability," as well as research on interface design for low-literacy users, in order to point out techniques for designing user-friendly mobile applications.

*part of the NJLA Ignite: Ideas that Inspire program organized by Allen McGinley

Slides: http://bit.ly/NAandUX

On curiosity and the joy of learning

I love learning. I find it to be a truly joyous experience. I wasn't always this way though. If you ask my friends from college, they will laugh, and tell you what a miracle it is that I managed to graduate (cum laude, no less) while attending so few classes, and doing so little work. So what changed? Obviously I'd like to think I just got older and wiser, but evidence suggests otherwise. Personally, I think what happened to me was the internet.

The internet has obviously drastically changed the way we interact with information, by making so very much accessible to us, almost anytime, almost anywhere. But that, in itself, is not enough to make us *want* to seek out that information. To read it, to synthesize it into knowledge, into our world-view.

Working in the realm of education (and being a pretty much life-long student who is almost done with her third masters degree), the answer to this little riddle is of vital importance to me. I feel we're on the cusp of an educational revolution, and I want to help shape it. I want to help us storm the right castles, and march on in the right direction.

I recently read an article about Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University, where he talks about fostering a sense of curiosity in students. Let's skip over the part where he coins the term "knowledge-able", which, while cute and fitting, brings back library school nightmares of reading article after article from researchers using quirky acronyms to build their personal brand. (Just "ask" Nick Belkin about "ASK". UGH.)

Aaaaanyway, this article really struck a chord with me.

"It's just not enough anymore to know a bunch of stuff... Instead, we should be concentrating on making them truly knowledge-able. Imagination and curiosity are the heart of that idea; if we have those qualities, learning becomes joyous."

Right? RIGHT?! Many teachers fought (and still fight) the use of calculators in math classes. But others saw this as an opportunity. If students spend less time doing simple calculations (after they truly understand *how* to do them, of course), there's more time to delve into more complex problems and ideas. Graphing calculators especially, can allow for more creative and imaginative assignments, assignments that might actually grab the students attention.

So back to the internet, and why it helped me learn to love learning. Social networks have added something into the information mix, something that is vital to a lot of people: context. Instead of information existing in a void, we can now see who's reading what, and what they think of it. The information now has a personal aspect for us. And also, there's the joy of finding something on our own that we know our networks will enjoy. We like seeing our content shared by others. And it's exciting when discussions happen around that content.

I have so much more to say about this, but I think I may save that for part two, where I can get into what I think the implications of all this are for education. I have thoughts, people. Copious amounts of thoughts. I'm excited for all of us in academia. Things are about to get SO COOL.

A rant on institutional Facebook pages...

Something just set me off. It's not that rare that that happens, but it is rare that it annoys me enough to post here (not that I've abandoned this blog, I just use it mainly as a place to occasionally weigh in on topics of interest to me, not a regular publication.)

There is a hullabaloo going on at MPOW. The school has hired a firm to redesign our school logo, and put up a Facebook poll to allow students, faculty and staff to vote on the designs. I'm not going to put the pics up here, because this post is not about the redesign, the vote, or the wisdom of paying for a design firm to come in and do something you could have had your students do for next to nothing while simultaneously freezing/cutting the budget of almost every other department on campus. ::ahem:: Nope, not about that.

What it's about is this comment from the institution, posted on their Facebook wall, in response to the widely negative comments and criticism from users:

"We’re pleased to receive so much feedback – that’s why we’ve engaged you in this process. But this is a serious process, and an important institutional initiative. Please engage in your feedback in a constructive and professional manner."

This entire logo campaign is being run on Facebook. The poll is only available there (it's also flash-based and requires you to authorize an app to vote, but let's leave that alone for now...) I feel like we, as an institution, are coming into a place originally built for students, asking for their attention, asking for their patronage, asking to be allowed into their online space, and then telling them how they should interact with us there. That's not fair, imho.

If we, as institutions and companies, want to go out and "be where the users are", we have to accept that we can't always define the rules of interaction there. One of the first things I learned about online communities is that they all have their own (though often unspoken) codes of conduct. You don't get to communicate with people in what is generally an informal space, and then ask them to be formal. If you want to reach them there, you have to accept that there may be unfortunate consequences. People may be immature and unproductive. (Seriously, if you post a video on YouTube, people will say stupid and immature things about it eventually. Get over it. If you don't want to deal with that, don't use these platforms.)

Ok, I'm done ranting. For now.