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LITA works a little bit differently than other groups. Where some ALA divisions have committees (by appointment), LITA has Interest Groups (of interested folks). When I’m at ALA meetings, I like to sit in on the distance learning ones, just to see what they’re up to. They’re generally just facilitated discussions on issues related to distance learning and technology in instruction.
Interesting points:
- All students expect distance education services (via Blackboard, etc.).
- Students use online materials. Now DL is more about reaching out.
- Social software sometimes the answer. Anecdotal: Several pointed out that availability on social websites with limited online interaction, but then number of in-person questions increased.
- Nothing to lose by trying.
- Virtual reference as where it’s going; DL is part of that.
- Any library might be a library for local students taking online only classes anywhere in the world.
- Librarians should be on curriculum committees; accreditation will drive library use in courses.
- Can we own information literacy? Should we be stewards and let faculty be the drivers?
- How do we get to faculty, adjunct faculty? How to market what we have to them?
- What are our students going to look like in 10 years? Will they use IM rather than email? Would they rather use visual search than text? How do they interact with information? How will this impact our IL strategy?
- Stick to very short modules: 15 seconds or 2 minutes. 15 minutes is boring (and takes longer to update).
- Will start a wiki or blog for communication and sharing ideas.
1 Comment on ‘LITA Distance Learning Interest Group’
[…] The controversy around information literacy seems to go on and on. Today, for the first time, I heard someone say that we really are, and should be, in a trend of passing information literacy on to professors to let them do it. They described librarians as stewards of the skill set, but professors as the teachers. […]