Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

August 2004 Volume 2 (4)

Conference report

"Jammin' and Jazzin' with Technology"

Rhona Arthur and Anne Noble found it hard to choose between excellent sessions at the Educational Computing Conference in New Orleans.

Jammin' and Jazzin' with Technology was the strapline for the International Society of Technology in Education's National Educational Computing Conference which was held in New Orleans in June 2004. Anne Noble from Marr College in South Ayrshire and I attended the conference as part of our association with the Scottish Executive's Masterclass programme. This programme is delivering a series of ICT training for around 670 ICT ‘champions' nominated by local authorities, and includes 22 librarians.

The conference attracts a vast number of delegates, estimates varied between 11,000 and 16,000 and once we got beyond the International delegates reception which included representation 28 countries, numbers ceased to matter. There were 25 Scots, probably the biggest representation except US and Canada, and kilts and tartan were well-received. The conference centre was incredibly large, with three concurrent conferences – it felt a mile long when you had to trek from one end to the other.

The Conference consisted of a wide variety of different sessions, including online discussions, keynote papers, seminars, workshops, birds of a feather discussions, round table discussions and an exhibition hall which would have safely held six football parks. The educational spectrum from early years to school librarianship was catered for and the emphasis on using technology to improve learning was strong. Delegates sat patiently in their session, iBooks on their laps recording from the wireless network, downloading presentations and keying notes or downloading papers and comments onto iPAQs. There were even docking stations to download the latest programmes onto hand-held devices. Fortunately, Luddites were treated to an excellent website, which the SETT organisers are using as their model for development, and a daily newspaper, the Daily Leader.

The main challenge was how to choose between the range of interesting presentations, and how to prioritise with the help of an electronic conference planner. As the week went on, there were an increasing number of changes of choice of sessions as delegates became better orientated and the Scottish group worked together to get good coverage of all interests. I focused on information literacy, WebQuests and plagiarism and Anne covered school library papers and her own interests.

The conference opened with a keynote address by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, who mesmerized delegates with his amazing 70s haircut and his theories of how little things make a difference and the critical turning point in delivering change. This was followed by a Mardi-Gras style procession to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, boasting the largest collection of sharks, jelly fish and a rare white gator. Anyway, it was on the banks of the Mississippi, that in itself was hard to beat.

I had prioritised information literacy content on my programme but started the conference with a presentation by Tom March on WebQuests. The next session was David Thornburg's Understanding generation.com, which was a fascinating analysis of how today's youth thrive in technology rich environments and how to turn this to the educator's advantage. I went to listen to Alan November, again, who expanded on his theme of Internet and information ownership and manipulation in ‘Teaching Zack to think'. Expanding the school library using ebooks was another interesting presentation, but I couldn't get my iPAQ to upgrade its software so am still trying to assess this. Anne had arranged a meeting with two local school librarians and we spent the rest of the day, swapping information and it was interesting that we shared similar issues. I also filled my time using the email centre and regular forays into the exhibition hall.

I started the second day by junking most of my conference planner and opting for a poster session on plagiarism and discussion with one of the exhibitors from turnitin.com, a service provider, who offer an origination report (at a fee) for those concerned about addressing this issue. I pursued a round table discussion on teaching ethics of Internet Use with a range of educators from high schools and universities and an energetic, to the point of manic presentation about ‘The Learning Keystone'. This was delivered by Annette Lamb who must have guessed she wasn't going to need the hundreds of slides she prepared. Although, in all fairness, she was fascinating and her website is worth a visit.

The final morning was spent supporting the Masterclass organisers as they made their own presentation, pursuing WebQuests, using Blogs and Wikis with Bernie Dodge and a preview of David Warlick's paper for this forthcoming SETT conference. Both were excellent and I recommend booking David's session ‘Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century' early.

The evening entertainment was lively – we did a bit of Cajun dancing one night, had a riverboat cruise another night and sampled the jazz in Bourbon Street another night. The group tended to stay together and this friendly, social side added to the enjoyment.

This really was a most interesting and useful conference, which offered me a lot of ideas for practical projects. The next NECC will be held in Philadelphia at the end of June 2005.

Rhona Arthur is Assistant Director, SLIC. Rhona shall be writing up the seminars for Talk2 Learn, the Masterclass online community, and for the Slainte website www.slainte.org.uk.

Websites

The Tipping Point www.gladwell.com/books.html

NECC Website http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2004/

Alan November www.anovember.com/

eBooks www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/

Plagiarism www.turnitin.com

Annette Lamb eduscapes.com/

WebQuests webquest.sdsu.edu/necc2004/blogs-and-wikis.htm

David Warlick davidwarlick.com

The librarian as activist

The sessions which I attended varied from the visionary to the practical, and I know that some of these ideas will be incorporated into my work at Marr College.

'Creating a School Ecosystem for an Information-Literate Learning Community', presented by Sally Brewer and Joyce Valenza, sought to identify the important elements of such a community. The panel emphasised the need for communication, a head teacher with vision, a librarian, good technical support, appropriate resources, standards and respect. In this situation librarians need to be activists, i.e. information experts, information literacy integrators, co-teachers, technical leaders and trainers.

At a later session, Joyce Valenza delivered one of the most practical sessions of the conference, entitled 'Pathfinders: for Learners, By Learners – Tools for Building Research Skills' which provide pupils with a plan for conducting research while promoting librarians as information professionals.

The state motto of Maine is Dirigo meaning "I lead" and an example of some of the most innovative ICT work in schools in the United States is to be found in their 1-to-1 Technology Initiative which involves the allocation of a laptop to all pupils in certain year groups. Part of their work involves being taught Information Literacy, and their school librarians are actively involved in this initiative.

Lesley Farmer's presentation, 'Electronic Reference Service: a Teen's Eye View' encouraged librarians to enable pupils to have access to a reference service on a 24/7 basis, by answering enquiries via their website, acquiring a dedicated email address or providing details of relevant enquiry websites.

Like those of our American colleagues, my library has suffered from years of inadequate funding, so I will be following the advice of Terence and Cathy Cavanaugh in their session on e-books. There are many e-books available for free, which can be downloaded onto a CD or the shared area of your school network.

Unfortunately, 'Project-based Learning in a Technology-Rich Environment' by Sara Armstrong was not as practical as other sessions, merely consisting of video examples of learning using ICT, something which many Scottish schools are already incorporating into their work.

Don Descy provided a fascinating introduction to the 'Invisible Web', showing that there are many valuable websites which we are not accessing. There are over 550 billion documents, most of which are of better quality than the Visible Web. For example, the Library of Congress website is an excellent source, but it is a searchable database which requires text to be typed in and so will not be included if you search via a search engine such as Google.

In addition to all of the social events already mentioned by Rhona, I also joined the 5K Fun Run in the beautiful Audoban Park. Even at 6am the heat and humidity were exhausting, but it was worth the effort to take part.

The conference was informative, and it was a superb opportunity to network with American librarians. Finally, I would like to express my delight at the warm welcome we were given by the people of Louisiana.

Anne Noble, Marr College, South Ayrshire.

Websites

Pathfinders

Maine Learning Technology Initiative

www.mainelearns.org

e-books

Don Descy – The Invisible Web

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (4) August 2004

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.

Last updated: 16 September 2004