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Article

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 2 months ago


 

Working Draft

 

Heather

 

Recruiting/ teaching opportunity

Finding people to present course material at the skillshare required some effort. Though students were enthusiastic toward the idea of a skillshare, there was some initial reluctance to volunteer to present a workshop. This could be due to a general reticence toward public speaking as well as what more than one person we approached referred to as a perceived, “inability to do (the topic) justice.” Very few presenters were recruited via fliers or mass emailings requesting volunteers for presentations. We had the greatest recruitment success by approaching people personally and asking them to present a specific course. In addition to being labor-intensive, this method requires that the organizers know students that completed the courses we hoped to have represented at the skillshare.

Despite the initial reluctance, the presenters created impressive workshops, complete with handouts, bibliographies and topics for discussion among skillshare participants. The students were remarkably adept at organizing the information presented during a 13-week course and synthesizing it to its core elements so that the essence of the class could be understood within 45 minutes. not sure if we want to say something about highlight strengths and mentioning opportunities for improvement for the course as taught by the profs Several of the presenters commented that they had not had the opportunity to teach in this type of forum before and after agreeing to be a presenter, embraced the idea with enthusiasm. As librarians, our duties often include user instruction or presentations and this was a rare opportunity to do an extended presentation to an audience of peers.

 

Range of courses offered

In order to keep the skillshare interesting, we made a point to provide a range of courses to suit every interest. For example, the Art Documentation class was very popular, but for those looking for less subject specific library instruction, there was Digital Information Services and Providers. It is important to note that the workshops were not all based on Simmons GSLIS course offerings. Participants were encouraged to share library skills gained through internships and professional experiences. For example, a workshop was offered about news librarianship, a topic of interest to several students but for which there currently is not a course at Simmons. Many Simmons students have been working in libraries and gaining valuable experiences that could be shared with the community and hopefully these students will be willing to present workshops on these experiences in future skillshares.

 

Support

From the first call for volunteers until the present, we have received an enormous outpouring of support from peers, professors and the public. Professors willingly offered their assistance to several of the presenters and other professors promoted the event in the classroom, encouraging students to attend. Some students received advice from professors about how to maximize the limited time of the session by providing abbreviated versions of the course material. The organizers also received encouragement from librarian bloggers and on the Progressive Librarians Guild listserv. Students and members of the public (including some who became future GSLIS students) eagerly attended the skillshare, despite its early Saturday morning start time. Many people who were unable to attend still sent messages of their support for the event, as well as a wish that we would have another skillshare in the future.

 

 

Technology

The single repository for information about this event (aside from the organizers) was the wiki, which was set up well in advance of the skillshare and used for planning, communication between collaborators and a place for presenters to post their lesson plans. This offered attendees a way to preview the workshops, to aid them in their decision between sessions offered during the same timeslot. For those unable to attend the skillshare, the wiki provided an overview of the sessions, often including reading lists for further information. The wiki proved to be a valuable resource, before, during and after the skillshare. Presenters added to the wiki after the event providing additional information requested by attendees during the workshop. [...and the authors used it while writing this article...] Not only was this resource useful for providing and retrieving information, everyone that contributed to it, both organizers and presenters, gained experience posting to a wiki, including learning how to code formatting, upload files, and create links, which added another level of depth to the educational experience of the event. that wording is a little sketchy

 

 

 

The Plan

 

JENNIFER

Since there are many different voices and writing styles occurring in one article, Jennifer has graciously volunteered to be the editor and make it a cohesive piece. She will also be in charge of finding a journal to publish in, or journals to send the article to, because she's a good woer.

 

So that leaves Michael, Heather and I to write the content of the article. Here's how it will be divided, sorry to be the dictator, but I fear it will never get off the ground if I don't.

 

 

LANA

About the Skill Share Basics / How to apply the concept – how it came to be, what it's based on, why it was needed, the administrative tasks of getting it going, free and open to public and coalition between student groups; How you can apply this concept to other organizations / library settings – make your own skill share

 

 

HEATHER

Teaching Experience – recruiting teachers, opportunity to teach including why that's important, range of topics, resources, support of professors and others (bloggers), use of the wiki and other (?) technologies – multi learning experience

 

 

MICHAEL

Attendee Experience / Keynote Address– responses from attendees including feedback from the survey, how this will affect the way we do future skill shares, diversity of attendees in terms of GSLIS students, LIS professionals and others, Key Note Address – the two parts of the talk (radical reference and open source software) and how they relate to the mission / vision of the skill share

 

Note: Michael, I grouped your tasks together since I know you were interested in interviewing students and know that Jenna is open to being interviewed (and you've talked to her before).

 

DEADLINES:

 

Monday January 8th: All sections will be submitted in final draft form to Jennifer

 

Revision Period: during this time, Jennifer will work on the article and be in communication with us if she needs clarification or us to rewrite anything

 

Saturday January 20th: Article sent to Candy Schwartz for her comments and suggestions

 

Final editing and revisions done by Jennifer

 

Thursday February 1st: Article submitted to journal

 

This schedule obviously is subject to change based on when the deadlines for submissions are for our chosen journal. Use this until you hear otherwise.

 


 

 

Top Five Things to Include in the Article

 

Heather:

 

Five cool things about the skillshare that should go in the writeup:

 

  1. The entirely student-planned nature of it. From genesis to completion, while professors provided support and publicized the event, every aspect of the skillshare was carried out by students.
  2. Which leads me to part two. The amazing support we received from anyone that heard anything about it. We had support from professors and bloggers and the speakers as well as students that attended and those that sent regrets and good wishes but could not attend. The faculty seemed so thrilled and proud of us, and not one of them mentioned anything about intellectual property and lack of willingness to share their syllabus with us. Also, many students were in frequent contact with the professors of this class, who provided permission to use course materials and some advice about topics, etc., (I didn't talk to my professor, so I don't know exactly what they said, but it seems like a lot of the presenters were asking for help/permission from theirs).
  3. The work that went into convincing students to teach a session and the payoff that came when student presenters eventually embraced the idea and pulled together amazing sessions, with handouts, bibliographies and topics for discussions.
  4. The wiki. A perfect use for wikis that was put to good use (again, eventually) by the presenters. We should include the address in the publication (and encourage the presenters to add whatever it was they said they were going to add post-skillshare)
  5. The need for the skillshare. The fact that students want to know information beyond what is required of (or in the case of news, available to) them. The idea that this should not be a one time deal and that it clearly seems to be the start of something that will continue to grow in popularity for a while, as students realize they have something they want to share about classes they have taken and something they want to know about classes they wont' be able to take. It might not be a bad idea to bring on the fact that archives and student teachers only get like 2 electives in their programs, but that doesn't mean their education should stop there.

 

 

Jennifer:

 

Hmm. Hard to think of new things -- you mentioned most of them already! But here goes my ideas:

 

  1. Definitely the fact that most students don't have many opportunities to teach, and that this was such a fantastic way for them to get experience in a low-key way.
  2. That aside from the student-led workshops, we were able to pull in a keynote speaker to really top the event off.
  3. I think it's a great idea to share the results of the surveys so if other people want to do this, they can learn from our first time.
  4. Aside from the presentation skills students got, they also learned how to use a wiki. It was truly a multi-educational experience.

 

That's all I've got right now. If I think of anything else, I'll add it in. As for looking for somewhere else to publish, I would suggest talking with Candy. She always has great ideas for things like that. Lana, I played around with your post, and I can't figure it out, either!

 

 

 

 

Lana:

 

I'm going to try and build off of Heather's list to avoid repeating all of her wonderful points. However, I really don't see how we can make this a short article. Perhaps we should email American Libraries or shop around for a prof. journal that will let us do a long one. PS: Does anyone know why the second list item is doing that weird formating thing? I can't figure it out?

 

  1. There isn't an active PLG / RADREF chapter in Boston so this served as one of the only (that I know about) progressive LIS activities in the area.
  2. The coalition between ASIS&T and PLG (as well as the co-sponsoring student groups LISSA, SCOSSA & SLA). I think technology is assumed to be a more conservative LIS subfield but this proved that assumption wrong.
  3. Use of the survey to find out what to do better next time and the desire for a next time.
  4. The mini-conference feel including the meet and greet and opportunity for students to share experiences of what they heard/learned.
  5. It was free and anyone else is welcome to take our idea and run with it. Perhaps we can even do a "how to set up your own skill share" section. (Just like a Creative Commons license.)

 

Michael:

 

You all have had great things to say about this, so I regret being the last of the group to add comments. I'll try and add new things that don't feel like a stretch. Thanks for being patient: I was in the land of connectivity issues (i.e. my mom's house) this weekend.

 

  1. That was explicitly open (and free) to non-GSLIS people. I think it is important to note that this includes not only alumni and professional librarians but also anyone who simply happened to be interested enough in the skillshare to stop by. That being said, we didn't get that many people who were'nt from GSLIS. However it was the first event and considering how far word of the skillshare has spread since it occured, I think we can say that we expect the second skillshare to attract more non-GSLIS folks (if we mention this topic we need to make sure it doesn't sound like it wasn't well attended by actual students).
  2. I think we need to include comments from people were attendees and not involved in presenting or organizing. I'm working on getting those now from a few of the attendees that I've bumped into. However, despite promises I have not yet received any emails with comments/feedback. I'm wondering if you think I should send out a general email soliciting comments or if you know of anyone in particular who would make for a good interviewee.
  3. The range of topics covered was so broad. Heather already touched on this, but I think it bears mentioning that not all of the skillshare classes taught were from courses available at Simmons: Presenters also developed classes based on their independent studies and professional experience.
  4. While the professors were universally willing to give students syllabuses (and advice) when asked, that students put together excellent skillshare classes on their own in those cases where these frameworks were not available. Regardless, the students across the board were really creative across the board with how they organized their information and synthesised it to its core elements, while also being creative in how it was presented.
  5. What we think the future plans will be. For example: How often will the skillshare occur? Will there be entirely new classes each time the skillshare is offered? Or will there be overlap with some classes offered in concurrent skillshares? Etc...

 

 


 

 

 

Article Organization

 

Heather's

 

Here is one idea about how to break things up. The little code after each line

is highly sophisticated: the first initial and number of idea by that person

(eg L5 refers to Lana's fifth idea). Maybe each of us could pick a topic or two

that we like and expand on each idea within that section. Does this look like a

good breakdown? Any suggestions?

Lana mentioned liking the how to build your own skillshare part. I'd like to do

the teaching section.

 

I how to build your own skillshare (L5)

a entirely student planned, (H1, L1, J2)

b Coalition between student groups (L2)

c Keynote speaker (J2)

d Mini-coference feel (L3)

e Free and open to the public (L5, M1)

f Broad range of topics (M3)

 

II support (H2)/feedback (J3, L3, M2)/future (2nd half of M1, M5)

 

III necessity of the skillshare (H5 and L1)

 

IV teaching

a opportunity to teach (J1)

b difficult at first to find presenters but then they did a great job (H3)

c Range of topics (M3)

d excellent presentations (M4)

 

V technology

a wiki (H4, J4)

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