Blogging in library and information science teaching and learning

Blogging in LIS teaching and
learning

Sheila Webber
University of Sheffield
Department of Information Studies
s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk
May 2007
Copyright: Sheila Webber, May 2007

Hello!
Me

Me in
Second
Life

Photo of Sheila taken by Peter Stordy at 11.30, 29 May


Comment: This the
outline of my talk.
Outline I talk about what blogs are
good for in education,
• Blogs in education & for and specifically for library/
information students
LIS
I talk about 2 types
• Individual blogging of blogging

• Organisational blogging I give examples from my
own experience, and give
• Resources examples from libraries
in the UK and North
America

“Resources” is simply a
list of articles, websites
etc. you may find useful.
This PowerPoint can be found at
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/blogging2007.ppt


Comment: These are

Blogs… in general general points that I will
be illustrating in the
next slides and will
return to later
• Good for
– news
– things with timelines – that have a beginning and end
(e.g. projects)
– developing and presenting ideas
• Not so good
– as a reference source (though can still be useful)
– as a tutorial
– for fostering ongoing discussion on a range of topics


In education, blogs useful for
Progress
Reflecting on

Projects
Recording

Assignments
Communicating

Ideas
Publishing

Learning
Developing
Comment: You can
combine any of the
words on the left
with any of the words
on the right! Copyright: Sheila Webber, May 2007

For information & library students
• Librarians and information managers using weblogs
as part of job
• Therefore useful for LIS students and practitioners
to learn more about
– How they work Comment: I expect
Richard Wallis has
– What they are good for already talked about
the importance of
Web 2.0 for librarians


Points made by my students
• Blog useful for reflection & recording progress
• Blogging dissertation: helps progress and also
could avoid some of loneliness of dissertation
process
• Could provide place to interact and share
experience about a module e.g. a systems
module
Comment: My students
made these points on
this blog which I will
mention later

Points made by my students: 2
• May want to keep blog private
• Students don’t want to have to use too many
different tools (blogs, discussion boards etc.
etc.) for their studies
• Some people like blogs more than others: can’t
assume that students will automatically like
them


Note that:
• Students (even 18 year olds) not necessarily familiar
with blogs
• Our 1st year undergraduate students: doing more
texting, phoning, Instant messaging, using Facebook:
see paper cited in next slide
Comment: Sometimes
it is assumed that all
young people are
automatically good at
using all Web 2.0 tools
and that they will want
to use them in study.
This is not true. Copyright: Sheila Webber, May 2007

The next slides give examples from my
own teaching experience


Comment: A blog used

My experience: Teaching by teaching staff

Staff team blog: teaching
• Inquiry in Information team reflected on use of
blogs in this module &
Management (1st year discussed use of blogs in

Undergraduate module) teaching generally.

Paper at conference in
March: Cox, A. et al.
(2007) “Blogging to
support Inquiry Based
Learning.” Paper
presented at Shock of the
Social conference, Oxford
Inquiry in Information Management: Staff Team University, March 2007.
http://inquiry-in-im.group.shef.ac.uk/team/ http://inquiry-in-
im.group.shef.ac.uk/team/f
iles/2007/03/shock-
paper.pdf


Comment: Blogs used
My experience: Teaching by 1st year students

Student blogs:
• Inquiry in Information One per student group.

Management (1st year Students had to post

Undergraduate module) about project meetings,
project progress and
project results

Blog is worth 25% of
module mark

Not sure we will use them
again next year: group
discussion board in Virtual
Learning Environment
(WebCT) could serve
much of this function


Sorry! New slide
My experience: Teaching Comment: Blogs used
by teaching staff
and students

• In 2003 used a blog as a “class website” for 2 classes
• I posted lecture notes etc. and used it for announcements
and class exercises
• I used tags (e.g. “lecture notes”) so that students could
search and find e.g. all lecture notes
• Was useful for alerting students to what is new
• Not so useful for
– giving access to course material
– having online discussions
• Virtual Learning Environment (e.g. WebCT, Blackboard)
better

Comment: A blog used
My experience: Teaching by students and
teaching staff

• Educational Informatics Used for 4 years (4 sets of
(Postgraduate module) students)

I ask students to identify
where blogs could be
useful in their course

Their views given in
previous slide – also can
be read on the blog!

Useful to get practice is
blogging & to record and
exchange ideas
Educational Informatics session:
http://edu-informatics.livejournal.com/


The next slides are examples from inside
and outside Sheffield University


PhD student at Sheffield

Blogging the http://jin-thoughts.blogspot.com/

PhD

Comment: Some PhD
students find this very
useful

Former PhD student of mine – blogged during and
after dissertation
http://invisibleweblog.blogspot.com/ May 2007
Copyright: Sheila Webber,

Educational – reflective journals for a class
“Human information behavior” (Rutgers University, USA)
http://jennykthelibrarian.blogspot.com/
http://dfahl.livejournal.com/

“This will be a record of my thoughts and
questions during my journey through the
readings for class.”

“Forgive my glee but I am glad to
be done all of this work and
reading these academic
treatises. .”

Note: Screenshots removed
before publishing to slideshare


Comment: A student
Blogging around an blog. This blog
education theme and won a blogging prize!

activity

Centre for Inquiry Based Learning in the Arts and
Social Sciences: Student blog
http://jin-thoughts.blogspot.com/

To repeat an earlier slide!
Blogs… in general
• Good for
– news
– things with timelines (e.g. projects, particular class activities)
– developing and presenting ideas
• Not so good
– as a reference source e.g. lecture notes on a class website
(though can still be useful)
– as a tutorial
– for fostering ongoing discussion on a range of topics


Types of blogging
• Independent blogging (blogging for yourself)
• Organisational blogging (blogging as part of the job,
or for an organisation)

• Will describe these 2 types, then return to some of
the previous examples
Comment: There are
different motives and
characteristics for the
two types of blog


Comment: Here I give

Independent blogging
some benefits and
motivations for blogging
independently

Blogging for yourself e.g.
– Record & reflection on what
you’ve done
– Enjoyment of writing down
thoughts, feelings
– To get practice in content
creation & design
– e.g. Blogging the dissertation
– e.g. For Continuing
Blogging professional (CILIP) Chartership
Professional Development http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/kwiddows/


Independent blogging, variant 2
Blogging independently, but with an audience at the front
of your mind. Issues are as in the previous slide, plus
– Sharing knowledge and news (personal/professional)
– May be blogging to help others as much as to amuse yourself
– May want to improve professional profile & extend contacts
– Some people happy to drift into this kind of blog, if their blog
becomes popular, others want to keep a personal blog private or
anonymous


Issues for individual blogging
• Would I want my students/ loved one/ future
employer to stumble across this?
• Is it part of of work?
• Will it take over my life?

Comment: Just some
background thoughts!
Blogging has taken
over my life a bit. I am
careful in what I blog,
though.

My experience:
Information Literacy
• Independent variant 2:
Information with personal Version 1: 2003-2005
Technical problems
slant (photos) and an
audience in mind
• Aware that people use it as
information source, so not
too personal
• Blog needs constant feeding Version 2: 2005 onwards
• Given me visibility, contacts 500+ postings

My experience: Virtual • Blogging as my
Second Life
avatar
• An amusement
for me…. but also
• …turning into a
learning diary
about using
Second Life
http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/

“Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and
owned by its residents” Copyright: Sheila Webber, May 2007

As seen on previous slide - Educational – reflective journals for a class
“Human information behavior” (Rutgers University, USA)

Students being forced to do
Independent blogging – don’t
always come up with results
that teachers would want
(though this student does, I
think!)

Students may not want to be
forced to be “creative” or
“reflective” or “playful” for the Note: Screenshots removed
teacher before publishing to slideshare


Organisational blogging
• Part of organisational strategy
– To support & create community
– To support & manage activities and tasks
– To communicate & create relationships with customers
– To support educational goals
• Definitely part of someone’s job – though may be
carried out by individual bloggers who like blogging
• This is where librarian may be required or
encouraged to blog

Our Departmental blog
http://information-studies.blogspot.com/


This blog, shown previously, is also
“organisational blogging” (blogging the
class): some colleagues enjoyed it more
than others!
Comment: In other words,
some did not enjoy it much!
We also find there
are some students who
are not keen on blogging.

Inquiry in Information Management: Staff Team
http://inquiry-in-im.group.shef.ac.uk/team/


Part of a search/teach task in
one of my classes (creating a
search guide to a database +
a blog or Squidoo lens)

Comment: Requiring
students to produce
an “organisational” type
blog


Examples of library blogs


Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) “communities”
http://communities.cilip.org.uk/



Knowledge & information sharing – reference desk blog
Reference at Newman Library
http://referencenewman.blogspot.com/



Community building & exchange
http://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/



Project blog
http://epublications.wordpress.com/

Project blog

Project blog has become service blog (at same address)



Project blog
Birmingham Reusable Materials Project
http://brumproject.blogspot.com/



News for users and opportunity for
feedback from users
Charles Sturt University
http://yourlibrarycsu.blogspot.com/



News for users and opportunity for feedback from users
Southampton Solent University
http://solentlibrarynews.blogspot.com/



News for users
http://www2.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/


“This blog is one of the places where you
can keep up to date with any
improvements and notices which will allow
you to make better use of us!”


News for users – specific subject
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/



Issues for organisations
Comment: These are
issues to be
considered by library
which blog and information
managers
• Acceptable use & level of monitoring
• Balance between personal voice/ corporate
guidelines
• Who allowed to see, to post, to comment
• Staff: education & buy-in (see MULTA project)
• If part of strategy: needs documenting, resourcing &
disaster planning
• If educational: is it dealing with students ethically?

Comment: This is a
quotation from a
librarian

“Staff are now blogging regularly to communicate
internally and with the public, and we consider our
experiment a success. … Following the change in
software we will need to customize it, create training
guides, and begin training the staff on the new
software. It may seem like starting over, but we're past
the hurdle of demonstrating the value of internal
blogging.” (Barton & Weismantel, 2006)


Comment: An Australian librarian
comments on how following a
Web 2.0 project has led to changes
in thinking and practice.
The MULTA staff development project “It has changed the
way we do things in our library. We have formed a team to
implement recommendations made as part of the project. We
are creating blogs to communicate internally and with our
users. We are using wikis for our everyday work. Now the
project has finished, participants are voluntarily running
education sessions for their work areas, often on demand
from the people who didn't participate. We are looking at XML,
APIs and mashups as part of what we do, not strange foreign
acronyms.”
Greenhill, K. (2006) What Kathryn said she'd do... 25 October. Murdoch University.
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=3665&postId=3811


Summary
• Weblogs are useful in education for certain things
• Skill in knowing how and when to use blogs is useful part of
curriculum; students can use them in context of
– Marketing
– Teaching (information literacy)
– Knowledge Management
– Reference work
• LIS students can learn by doing (blogging)
• Some people just like blogging: exploit their enthusiasm!


Some resources


Articles
• Barton, E. and Weismantel, A. (2006) “Ref logs now.”
Library journal, 1 October.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6373314.html
(Discusses blog to support librarians in reference desk
enquiry work at Michigan State University)
• Educause. (2007) Blog. Educause.
http://www.educause.edu/Blog/645?Parent_ID=645 (list of
resources and links)
• Educause. (2005) 7 things you should know about blogs.
Educause.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7006.pdf

Articles 2
• HigherEdBlogCon. (2006) April 10: Blogging in libraries.
http://www.higheredblogcon.com/index.php/april-10-
blogging-in-libraries/ (Introduction + 3 screencasts or
presentations on blogging in libraries)
• Wiebrands, C. (2006) “Creating community: The blog as a
networking device.” In: Click06: ALIA 2006 Biennial
Conference.
http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/Papers/Constance_
Wiebrands.pdf


Librarian blogger discussion & posts

• Anjos, J. Biblio-blogosphere: the last 25 hours
http://last25.janjos.com (Last 25 hours of posts,
reverse chronological order)
• British Librarian Bloggers.
http://groups.google.com/group/britlibblogs
(discussion board)
• Librariesinteract. http://librariesinteract.info/ (blog for
Australian librarians, includes blog list)


Library blog wikis
• Etches-Johnson, A. (Ed) Blogging libraries wiki.
http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=Welco
me_to_the_Blogging_Libraries_Wiki (wiki with links to lots of
library blogs, listed by sector )
• Harper, C. and Watson, K. Libraryblogswikis.
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/libraryblogswikis (wiki about use
of blogs and wikis in Australian libraries, part of a project)
• Hubbard, J. (ed) Liswiki: Weblogs.
http://liswiki.org/wiki/Weblogs (wiki with links to librarian and
library weblogs, divided into “individual” and “organisational”)


Learning about Library 2.0
• Bradley, P. (2007) How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library.
London: Facet Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85604-607-7
• Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County . 23
Things. http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/ (Exercises you
can carry out, to discover different tools)
• Five weeks to a social library.
http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/ (Online course that
happened earlier this year)
• MULTA: Murdoch University Library Thinking Aloud
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au/tiki-index.php (Australian staff
development project)


Goodbye!

Photo of Sheila taken by Peter Stordy at 11.30, 29 May


Sheila Webber
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

Sheila
Yoshikawa

http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/ Copyright: Sheila Webber, May 2007

Blogging in library and information science teaching and learning

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