Playing catch up -new initiatives for improving tech-

knowledge and information literacy amongst library and teaching staff at

the Open University

Anne Hewling

E-Learning Specialist

Library and Learning Resources Centre

So, what IS information literacy in our context??

‘making a mark’ and

‘making one’s mark’(Nancy Kaplan, 1995)

Jo’s pub quiz

Are you being fed properly?

Is there any water in the stream?

What is wicked?

What is tasty?

What are the odds on your favourites?

Do you want to come over to my space?

Revenge of the tools

Moreover, because disability is a growing feature of every country’s population i.e. current running at an estimated to affect 10 percent to 20 percent. Furthermore, disabled student are among the early adopters of personal computes and they needs and acquired knowledge base on communications technology at as a catalyst to enhance accessibility development… At present the stated web-logs are not being used by any student with mild of server disability. (TMA quote, 2007)

Wot’s in a wurd?

What are we doing?

Safari mobileSafari

Digilab

… a creative space to inspire and support innovation in the development of pedagogically effective learning materials... Digilab is a showcase for tools, technologies and resources illustrating how today's technology can nurture tomorrow's learners …

Used by course teams, faculty, and others involved in the design and delivery of learning

DigiLearn

• Digiquests - substantial (half or full day) group based staff development activities

• Digibytes are short (half hour or one hour) group based staff development activities

Aims:

• raising awareness and confidence in using the technologies based in the Digilab

• considering the potential of using new technologies for delivering learning activities

• fostering teambuilding across development areas

Digiquests

• Smartphones, learning and you

• Immersive worlds, learning and you

• Games, learning and you

• User generated content, learning and you

Digibytes

• learning object evaluation on handheld devices

• use of mobile blogging to gather user generated content in learning contexts

• introduction to Second Life

What happens?

Activities: geo-caching, still and moving image recording and editing, storyboarding, voice recording, avatar creation, Wii contests, etc.

Outputs: presentations, short videos, podcasts, increased use of phones and PDAs, further use of Digilab’ equipment loans, etc.

Integration – using tools to learn about tools

Collaborative knowledge sharing to solve problems