Blog Every Day in June Day 10: 7 Techniques To Reduce Digital Literacy Anxiety

Today's post comes from Sally Pewhairangi, Director of Finding Heroes, a business dedicated to helping library staff maximise their potential through training and 'dare to do different' conversations. Sally also has over 20 years of experience in working in Libraries throughout New Zealand.

This post originally appeared on Finding Heroes titled "7 Techniques To Reduce Digital Literacy Anxiety" 

Having an open mind and a commitment to lifelong learning is in my view one of the most difficult aspects to overcome when attempting to improve the digital literacy fluency of library staff.

I know dozens of library staff who have had the opportunities, skills and practice to advance their digital literacy, yet fail on the final hurdle because of their mindset. Changing the way we do things is difficult because we have to let go of what we know and accept something new. We fear that this new thing won’t be as good or as useful as what we currently do. Change takes time and for some of us it takes longer to get to grips with than for others.

So how can we ensure any digital learning opportunities reduce the friction that change brings with it? I believe a mindset that is reluctant to change can largely be overcome by designing learning opportunities that quickly puts learners ‘in the zone’ or a state of flow.

Flow is defined as “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter…”  (Anderson, 2011. p. 162).  Flow results when the challenge is equal to a person’s ability. If learning opportunities are too easy, boredom results. If they are too challenging, people become overwhelmed.

If digital literacy learning was designed to minimise both the anxiety and boredom of learners then it is easier to create an open mindset and become a critical, informed, expert user of digital technologies.

You might think this is easier said than done but based on my experience training hundreds of library staff in many aspects of digital literacy, the following 7 techniques will help reduce the anxiety and boredom of digital literacy learners.

1. Make it as easy as possible for learners to focus on learning by eliminating as many environmental concerns as you can. Anxieties are anxieties and sometimes they aren’t related to the training being offered. This could range from providing information on nearby parking in a face-to-face world or clear navigation and technical support in an online space.
2. Ensure digital literacy learning is relevant to the learner (not the learner’s manager or organisation). This can best be achieved by the teacher either knowing the learner well or having a similar background or understanding to the learner and as a result they are able to provide the context that the learner needs to frame and scaffold their digital literacy learning. In-house training by peers and on the job learning are two methods that take advantage of this technique.
3. Incorporate digital literacy activities or exercises that allows each learner to demonstrate their learning within their own context, experiences and abilities. Reflective exercises are a great example as they allow the learner to mesh what they know with what they are learning – to make sense of it (The reflective learning process, n.d.).
4. Set clear and measurable digital literacy learning objectives and make them known to learners. With clear objectives the learner will know what they will learn and what they are expected to do. They are able to assess the suitability and relevance of the learning opportunity before committing to it.
5. Only include content that enables learners to achieve the stated digital literacy learning objectives. If learners are required to sift (or sit) through irrelevant content not only will they find it difficult to recognise and pay attention to the relevant bits but they can also easily become overwhelmed and shut down.
6. Tell, show, do, apply. Tell the learner what they need to know in a context they can understand. Show them how this information can be applied by demonstrating an example. Give the learner the opportunity to practice what you have taught them. Provide an opportunity for the learner to apply (or plan how they will apply) what they have learned in their own environment (Gardner, 2013).
7. Find and share the joy in digital literacy learning.  Digital literacy learners have often felt frustrated because they couldn’t get a piece of technology to work or ‘dumb’ because they didn’t know all the answers to assist a library user. Show them what successful learning looks like. Ignite their curiosity through hands-on discovery and experience. Give learners the confidence to work a solution out for themselves.
What techniques do you use to reduce digital literacy anxiety? Please comment below!
References:
• Anderson, S. (2011). Seductive interaction design: creating playful, fun and effective user experiences. Berkeley, CA : New Riders.
• Gardner, J. (2013, March 27) Tell, show, do, apply: the anatomy of good instruction [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/tell-show-do-apply-the-anatomy-of-good-instruction
• The reflective learning process (n.d) Retrieved 7 June 2015, from http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/medicine/reflective/3.xml

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Blog Every Day in June Day 18 : I hate reading, NO you can't make me do it! Leave me alone !!!

As a child, I hated to read. It was a battle of wills every night before bed time - we all knew bedtime stories were coming. No matter how I cried and yelled (sorry Mum and Dad) that I didn't want to participate, both parents still sat with me night after night, reading fairy tails to me. Fast forward 25 years later you can't get my head out of a monograph, journal, ebook, blog, news feed, email.....you get the idea. 

I can't really pin-point when this hatred occurred. I can only speculate it was a combination of English not being my first language, and that at the time there were no applicable services that resulted in not having any confidence in my own reading capabilities.

With both my parents and grandparents speaking only Macedonian at home, it was only when we ventured outside the home that English was spoken. My brother (thank you my amazing big brother) felt the brunt of this when he had to venture into kindergarten. It was difficult and frustrating from him, even though my big brother was an intelligent child. And with the language barrier, he was unable to communicate effectively, which caused him a lot of frustration. No one understand that he knew the answers to the teacher’s question, but just couldn't get anyone else to understand him. The Non-English Speaking programs of more than 30 years ago were not as evolutionary as today's services, programs and support. From the childhood memories my brother and those that I possess, it was a long and difficult process of learning to read and write. My own bed time reading became a battle of wills - the more they tried to get me to read, the more I wanted to stop. 

My family had no idea where to go to get help. My brother's teacher mentioned the possibility of the local public library. It was there that my family found the endless children's reference collection, story books, picture books and it was all free. As long as it was within the opening hours, we could get all the information that was needed, and more. Learning was no longer limited to 8am-3pm - it could be undertaken whenever it was necessary.

By high school my reading had improved, but there was no love lost between myself and the written word. I read what was required, nothing more. Home work was completed, but there was no thirst for knowledge. My education was flat, not exciting. It was just enough to get by, nothing more. It continued on this way until high school. That was when I really found the library, and Mrs Bowden.

She was my high school librarian, and she changed it all. The library became a comfortable place to read, relax and learn. Free periods were spent here, homework was completed here, research was initiated here. And it was here that my love of reading flourished. Recommending books to read was only the beginning. It simply amazed me how she always overrode the LIMS for my borrowing limit. It seemed Mrs Bowden had magical powers, and I was spellbound.

I came to libraries later in my career. It was during a life-changing event that made me reevaluate my life and where I wanted to be. The combination of my IT and teaching background allowed me to almost flow seamlessly into the library industry. It is a perfect fit.

I currently volunteer my time at a primary school library, in an area that has a high non-English speaking background. It has amazed me the types of early literacy tools that are available to these teachers, library staff and students. These technologies span tablet applications, YouTube clips to Reading Eggs, websites in general, electronic flash cards to the implementation of the Premier's Reading Challenge. All of these services allow for the promotion of reading through an enjoyable learning environment. I can only look-on in amazement at how these children will have a very different start to reading English than I did. 

It still astounds my family how I evolved from that defiant child, to an adult where all my local libraries know me by name and reading preferences. It was a long and hard road, hours of practice and support from my parents, big brother, teachers, schools and other reading services and programs. And I thank you for the time and efforts of you all. 

-Kathy Kumcevski
TAFE NSW Library Practice Teacher

The Living Library

“Everyone has at least one good book in them” so the saying goes. What if books were actually people, sitting right in front of you, telling you their story after you browsed through a list of titles and picked the one that was the most interesting to you? What if, instead of you the reader, constructing the story in your head, you became an active listener, a witness to human experiences and growing empathy, and an asker of questions?

Human Library started out in 2000 in Denmark (as a visitor activity at the annual Roskilde music festival) to challenge attitudes about violence against young people and conflict arising from racism, prejudice and stereotypes. In this library, the books were real human beings with their own personal stories and experiences to share, and could be ‘borrowed’ by curious readers who may have otherwise never had a dialogue with people from diverse backgrounds in their own community.

Fast forward over a decade later, and the Human Library now has gone global with an aim to “create more social cohesion and respect for diversity and human rights” by supporting people to organise and create their own Living Libraries around the world. Popular and universal titles include stories told by refugees and immigrants, people with unusual occupations, people of different religions, what it’s like living with a serious medical condition.
 

I took part in a Living Library activity in London a few years ago, when the academic library I worked for had its annual staff development day. I was terribly shy and utterly stumped,  besides, I was far more interested in borrowing the human books! It is an odd thing, to objectively pull back and look at yourself, the sum of your life and experiences, and try to pick an angle, a plot, a single thread, that others might find interesting enough to listen to for the fifteen minutes or so that they borrow you for.

In the end, I think the title of my ‘book’ was something about a “Greek Kangaroo”, and my blurb focused on what it was like growing up with two very different cultures, feeling like you belong to both and neither at the same time, then taking that all of that and moving to the other side of the world, to add another layer of confusion and self-identity to the mix. Fun stuff. Talk about ‘judging a book by its cover’.

In NSW, I found a handful of out-of-date websites from several years ago, and some one-off mentions (including this mini-mentorship library at a past Emerging Writers’ Festival). Only one regularly organised occurrence of a Living Library seems to be happening; at Lismore library, on the first Friday of every month. Where are all our living libraries? 

I’m curious, has your local library ever put on a Living Library event? Would you consider it for your own library? Do you have your own experience of borrowing or even being a book?  What stories would you be interested in hearing?

Australia is overflowing with stories from the fascinating and diverse people that live here. It’s a great opportunity for people to sit down and actually meet someone who they may have only heard about as an abstract idea or label, or on the news, or a statistic. One story can change the way you see everything.

-Maria Savvidis @m_savvidis

Social Media Officer, ALIA Sydney

Read on, humans:

The official Human Library website

A human book in Copenhagen

The Living Library Organiser’s Guide (PDF)

Lismore’s Human Library

NBN - A Brave New World

I am very excited to be involved in the Auburn Digital Hub. I commenced work as the NBN Coordinator – Digital Hub in December 2012, not knowing what to expect. I was in for a treat – learning new things, meeting new people, learning about the National Broadband Network and something called a “Digital Hub”.

What is a Digital Hub? Quite simply, it is an Australian Government program. It enables community-based computer training and internet access point containing a number of Internet ready computers. Auburn Council is now able to provide its community with digital literacy training and practical ways to gain skills and benefit from the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Auburn City Council Library opened its doors to its all-new Digital Hub beginning January this year. Free training sessions are held in the Digital Hub, where the public will have access to state of the art computers and equipment. Local residents will be able to attend a range of classes with two types of training available – group sessions and one-on-one teaching.

Lidcombe TAFE will be running an average of three group training sessions per week at the Digital Hub, including:

• Computer Basics
• Internet Basics
• Introduction to Business Applications
• E-Commerce
• Internet Connectivity Options
• Cyber Safety & Data Privacy 

Those that prefer a targeted approach can make bookings for one-on-one training sessions.

The Digital Hub also includes a separate “drop-in” centre where people can access the Internet for self-paced learning using sites such as, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s purpose built website:

http://www.internetbasics.gov.au/

The Australian Government will provide $13.6 million in grant funding over three years from 2011-2012 to establish Digital Hubs in up to 40 communities. The program will help Auburn and surrounding communities take full advantage of the National Broadband Network. It will increase people’s online engagement by improving their level of confidence in accessing digital services. It will also provide key, easily accessible information on services that are currently available.

Group training calendars available in person at the Library or on the Auburn Council website, http://www.auburn.nsw.gov.au.

Members of the public are invited to attend these classes free of charge, but are advised to act quickly to avoid disappointment as places are limited! For further information on the National Broadband Network or Digital Hub and related training sessions, contact Auburn Library on 9735 1250.

Working on the Digital Hub program at Auburn Library has proved satisfying. My previous skills have come in very useful in this role, and the fact that I am working at the Library has given me further skills which no doubt will be useful in any future role in Libraries.

Sofia Silvestri

Bouncing around ideas: peer mentoring

What is a peer mentor?

A peer mentor is a person you can rely on for advice, encouragement, and perspective. They may also act as a sounding board or editor. Ideally, a peer mentor relationship is supportive and mutually beneficial. The type of partnership you and your peer mentor will have will be as varied as the two of you. You can pair up with someone who has very similar interests and goals, or someone you admire for their different slant on the world. Don’t limit yourself to purely academic or work-related chats, either – get to know one another as whole people. 

Why have a peer mentor?

Having someone to bounce ideas off can be extremely helpful, particularly in the early stages of a career change or further education. Choosing someone who is in a similar situation might help you to understand each other. It can be comforting to know someone else is in the same boat, or has just gone through a similar experience. For instance, if you’re both job-seekers, you’ll be able to encourage your peer when it’s been a tough day, and they can do the same for you.

It’s good to have someone you can call or email when you’re upset and might otherwise send unwise tweets. A peer mentor can be an extra set of eyes on the job boards, a listening ear when you need to rant about that colleague, someone who knows exactly how exasperating that assignment is, or that person who gives you a “sanity check” before you send an important email. It’s just nice to know that someone’s in your corner.

Mentoring Opportunities

Choosing a peer mentor doesn't have to be a formal process. I’m currently partnered with Amy Walduck, because we “get” each other. She and I couldn't stop talking at NLS6. There seemed to be so much to discuss: career paths, the library profession, job shortages, and social media. After multiple attempts to curtail our conversation for the day, I suggested we keep our discussion going by mentoring each other, and Amy agreed immediately. When I still lived in Brisbane we’d meet for coffee, and now we send email or DMs on Twitter.

Keep an eye on The International Librarians Network. At the moment, the ILN is in a pilot phase, but the intention is to facilitate international mentoring relationships. There is no financial commitment, and anyone who is working or studying in the information or library sectors is eligible. When the program launches, participants can enter details about themselves and the type of person they’d like to be matched with. And if you’re not interested in mentoring but you’re gifted in administrative tasks, ILN will be looking for volunteer country coordinators. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, add @InterLibNet to your feed or follow the blog.

What about career mentors?

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) offers a Career Mentor Scheme, which matches students with professionals. Fellow QUT grad Erica Cooke participated in the program and was paired with a public library professional. As a part-time student, Erica met or spoke with her mentor about every six months for two years. She says it was a good way to bridge the gap between uni and entering a career. Her mentor gave her tips and advice on how to apply for jobs and answer selection criteria, which Erica still finds useful.

Many universities have mentoring programs. Some are intended to cultivate peer-to-peer relationships, while others depend on volunteers to mentor students in various disciplines. If you’re currently studying, it’s worth finding out if there’s a program at your college or university.

Julia Garnett is the new ALIA State Manager NSW

Master of IT (Library and Information Science) Grad 2012

Queensland University of Technology

ePortfolio: http://jzgarnettmlis.blogspot.com.au/

Twitter: @jzgarnett

Blog: jzgarnett.com

Professional Development musings

Talking about professional development with a colleague got me thinking about motivating staff to actually go to training courses or participate in training opportunities.  I can understand when you have to pay for the training yourself, but when the organisation pays for the training or it's offered free for those in the profession then I'm left perplexed by the refusal to go.  Especially when that same person then goes and complains that they never get an opportunity to upgrade their skill!  Chances are if you say no to training often enough the employer will not bother offering you the opportunity to go to again.

I'm always looking at ways to improve my skills, and by no means am I perfect or even particularly good at everything but I try and learn at least something about the various aspects of librarianship.  My biggest struggle at the moment is motivating others to try and learn a new skill. This is especially true if the skill involves technology, whether a new device or new software/medium. Have to agree with Mary Kelly who on her blog Library Lost & Found said

Chances are that a perfect blend of scheduling, training budgets, and managerial support will not exist.   Often, the reality is that there is nothing to support you and your career.  You – and you alone – will be the only one to care about your career.

We need to take responsibility for our own professional development and look at the courses being offered and seeing if it would enhance our skills even in a small way.  I'm not saying to go to everything but don't say no to something just because you don't know anything about the subject.  The other benefit of going to training seminar/workshops and other professional development opportunities is the opportunity for professional networking.  Sometimes that becomes a valuable opportunity because it gives you the opportunity to find out how others do things and gives you the opportunity to bounce ideas off someone else.


Vesna Cosic

ALIA Sydney Presents: From Little Things Big Things Grow: preparing to present and write a paper

It's conference season with the ALIA New Librarians Symposium and Library Technicians Conference both happening this month and the ALIA Biennial have already released their call for abstracts for next year's conference in Sydney. 


Have you thought you would like to present a paper at a conference? 


But don't know where to start? 


Or maybe you've done it before but would like to brush up your skills and get some insiders tips? 


Well, the latest ALIA Sydney event is here to help you get your hands dirty and start to grow your little ideas into big ones. 


This half day workshop is to help you develop confidence and learn some tips and tricks about how to put together a conference paper covering everything from pitching the idea to your manager, submitting an abstract, working with colleagues and brushing up your presentations skills. The workshop will also explore writing a small piece for a professional publication such as inCite as this can be great way to hone sharing your ideas. 


Featuring guest presenters: 


Janet Fletcher (Director, Information Services Department, UNSW and Co-Convenor for the ALIA 2012 Biennial) 


Alyson Dalby (InSync Surveys and former Co-Convenor ALIA New Librarians Symposium) 

Room 209, UNSW Library, University of New South Wales

1 - 5pm Saturday 15th October 2011  

ALIA Members $15 and Non-Members $20

RSVPs are essential so please email your details to aliasydneygroup@gmail.com 

What we know, what we need to know

 Recently I found myself talking with some colleagues from academic libraries about the importance of qualifications and training. Inspired by some recent recruitment we have been undertaking, we turned to wondering about whether people should hold a full librarian based qualification to be considered for appointment in a tertiary library position. Many librarian level positions express a desire for applicants to be eligible for Associate membership with ALIA  as a proxy for  some form of Information Management qualification. In this digital age the skills that are required for many positions are based around technology, data management, IT, web design and online access. Additionally, some libraries take more of a corporate business approach in the promotion and delivery of their services and resources. So should professionals outside of the information management field be included in the staffing of today’s libraries or is it still imperative to have strong ‘traditional’ training?

How do we as library professionals learn the necessary ‘traditional’ skills such as the reference interview and information retrieval for clients if it has not been the main focus of our degree and training? I think back to when I started working in libraries. I was half way through my information management degree and lacked experience. Databases, information retrieval and the library world were still so foreign to me. I must have bluffed my way through my degree to this stage. My assessment tasks were full of imposed theories and concepts. Realising the difficulty of even landing a job interview without experience I started volunteering my time in areas that I thought would help me.

Luckily I scored my first library position working for an Interlibrary Loans department; an opportunity which I now realise was perfect in starting me out in my library career.  I was thrown in the deep end having to locate and deliver a wide range of resources quickly across a myriad of discipline areas. More coincidently my work was being mirrored by the courses that I was studying at the time. Putting the theories into practice made so much more sense. This experience holds me up to this day.

Reflecting on this experience and my career to date there have been a few key influences that that have given me the confidence, skills and experience that I now put into practice as a librarian. 

·         A learn by doing approach: Being throw in the deep end with queries and tasks on unfamiliar topics has been one of the greatest growth experiences. This includes having to plan for in-depth research consultations, classes and answering on the spot reference question in unfamiliar subject territory. 

·         Mentoring: Peer mentoring and working collaboratively with ‘experts’ in particular areas has provided me with such a wealth of knowledge. I have done this both formally and informally and have gained so much from other people’s ideas and experiences. 

·         Training: Training opportunities, involvement in resource development and product demonstrations is what I find tops off the learning and profession growth experience.

It has been a collection of training, experiences and support that has provided me with the necessary tools in my library career so far. We need to have flexibility when it come to ‘qualifications and training’ to accommodate the fast changing nature of today’s libraries.

What are the experiences and training that you hold up as main influences in your career? 

Bruce Munro is an ALIA Sydney committee member

Game Based Learning: or how to make learning fun!

Everyone knows the joy of playing a game whether you grew up with board games, marbles, soccer, arcade games, Atari, Gameboy, Playstation, Nintendo, Xbox or Wii. The fun and competitiveness of playing against yourself and others can be addictive! Regardless of whether these are real life or digital games, there are rules and expected outcomes that players must determine and achieve. While concentrating hard on the game, players don’t even realise they’re learning! Recently people of all ages have started gaming like crazy as mobile apps make it easier than ever to play cheaply, anywhere-anytime, alone or with people around the world (if you haven’t heard of Angry Birds you’ve been living under a rock). One of my favourites is Fruit Ninja where you chop fruit with a sword and at the end of every game you get a fruit fact! Games are usually considered a leisure activity but increasingly they’re being used in learning environments to encourage experiential, active learning. For some reason they’ve been more commonly used with younger learners but why should they have all the fun? Just because you’re at high school, Tafe, uni, work or the library doesn’t mean learning has to be boring! Right? In fact, the 2011 Horizon Report predicts Game Based Learning will impact education in the next 2 to 3 years.

According to Wikipedia, Game Based Learning is a branch of serious games, which are activities with defined learning outcomes. 10 years ago, people like Prensky started pushing the digital game based learning (DGBL) revolution because of the potential for learning to be fun and engaging for the students, the trainers, parents and administrators. In 2001 Prensky described a tipping point when he believes learners will demand game based learning. Considering the current ubiquity of games and the blurring of the lines between work and play, I think we might have finally reached that tipping point.

Game based learning is certainly not new. Just think about simulation activities and software used for many years with doctors (did anyone play Operation?), nurses, pilots, defence personnel and many, many more. These learning games prepare people for real life situations by allowing them to safely practice and complete expected outcomes. Second life has also been very popular as a learning environment for many years, particularly in tertiary education. It allows geographically dispersed groups to meet up, interact and complete tasks while in the game. It has been particularly useful for the areas of engineering, design and architecture because groups can design and build large scale projects, that in real life would only be scoped as models or prototypes. Check out the Horizon report for many more awesome examples.

So what are libraries doing? Quite a bit actually! With the rise of mobile apps there’s been a move away from entirely online games to a blend of online, mobile and real life. The State Library of Queensland is using a scavenger hunt app to create self guided library tours using geo-location technology. In fact it seems treasure hunts and scavenger hunts are all the rage in libraries at the moment. The University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and Charles Darwin University (CDU) libraries are doing treasure hunts with QR code clues to enhance information literacy instruction. These three projects were recently presented about at the 2011 m-libraries conference in Brisbane. The University of Sydney Library ran a scavenger hunt around all campus libraries during orientation this year and the New York Public Library invited 500 people to an overnight library scavenger hunt (particularly awesome) which they describe as an alternate reality app based game.

So what is all this hunting and gaming doing for us? Well, according to the 2011 Horizon report we’re learning by reaching for and achieving goals, problem-solving, collaborating and communicating. We can interact with content in more complex ways and build digital literacies. They also acknowledge that students are more engaged with game based learning because it’s fun! There are some great examples in the report and I think it’s interesting to consider how this links with other trends they predict such as Augmented Reality and Gesture-based Computing. Something to ponder.

Besides ‘hunts’ there are many other library games being developed like augmented reality apps using data mashups by the Bavarian State Library (among others) and a location based checkin and reward game by some people at the University of Huddersfield library (definitely want to know more about this one). There are Fun Days and Flash mobs, flash cards and quizzes, chases and Amazing Races (check out my Game based learning Diigo group for more examples). There is already quite a bit of game based learning going on but if trend predictions are correct it will soon be the norm rather than the interesting exception. How will libraries, museums and organisations rise to the challenge of providing game based learning opportunities? Some of the things I've described require tech skills and money to make possible but others only require a few people and some enthusiasm! It's time to get in the game but just remember it's not about winning it's about having fun!

Now I apologise if any serious gamers are reading this because I'm not one, and I probably haven't used the right lingo to describe things. But that's the point. You don't have to be an expert. You just have to have a go. For those interested, there is a lot of theory behind serious games, gamification and game based learning - if you want to get into that kind of thing. And if you're already into it please share your resources in the Game based learning Diigo group.

Sophie McDonald is an ALIA Sydney committee member, blogs at MissSophieMac and tweets @misssophiemac