As part of our work on the IL Blackboard modules, we’ve been working with our e-learning staff and they have introduced to a few freely available “toys” which we’re planning to try, either within the modules or just in general teaching. Many folks will already know about them, but they were new to us.  For example:

Durham Lumiere

Wallwisher allows you to pose a question or a comment on a web page and have respondents add post it notes. maybe a way to get students engaged in posting questions before a workshop. You can allow free comments or moderate them.
Poll Daddy is a neat way of quickly getting a group opinion and embeds nicely into Blackboard.
Poll Everywhere enables people to text a question or answer which immediately displays on a screen

A colleague and I are currently devising a couple of modules in Blackboard, part of an Innovation Fund award from the University. One of the modules is aimed at academic staff, to encourage them to think about how to integrate IL development into the curriculum. It’s based on workshops I currently run for our Intensive CASAP (Certificate in Academic Practice) which the university has been delivering for Nigerian academics. I’m hoping to test it with staff at our campus in Singapore next month. This is something close to my heart, I firmly believe that librarians shouldn’t be teaching all the IL development, it should be an integral part of the student learning experience and owned by all teaching staff. Of course library staff can facilitate it and support the staff in delivery and I do enjoy delivering sessions myself, but I think the most effective sessions are those which students perceive as part of the discipline. That means we have to let go a little and “they” have to own it more.

Durham Lumiere

Our twin module contains IL resources for students and it could be run as a “stand -alone” skills module, but what I’m really hoping is that academic staff will take chunks, tailor them and embed them into their own modules. Is this just a dream? We shall see. It’s certainly easier to just point them to a module, but is this effective? Maybe it’s ok for info skills, but then the context relating to attitudes and behaviours, so key to the new 7Ps model, is lost.

Vikki Campus Library

Ruth and I also promised to send everyone at the Helsinki seminar, or who we met subsequently, information about some of the resources we discussed. Again, it’s taken a while, but here it is: Useful links

Paivi and me

After our two talks (on the relevance of IL models and the 7Ps in particular) at the IL seminar in Helsinki last November, Ruth and I asked all the participants to ask questions and make comments. We used the “one thing” approach again – ask us one thing, tell us one thing you like/disliked. This generated a host of questions and comments which Ruth carefully collated. We promised to answer them all and sent the answers to the group. However, I also promised to post the responses on the blog and it has taken me a while to get round to it. However, you’ll find the document here : Q&A