BUBBL.us….the neat brainstorming tool!

space travel: a keyword brainstorming chart

I have been looking for tools that would easily help students brainstorm key words and ideas as they begin their research (though their is no quick-fix, easy way to do this!). I work with undergraduates, and have had success using tools like WORDLE and other tagging tools to “teach” research. As instructors, we know a huge obstacle is conveying the importance of experimentation and creativity with keywords in order to help students (re)shape their inquiries. Students will often do one–maybe two searches–and then give up after locating little useful information. Add to that the constraints of time, bad traditions, and curricular limitations and no one librarian gets much more than 50 to 75 minutes with a group of students. Were we given more time, and were we stronger collaborators with other teachers, we would be able to spend an entire 50 minute session on KEY WORD activities.

A worthwhile keyword searching activity utilizing BUBBL.US might look like this:

1. Students get into groups or work individually
2. Students brainstorm key words that represent each concept within their research inquiries
3. Students use tools like Bubble.us to create a word web or map for their topics
4. Students test key words in catalogs and search interfaces
5. Students adjust their webs to include key words and subject headings found during the 50 minute session
6. Students re-test their searches with newfound terminology
7. Students record the results of their findings and document their most effective search strategies

**A completed key word brainstorm chart may look like THIS

At the end of this type of class, students would have a solid understanding of how to be creative, patient, and inquisitive when doing research. If more instructors and librarians would be open to spending time in the classroom this way–instead of repeating the old worthless demo–students would be well equipped to tackle research. Boolean operators, truncation–basically all of the “skill sets” that dominate information literacy sessions–would come later. Those are little details–things that students can learn after they have hands-on experience with articulating an inquiry, locating precise language, testing search terminology, and re-evaluating their initial inquiries. “Big Picture” instruction is something we can and should be pushing for; but it’s certainly difficult to break bad habits.

Using Myspace and Facebook to teach critical evaluation: Going beyond “strict protocol”

Ok. I read this article by dana boyd, and it has certainly stuck with me. I’ll get to how and why it sticks with me in a little bit. The other day, however, when I was teaching library research skills in a lower-division Communications Class, something really wonderful and curious happened: students were talking, laughing, arguing, and questioning. And it was because I proposed some of the ideas boyd thinks about to the students in these particular classes.

In previous classes, I have been expected to “follow prototcol” which illustrates the dehumanized vision some people have of education. Really, I’ve been taking personal steps to reject this language (“following strict protocol”)altogether when talking about education and to abandon the practices that promulgate more of the same mind-numbing crap students have experienced since highschool or before.

Anyway, students were discussing evaluation criteria as it applied in two articles–a popular one and a scholarly one. (Something I would hate to pose (as I am instructed to) as dichotomous in the classroom because the boundaries are certainly blurred!!!) As students began noticing that there were images and ads in the articles and websites they were evaluating, I asked: how many of you have Myspace pages?? Only about 2 admitted to it, and there may have been more. The rest all had Facebook pages and talked about Facebook like it was the master and conquerer of all social networking sites.  I asked students to describe why they liked Facebook better than Myspace. Their answers?: clean, professional, secure. When asked why they didn’t like Myspace, could you guess what these students said?: dirty, juvenile, and nappy. Yes, nappy–often used among young whites as an insult or to insinuate that someone is dirty.The negative connotations of nappy, however, appear to be white, middleclass constructions that do NOT survive outside of that demographic.

The important part? Students started to look at questions of identity, social constructions, language….FINALLY! In a class where I am supposed to “follow strict protocol” and where education (if it is what humanizes and liberates) rarely takes place, students were actively engaged in reflection and talking about real issues that affect their lives . And we got to talk about it the context of Facebook and Myspace, and they loved it.

And it really got me thinking: how often does education actually challenge students to approach master narratives with a critical eye, to call into questions systems of dominion and oppression, to humanize?

Writing with Youtube: a Rambling Response to a Recent Blog Post

A recent post by Peter Godwin asks “Is Youtube the Next Google?” As a librarian-teacher, and as a regular user of Youtube (content-creator not implied here) I realize that I consult Youtube videos to supplement the print texts that shape my (perceptions of) reality. I do this constantly and obsessively. Along with millions of others,  I actually construct and draw knowledge from interviews, news broadcasts, and user-generated video content. Subsequently, I view it as not only legitimate, but even as essential and authoritative, if I am to construct an opinion or world-view that takes multiple perspectives into consideration.

That said, it is not a surprise that english departments, for example, are moving beyond text or print-centered academic inquiry and approaching learning and knowledge construction from myriad angles. For instance, the english department at the institution where I work has shifted from a monolithic paradigm to an interdisciplinary focus: students conduct historical research, field research, and “traditional” (i.e. print or text-based) research from multiple disciplinary perspectives. A course on representations of “madness,” for instance, must consider psychological, sociological, medical, philosophical, religious, and legal standpoints.

That shift has clearly come from a much larger socio-economic-cultural transformation promulgated by unfathomable technological advances. The student of the 21st century has to think interdisciplinarily and incorporate multi-media representations of (hyper)reality into his or her intellectual repetoire. The student of the 21st century engages his or her place in this info-saturated universe by assembling fractals of information slivers animated on LED screens into ornate and labrythine~esque mosaics. I wish I could point out some poignant Baudrillard statement that articulates the influence that these massive changes have on history, on culture, reality, and on our brains and behaviors. I wish I could remember it here, but I can’t. I’m sure there is a Youtube video that would explain it, though….Ah yes: Baudrillard’s Murder of the Real Also, here is a reading of Baudrillard‘s Seduction.

Youtube videos will be required, eventually, if not already, to appear in the works cited pages (bibliographies) of college student essays. The definition of essay will have and is already changing. Students will probably assemble narratives, projects, reports, historical essays–entirely from Youtube videos (or a comparable video-hosting site). Courses will culminate in video-ographies that will be entirely video-based. The only text present will be in video format.  And they will upload their video narratives to course management sites and blogs where they’ll present their projects in video conferences. They will not post textual, web-based reflections to class blogs because they will instead upload video responses to classmates’ projects. And it’s already omnipresent on Youtube. Entire conversations are based on visual rather than textual modes of “writing.” Any faithful Youtuber, however, is not hard-pressed to find plenty of text reactions to the most banal or intellectual content on Youtube. But one Youtube search yields a noteable number of video responses. This is how people converse and have relationships. Maybe an obviously understated question is how the role of the librarian will shift as the education panacea (in this case) shifts along the information highway of insanity.

And now my incoherent ranting comes to an end….

Librarians and Composition Teachers Should Join Forces

It wasn’t until recently (seriously–like, today) that it really dawned on me that information literacy “programs” are most effective when librarians and compositionists combine forces. (Apparently, I felt that a picture of famous Ghostbusters “[Don't] Cross the Streams” image would illustrate this necessity.)

That said, I have begun building what I hope will be a beautiful relationship with the English Department on campus. I have been particularly interested in the relationship between Librarians and Composition Instructors in part because I have experience in both areas. For a brief two year stint, I taught basic composition to college freshman and have an understanding of the concepts and practices instructors try to instill in students through regular writing assignments that culminate in a large research paper.

Enter my librarian self. Having a past life as a composition instructor, I certainly feel more equipped to deal with some of the challenges of teaching the writing and research processes. As a composition instructor, I liked to think I had some knowledge about conducting sophisticated research inquiries (I had, after all, composed a Graduate Thesis). But I found that I didn’t know much more about finding information than my students did. I could suggest databases I had used, but I was in no position to articulate key difference between subject and general datatbases, subject searching versus key word searching, or expanding thesauri  to determine the anguage being employed to classify information.

Long story short, I wanted to be able to find information. Good, reliable, and worthwhile information. But I’ve discovered that the research process, like the writing process, is tedious, laborious, and discursive. The reductivist approach to writing (“master your skills in a semester!) and research (“get certified in library skills in one visit!”) is just a bunch of malarchy that misguides and disillusions.  Composition and Rhetoric Instructors and Librarians are in a unique position to support each other and to join forces for a common cause. We just need to decide on what that cause will be, and how we will “teach” research and writing. Is our cause responsbile citizenship? Critical, lifelong learning? Praxis? (Whoa….I said praxis. I never say praxis. And I think I got that from Paulo Freire)

In an article called “First Year Writing Teachers, Perceptions of Students’ Information Literacy Competencies, and a Call For A Collaborative Approach,” (availabe here )Elizabeth Birminham of North Dakota State University and Company address th opportunities that librarians and writing instructors have to form alliances. Really, after I read the piece, it just confirmed my suspicions that we are not getting together as much as we should–that there is a great disconnect between librarians and instructors of writing which I can certainly feel.  Part of the problem is that we’re not seeing how we are striving toward common goals–to challenge students to enter into a larger conversation, to question actively, and to contribute to that conversation. And one solution would be that librarians and composition instructors go beyond their own disciplines and seek out pedagogical and theoretical underpinnings in each other’s field for a more wholistic understanding of the writing and research processes. To quote a poignant statement in the above named article, “the writing process does not begin where the research process ends” (19). Too often, I think we’ve unwittingly compartmentalized these two processes and presented them as skills to be obtained (they are….but you know, they’re not).

I’d be interested to hear how other librarians and composition instructors are collaborating to offer students opportunities for engaging the research & writing process(es). I’d like to hear, too, how other instructors from other disciplines are teaching research and writing which is not strictly limited to English Departments and Libraries….or at least should not be.

Can I help you find anything? No thanks, I’m just browsing!

In a previous post, I mentioned an article I read by Anne-Marie Deitering. She talked about using Wikipedia as a browsing platform in the information literacy classroom; or at least that perhaps it’s better suited to browsing then the databases we’re advocating. Inspired by her article, I decided that most web 2.0 applications are better tools for teaching students how browsing is different than searching. I also decided that because browsing is overlooked in favor of searching (or we assume the student has already gone through those motions prior to coming in for library instruction), I wanted to emphasize the importance of browsing as a crucial component of the research process because it leads to discovery.  Instead of just saying that, however, I wanted to actually host a browse session.

After doing some ice-breakers and introductions, I opened the class with a browse session. In other words, I created a fun handout in which I encouraged students to think about topics that “boiled their blood” or “confused them beyond belief.” (Students were in between assignments when they came in.) The handout had a picture of a woman pushing a shopping cart through the aisles at walmart. Below that, I urged them to choose topics guided by their own interests (the former composition instructor in me.) I provided a list of news portals (BBC news, CNN news, Yahoo news, Youtube, New York times, etc.) and gave them 7 minutes to peruse the headlines noting things that caught their attention. (Only a 50 minute class…)

What I found was a little shocking, though: students were really browsing AND writing things down! What joy! As I walked around the room, occasionally glancing at monitors, no students were checking their email, looking at their facebook page, or playing solitaire. It was a miracle. I was witnessing the beginnings of the research process and it was a beautiful thing. I really hated to have to stop them because I could tell they were really using their time productively.

I asked them: “so you just did a brief browse session to see what kinds of things are out there. What’s the difference between “browsing” and “searching”?

One student is always willing: he said that you search when you want something in particular, but you browse when you don’t have anything in mind. Indeed! Here, I insert a little anecdote about shopping with my mom. A clerk would always ask: “is there anything I can help you find?” My mom replied: “No thank you:) I’m just browsing.” I think this little anecdote exposes my humanness and clarifies the differences between searching and browsing quite simply.

I was pleased that students got to see that browsing is a crucial part of the whole research process…AND the library was a premiere space that celebrates and facilitates that discovery and curiosity! The browsing activity was a great segue into the group work that proceeded it: how you can begin to create a search strategy and brainstorm key words.

All of this experimenting with browse sessions and collaborative group work hints at my obsession with how NOT to teach information literacy to undergraduates. (That wretched demo comes to mind here in which the instructor stands like a statue at the front of the classroom while students sleep or talk to their friends.) We are always walking a fine line in the information literacy classroom, and students’ “success” comes from the balancing of engaging instructors on one hand and and motivated students on the other. It get’s really exciting somewhere in the grey areas.  I am trying to be careful not to place all of the burden of effective teaching on the shoulders of instructors alone. (You may have heard musicians talk about the energy exchange between performer and audience: there are bad audiences–the unaffected or uninspired.) But the best of instructors or performers have the ability to shape an experience and draw people into it, even if only for a little while.  (Bill Hicks did this often. He worked with “tough crowds” that were virtually unresponive and was able to amazingly reinvigorate them.)

That said, it’s tough NOT to talk too much when you’re an instructor. But I’ve been getting away from talking the more I teach. My last two classes, I think, were far more engaging then any other class I’ve taught. I included a mixture of mediums in the classroom to better serve a multiplicity of learning styles. (I had some individual work, collaborative work, and integrated web 2.0 technologies like Youtube in addition to the browse session.) For the most part, the students were always doing something.

It’s easy to do boring demos,  but I can’t do that anymore in my work with undergraduates. Maybe that I’m a new librarian makes me overzealous. But when you lose the responsiveness of an audience, you lose the energy that propels the class forward. It’s the energy and motivation that make a classroom environment stimulating and meaningful; and I think you can get that by creating a space of action or hands-on learning rather than the space of sedation or passivity that just won’t cut it anymore–if it ever did.

Thinking about Anne-Marie Deitering’s “Using Wikipedia to eavesdrop on the scholarly conversation”

Wikipedia is Accurate

As a new instructional librarian who has taught basic english composition classes, I have been looking for fun new ways to engage students in the information literacy classroom. As you know, getting people excited about searching in databases and catalogs is no easy task–even if you’re gleefully leaping into the air and cracking jokes at the most opportune moments. It’s difficult–maybe close to highly improbable–to make a meaningful connection with every student in the classroom, establish rapport, and create an environment that allows students to engage with ideas rather than just recalling, broadening, narrowing, and refining information; that these goals are nearly unattainable is all the more reason to pursue them.

Yesterday, I was excited that one of the titles I ILLed had made it safe and sound to Hodges Library where I work as an Instructional Services Librarian. With eternal coffee cup, I briskly walked to the Circulation Desk to claim my treasure. In no time, I was returning to my cube with a shiny new copy of Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 in hand. All of you know just how excited I really was at this moment (Plus, my last ILL experience was faster and cheaper than my last Amazon experience! How’s that for library advocacy?).If you’re ever anticipated the arrival of a new (or used) book, you know with what level(s) of excitement I approached  the Circulation Desk.

But the point is this: the essays I read in this fantastic collection have inspired me to engage information literacy classes in new and exciting ways. For instance, Anne-Marie Deitering’s “Using Wikipedia to eavesdrop on the scholarly conversation,” enables me to look at Wikipedia from the perspective of–get this–a non-censoring, savvy, and conscious librarian. While other instructors cringe at the use of Wikipedia in academe, Deitering is pulling the rug out from under us, so to speak, and engaging Wikipedia as a tool of discovery and exploration. Let me pursue this a bit more because it’s so exciting….

There were a handful of statements in Deitering’s essay that really knocked me out (is that a strange or old-fashioned expression?) I will first list them here; but keep in mind, these are the statements that really jumped off the page for me:)  This is just what I’ve gathered at this point:

1.) “‘Davidson and Crateau (1998) argue that most instruction librarians are not used to teaching an exploratory research process’” (88). Okay. Um, whoa? Brilliant! Do you see what I mean here? I was shocked when I read this statement. I guess I’ve developed an ability to be highly critical and reflective of very short bits of text since becoming an english major in college about 10 years ago (oh my god! 10 years!). But for me, this statement was a real eye~opener. And I think it’s very true that we often focus too closely on lower-level information retrieval concerns (and I’m calling them that because the implication in this bold statement suggests that we aren’t seeing or teaching the bigger picture–which is that research is situated in a discursive, non-linear knowledge creation process.) So than how do we teach research as a process of inquiry, exploration, and discovery? How might this realization change the goals that we outline in our information literacy “program” mission statements? Is this the missing link? Of course, we have to think about the balance between quality and quantity in the classroom: we provide services to students across all disciplines and are often forced to comply with standards that have made information literacy a “skill” to be acquired in a couple of 50-minute class periods. We have thousands of students to serve who are not gung-ho (wtf?) info.-obsessed freaks like we are. Wait….I take that back. T’was hasty of me. Pretty much everyone is an information obsessed freak. Who do I think I am?

But at the same time, there is always the bigger picture: that research is embedded in a messy, chaotic, and often very satisfying process of exploration and discovery; but you have to be willing to abandon some of your own predispositions in order to open up inquiry and engage new ideas.

2.) “I]n our first attempt to meet these [exploratory] objectives we sent the students to search engines and multidisciplinary databases, and asked them to browse titles. abstracts, and other metadata. This approach failed. [....] In short, most of our students could not use these tools to do an exploratory search. They did not have enough knowledge about their topics. or about scholarly processes, to find a rich browsing experience in their results lists.” (89) Whoa again! As I read this passage, I thought more and more about how I teach information literacy to undergraduates–most of which are first-year college students. Part of the problem is that students are often coming in for general orientations that have no real grounding in anything immediate or relevant in their lives, such as a project or research paper. Of course, it’s important for us to provide those orienting services though, and not to gripe too much (gripe? I never would say gripe in everyday conversation.) On the other hand, I see what Deitring is saying, and I’ve noticed these problems in the classes I’ve taught as well. The question then becomes: what tools do we employ to advocate exploration? What tools do we have that do enable this kind of “serendipitous” discovery? We can’t simply tell students to peruse, get lost, and run wild in the world of information. Telling them to familiarze with multiple viewpoints isn’t enough. Telling them to browse isn’t enough, either, especially if our ideas about browsing and the ways in which we browse have changed (whole other topic, eh?>Differing mental models and such). Since many students probably don’t know how to browse in databases, why would we make that a first entry point for them? Wouldn’t we start with something else that they already use to discover information in their everyday lives? Are these rhetorical questions sickening or enraging at all?

3.) “While ease of use was the first reason we decided to use Wikipedia as an information literacy tool, an additional benefit emerged very quickly. 3.1) One of he goals of the FYC programme is to introduce students to the processes and practice of academic writing. The goal of academic writing, in short, is knowledge creation” (91). I think it’s important that we don’t take for granted Wikipedia’s ease of use. Plus, students know it, they use it daily, and they’re not going to stop using it anytime soon just because of the near dogmatic notion that it’s undisbutably inaccurate. (Hell, I’m not going to stop using it either). Maybe here is where a larger conversation about mental models could ensue. The web 2.0 model that students are bringing into the library and that has changed the ways in which we think and construct knowledge should be present in information literacy sessions. Better yet, we show students how to use Wikipedia as a tool for exploration in order to do good research.  They are confused, I think, when teachers and librarians tell them not to cite Wikipedia in their research papers because anyone can edit entries. I refuse to fear students into becoming Wikipedia-hating minions who can all recite why it’s so evil when used in academia. (At the same time I am trying to convey that academia is a different space that requires an often painful process of indoctrination and enculturation.)

What also captivated me about Deitering’s above statement, though, was that Wikipedia reveals the scholarly communication process whereas pre-wiki encyclopedias do not. (Sidenote: How cool would it be to publish yearly editions of Wikipedia in print? It would be a massive book….) Deitering points out the importance of creating an assignment that requires students to “eavesdrop” on the scholarly communication process by also looking at earlier versions of Wikipedia entries to see how different perspectives entered into the conversation. (I guess what this is actually referred to is called “versioning”. Who knew?) If we (make the time to) create thoughtful assignments that help students identify the processes that go into research and the production of knowledge, the Wikipedia exploration activity is one example of a relevant, fresh, and creative tool for discovery.

4.) Many faculty members and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are skeptical about Wikipedia’s value as a source of any kind, and choose to ban it entirely instead of helping students use it appropriately (my emphasis 92). When I was a composition teacher and not yet a librarian, I would just tell students not to cite Wikipedia in their papers as a legitimate source. (Of course we had the same-old conversation about how anyone could edit it, any old schmo with an internet connection, yada yada). Unfortunately, I had not given a whole lot of thought to the issue and ended up re-creating the wheel. Actually,  I think I had heard the unholy name spoken so often in regard to poor research practice that I, like a demigogue, was pandering day in and day out to my colleagues’ and students’ fears and anxieties: that Wikipedia would be the chief proponent in the erosion of ethical and (cough: moral) writing and researching principles and practices. (Which, now, and needless to say, is total bullshit. Oops. I swore.) I can tell now, after giving this idea issue some thought, that banning Wikipedia as a legitimate source probably encourages rather than discourages its use in student writing. Part of my problem, I think, was that I did not see how Wikipedia really functioned–as a starting point–rather than a substantial or be-all research tool.

Perhaps we are missing an integral aspect of information literacy instruction, and perhaps Wikipedia can be a great way to start teaching research as a process rather than as a technique. I know I’m making some big leaps here, but I’ll fill in the gaps a little bit later.  I know that when I’m teaching first-year information literacy classes, there seems to be a missing piece of the puzzle–the part where students have first explored issues and topics that interest them. I wonder if we’re really doing what we can to encourage discovery and wonderment prior to equipping them with the tools to do Boolean and truncated searching. I know that we can not reach everyone like we want to, but maybe part of an information literacy session (if not the whole thing) should focus on guided exploration activities using Wikipedia to get the ball rolling. All students have something that really excites them, whether that’s rugby, cat dieases, chainmail (not the mail you’re supposed to forward or endure bad luck for 10 years), or latino mural art.

I tend to be overzealous….

5.) “The biggest challenge, of course, is making the assignment meaningful and useful for as many students as possible” (92). Indeed! My own (obvious?) unbridled positivism, once it meets face to face with the students it’s supposed to inspire, will need to be reshaped and redirected in the classroom depending upon the needs of the class…and if that class is falling asleep or staring blankly in my direction. Maybe a better way to do an activity using Wikipedia (since students already use it constantly on their own) would be to do it with the librarian. Part of what makes such an assignment really inspiring is that the librarian inserts him or herself into the research process as a go-between, helping students make connections between the tools of everyday use and those found in the library. It’s probably overly ambitious, but partnering with core teaching faculty (an english department) to get teachers and librarians on board with a sustained discovery session would be a great way for librarians (especially) to drive and shape the information literacy programs. Anne-Marie: my hat is off to you for seeing how Wikipedia can become a powerful tool to inspire wonderment and introduce students to scholarship and research.

Works Cited:

Anne-Marie Deitering. “Using Wikipedia to eavesdrop on the scholarly conversation.” Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0. Godwin, Peter and Jo Parker. Facet Publicshing: London, 2008.