Resources for Getting Started With Instructional Design
Just getting started on your instructional design journey on the path to becoming a Blended Librarian? Then take some time to explore the ideas and resources in this instructional designer "starter pack".Do Faculty Attitudes Toward Digital Content Impact OER Adoption?
Faculty respond to a survey about their openness to using digital learning materials and OER. The majority of faculty appear to recognize the value of digital content but are still reluctant to use it as instructional material.Open Textbooks For Blended Librarians
Blended Librarians should rightly be promoting the adoption of OER and open textbooks at their institutions. What about our own instruction? Where are the open textbooks we'd want to use? This post points to two open textbooks that give Blended Librarians new options for pointing students (and their faculty) to an open resource.Beyond Instructional Designer to Learning Experience Designer
Learning Experience Designer (or LX Designer) is still quite rare a job position in higher education. It's a blend of instructional designer and user experience design. But what exactly does an LX Designer do? A job description and EdSurge article may shed some light on that question.From “Design Thinking to Design Knowing” Webcast – Recording and References
Check out the recording of our webcast with Rachel Ivy Clarke on rethinking librarianship as a design profession. This post includes references on design and design thinking provided by Clarke.Knowing and Recommending Edtech Tools (even when you might not use them)
Do you like discovering and learning about new edtech tools? This column shares a few new ones - or at least new to this blogger. Should librarian-educators stick to the edtech they can use - or should they learn about the ones that might be useful to non-library faculty?Does It Work: Five Checks for Efficacy
What's your method for determining if any particular edtech is likely to help you and colleagues achieve desired outcomes. Here are some ideas for a more methodical approach to determining the efficacy of educational technology.Going With Gamification or Giving Up?
Are you having success with gamification at your library, perhaps in conjunction with instruction activity or the curation of learning activity? Or did you try it and give up in frustration. According to some experts, we are still trying to figure out whether gamification lives up to the hype.Dealing With Digitally Distracted Students
Student distraction is a significant problem. Well, a problem perhaps for the librarian-educator. Not so much for the students who have some interesting opinions about their use of the devices that lead to distraction. A new study sheds some light on the degree to which electronic distraction is happening, and it may encourage Blended Librarians to consider how to use their skills to keep students focused on learning, participating, discussing, and achieving engagement with the class.Remembering BLAAM – Librarians and Instructional Design
Most of you probably don't remember BLAAM - a modification to ADDIE introduced by John Shank and Steven Bell in their 2007 book Academic Librarianship by Design. A CFP for a new book on instructional design in libraries demonstrates that librarians remain enthusiastic about the integration of instructional design into the practice of librarianship.Exploring New Pedagogies (Even Futuristic Ones)
Are you looking for new forms of pedagogy that might change the way you deliver this instruction? This new study identifies ten new pedagogies and offers examples of how they are being used - or could be used in the future - by educators.Faculty Affirm Ed Tech Funds Are Well Spent
Higher education institutions invest significant funds on educational technology. From learning management systems to the latest generation of wireless projectors and personal response systems, there is a demand to keep up with the latest tools to support learning. But if faculty fail to use these technologies or don't believe they can actually make a difference, then the investment is likely going to waste. Here's what a new survey has to say about that.Handy Learning Theories Chart
Can you remember dozens of different learning theories? Who could? This post shares a link to an interactive learning theories map that will serve as a good pedagogical resource.More On The EdTech Surge
Sharing news about two new things. First, a resource for keeping up with the EdTech Surge and second, announcing a new award for librarians doing innovative work with educational technology.The Learning Styles Debate Continues
Do you believe in the validity of learning styles? Even if the scientific evidence doesn't necessarily support them there may still be value in keeping in mind the need to mix up instructional approaches in the classroom. Learning styles are not without some degree of controversy and the debate continues.When Digital Becomes the Norm
Whether we talk about digital libraries or digital humanities, it must only be a matter of time until the digital is so fully developed and firmly embedded in practice that it will seem redundant to keep prefacing our professions and disciplines with the "digital" qualifier. What about Blended Librarianship? Does it still make sense in a digital world?That Other Reason Students Spend Less On Course Material
There has been some debate about how much college students are spending annually on textbooks. What is less debatable is the continued rising costs of textbooks. Academic librarians are playing role in the changing dynamics of student spending for textbooks.Tech Gadgets Emerging As Next-Gen Instructional Technology
When it comes to instructional technology our thinking tends to focus primarily on how we integrate software into the learning process. A new generation of tech gadgets suggests that Blended Librarians should be paying as much attention to hardware as they do to software.Sharing EdTech Stories
Looking for some new ideas to promote on your campus or library for innovative uses of educational technology. The Office of Educational Technology may have just the thing for you.Librarians and Teachers: Not Exactly Eye-to-Eye on Data Privacy
How should academic librarians respond when administrators request data on student use of research products, attendance at instruction sessions or number of books borrowed? What about K-12 educators? They and their schools collect considerable amounts of student data. Perhaps a conversation about big data and student privacy is the next fertile area for discussing common interests and having a united front on privacy policies for student data.The Last Overhead Projector
Reading that the University of Colorado Boulder was eliminating the last of its overhead projectors got me thinking about the last time I used one and whether learning is about the technology - however outdated it may be - or the way instructors apply it in the classroom.Designing Videos That Really Engage
What are the qualities that make a video go viral? No one expects every library video to go viral, but some new research sheds provides some insight into the one element that may help make any video better.Are We Becoming Information Literacy Designers?
The title alone gives a big clue that the future of information literacy is inexorably connected to how we as librarians design and integrate our instructional efforts into our curriculum, programs, and instructional sessions/workshops. Check out this interview with Carrie Donovan to learn more about why design matters.Blended Librarianship Makes Sense Now
Here is a must read article from past Blended Librarians Community webcast presenter, Amanda Hovious, on why librarians need instructional design and technology skills. It's all about facilitating learning within our organizations.Discovering New and Not-So-New EdTech Blogs
You know how it feels when you come across a resource that you think you should know about but that you clearly never knew about. How it is possible that you missed it? What's your go to resource for keeping up with EdTech?Get Ready For the Tablet Learners
Tomorrow I expect we will see many more students with tablets and readers. That, I believe, will be driven by BYOD initiatives in K-12 where tablets and readers - and even inexpensive chromebooks - are increasingly deployed for mass distribution of personal computing technology. What does this mean for academic librarians?Blaming EdTech for Failures It Can’t Solve
What's your reaction when you read a new article that questions whether educational technology really has any value for learning? Here's how I reacted to a essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education that claimed that technology was never going to fix what's wrong with education.Teachers and Students Rate EdTech Products
It never hurts to know more about the types of technology tools and products that are familiar to our user communities. Not only can it inform us about resources that could be potentially helpful to us in our work as blended librarians, but it tells us a bit about our users' preferences for educational technology or other web-based productivity tools.Hovious Shares Perspective on Future Librarianship at Spring BL Webcast
On Thursday April 10, 2014 over 200 attendees joined together for a thoughtful and educational webcast on The Future of Librarianship: A Blended Perspective by Amanda Hovious. Hovious shared how she moved from a career in librarianship to her active pursuit of a masters degree in instructional design and technology. One of her sources of inspiration for deciding to shift the direction of her career was Bell and Shankâs 2004 article on Blended Librarianship. (Click the title above to see the entire description and access the recording.) [addthis_shortcode_tool]The Future of Librarianship: A Blended Perspective
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014 from 3:00-4:00pm EasternThe library profession is in the midst of a paradigm shift, thanks to technology and its impact on literacy and learning. With it have come new leadership roles for librarians, roles that require knowledge and skills not traditionally taught in library school programs. Blended librarianship is one way to embrace these new roles. Join Amanda Hovious as she discusses her journey toward becoming blended, and her perspective on what librarianship will look like in the (not too distant) future.