When I first heard about the Metaliteracy MOOC I was a bit hesitant about signing up (this semester is especially busy, and I had only made it halfway through the last MOOC I signed up for), but I'm happy to say that one of my coworker's enthusiasm about the course convinced me to give it a try.
So far, I'm enjoying the way the course has been designed including its connectivist format. I've been able to catch up thanks to the pace of the course, and the amount of suggested readings still allow enough time to read many of the blog posts being written by the course participants.
The course focuses on the idea of metaliteracy which according to Mackey and Jacobson (2011), "expands the scope of information literacy as more than a set of discrete skills, challenging us to rethink information literacy as active knowledge production and distribution in collaborative online environments" (p. 64).
I really like the idea of having students be active participants in knowledge creation through web 2.0 technologies rather than passive consumers, but as with most things I'm still struggling with how I can incorporate these sorts of activities into 45 minute one-shot instruction sessions. This might be a good time to finally try out a flipped classroom structure so that I have more time for activities during my sessions or since I teach education students who will eventually have to teach metaliteracy/information literacy skills to their own students, perhaps I could host an optional workshop about metaliteracy for them.
Just some reflections as I work through topic 1 : )
Resources for Topic 1 included two articles and a welcome plenary:
Mackey, T. P., and T. E. Jacobson. (2011). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, 72(1), 62-78. Retrieved from http://crl.acrl.org/content/72/1/62.full.pdf+html
Mackey, T. P. (2011). Transparency as a catalyst for interaction and participation in open learning environments. First Monday, 16(10). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3333/3070
Prezi for Welcome Plenary
Additionally, professor Tor Loney shared the syllabus that will be used by the students taking UUNL 205x.
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Update: Some interesting blog posts have come up in the Metaliteracy Newsletter from other students participating in the course.
http://metaliteracy9000.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/notes-about-authority-and-reliability-in-evaluating-sources/
http://metaliteracy9000.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/notes-about-authority-and-evaluating-sources-2/
http://beyondinformationliteracy.blogspot.com/2013/08/so-much-time-and-so-little-to-do.html
As a librarian who does one-shots as well, I like your thoughts on doing a special workshop for your teacher prep program on literacy. I am working on creating a flipped one-shot using a research guide format for a tutorial the students do outside of class, then coming into the classroom and having the students show each other what they have learned. Cynthia D
ReplyDeleteHi Cynthia, thanks for sharing! I'd definitely be interested to hear how the class goes. I still haven't tried it myself, but thought these two posts from the ACRLog had some great advice:
Deletehttp://acrlog.org/2013/02/25/flipping-out-preflip-planning/
http://acrlog.org/2013/03/28/flipping-out-reflections-upon-landing/
Cynthia, I like the flipped idea. It might work equally well in a one-shot session presented in a 'core' class - get them involved BEFORE you present the material so that they can have questions based on experiences.
DeleteI am struggling with incorporating metaliteracy into my work because I am mostly dealing with self-paced tutorials. I will be very proud of myself if I can figure out how to make them conform with good constructivist and connectionist principles. *breathes*
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! Thanks for commenting! I hadn't even thought about incorporating metaliteracy into self-paced tutorials yet. I've been having trouble coming up with authentic yet scalable assessments for some asynchronous modules I've been working on. It seems like assessments that include metaliteracy components would require active grading which could run into scalability issues if there are a lot of students taking the tutorials. Definitely something to think on!
DeleteI'm also working on trying to move away from lecture-based instruction sessions to more active learning. I had the idea to have students work in groups to teach themselves how to find & evaluate a particular resource (scholarly article, wikipedia, newspaper, etc) and present to the class on what they learned. Ideally I'd like them to create some kind of visual aid- an infographic for example- to sort of own what they learned (also, I can use them later :-). I have my first classes next week, so we'll see if I can squeeze all that in. Eventually I might be able to have enough of a relationship with faculty to get them to assign something for me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for joining the Metaliteracy MOOC and for your initial comments. The challenges described in this thread are very real but definitely worth thinking about. I really like Cynthia's suggestion about flipping the one-shots so that time could be used in a different way. -Tom
ReplyDelete