It also means that many of us are experiencing our roles as presenters and attendees, where we prepare and deliver presentations or we are on the receiving end as attendees. Did we make the best of our opportunity to present, and what did we learn from the experience as a presenter or attendee? While I gave a few presentations, I was also learning from other presenters who demonstrated new ideas and new techniques with their programs. With the end of the presentation season just ahead, we will soon have time to reflect and think about what we can do better or differently to improve our presentations.

Some good advice comes from Dave Paradi, a blogger and author who specializes in consulting with others to improve their presentations, although he mostly concentrates on PowerPoint and using it for more effective communication. In a recent post he shared some ideas that made good sense. The gist of the post is that presenters start their preparation by creating the visuals that become their slide presentation. Once the presentation starts to take shape, the presenter becomes personally invested in slides and it becomes difficult to make changes, and almost impossible to scrap it and start again with a completely different approach. He writes:

Why the resistance? Because they are heavily invested emotionally in the slides they spent so much time creating. It is human nature to resist changing something that we put a lot of time and effort in to…there is no way we are just throwing it out and starting over again

Paradi’s advice for avoiding the emotional attachment trap is to adopt a different way of creating presentation visuals. He suggests that presenters start their presentation preparation away from the computer. He believes it is better to:

Start by thinking about the goal of the presentation – what do you want the audience to know at the end of the presentation…The structure of the presentation can be done on a whiteboard, pad of paper, or, my favorite, sticky notes so I can move them around

When beginning a new presentation I tend to follow Paradi’s suggestion to start away from the computer. I will either develop a rough script for my presentation or sketch out my ideas as a way of determining what the three or so main concepts or themes are. Then I’ll work on fleshing each of those out and building in more detail. Here’s an example of some rough sketches of new presentation on which I’m working.

You may argue that ultimately it is better to avoid using traditional slide presentations all together, and I would tend to agree. I’m not opposed to using PowerPoint. Despite some recent criticism , PPT is only software and it’s up to each presenter to use it to achieve the outcomes of the presentation in a way that makes for a good learning and program experience for the attendee. The best presentation advice I’ve heard is that you need to begin with a passion for the audience, and a desire to make the presentation about them. I’ve been experimenting with a variety of techniques, including storytelling (with mixed results), my own hand-drawn sketches (a love it or hate it proposition for some), video that I mix and then integrate into the slides, and more conversation with attendees when it fits. Between that variety of techniques I’m hoping each attendee will believe I’ve designed the presentation with their needs in mind.

One presentation I attended was a nice combination of using Prezi and hands-on activity. Another presentation I attended was based on the Garr Reynold’s style of using images alone or with a single word or short phrase. I’m sure you’ve seen many presentations in this style as it has grown in popularity in recent years. But other than a few clever photos, I found myself paying little attention to the slides at all, and instead found the speakers were doing quite well just sharing what they knew. For me, the images became a distraction and did little to communicate ideas or engage me. This was a case where no slides at all may have been better, but I suspect, as Paradi suggests, that the presenters were quite heavily invested in their slides and likely thought of them as absolutely necessary for the talk.

Whether you did the presenting or the attending, think about using the summer months to practice new presentation techniques or focus more on the preparation process. If you are heading to ALA, take special note of the presentation techniques and look for new ideas. If you see something of interest, take time to ask the presenter about their methods. The best way to become a better presenter, besides getting as much authentic practice as you can, remains observing others, spotting good technique, viewing videos of great presenters, and then learning how to adapt those techniques to create your own unique style of presenting.

The main thing you should know is that TEDxNJLibs was really not about librarianship. The theme was community and culture, and like all TED events it featured a diverse collection of speakers who brought different perspectives to the theme. And just like TED events, the speakers shared stories of courage, caring and inspiration. As a celebration of culture it also featured great music and good food. It was a really well-balanced program that got me thinking. One of the commonalities that ran through the talks was, for me at least, the idea of choosing to act to make a difference in the community and lives of others. Whether it was Sam Daley-Harris’ effort to use microfinance to eradicate world hunger and poverty, or Salman Ahmad’s mission to share music to promote peace, the speakers demonstrated that a single good idea, well executed, can make a difference.

I do want to share one illustrative story because it’s a good one, but also because it involved the community library. Mimi Omiecinski moved to Princeton, New Jersey in June 2006, with absolutely no plans to start a small business. But that’s exactly what she did. The epitome of the local entrepreneur, Mimi started a local walking tour company in Princeton, New Jersey. Mimi’s business, like any new one, was slow to catch on with the community and visitors. But then she had an idea – a great one. According to an interview with a local paper Mimi recalled:

A few years ago, I started my bike tour business, and I literally couldn’t even give away the bikes. So I started the walking tours (Princeton Tour Company), and figured I’d study up on Albert Einstein for a tour. So I Googled him, and found out he was born on March 14 — 3/14. Pi, of course, is 3.14159 … That was my “oh my god” moment.

Many of have that “oh my god” moment but we either let it drift off or perhaps we do make a note of it, but then we ultimately never get past the idea stage. But Mimi took hold of her idea and became its champion. Out of her “aha” moment grew Princeton Pi Day, celebrated of course on March 14. Taking personal responsibility for the idea, Mimi enlisted businesses and others in the community to participate with special events and items that would cost $3.14. A real stroke of genius was collaborating with the Princeton Public Library. The Library put together a mix of Einstein and Pi-related activities (Einstein look alike contest, contest to recall the most numbers in Pi, pie throwing, etc.), and funds raised by Mimi’s tours would be contributed to the Library. Mimi’s one simple idea and her commitment to it made all the difference for the community, its people, and the Library.

The “one idea can make a difference” is a theme that others have explored. Malcolm Gladwell discussed in his book The Tipping Point. He referred to it as “creating an epidemic”:

The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly. That makes it something of obvious and enormous interest to everyone from educators trying to reach students, to businesses trying to spread the word about their product, or for that matter to anyone who’s trying to create a change with limited resources.

Had I not been asked to emcee, I probably would still have attended TEDxNJLIBS. I knew it would be a fun and informative event, and one of the great things about TED is that is you can easily expose yourself to new ideas and new mysteries. Doing so is one way to keep learning and putting yourself in a position to get those ideas that can lead to innovations that make a difference. I learned one other important lesson from the TEDx speakers. Having a great idea is important, and coming up with a plan to implement it is the start to creating change. The other important ingredient is the “WHY”.

As in “why am I doing this?” I don’t doubt that Mimi wanted to jump start her tour business, but I think there was more to Pi Day than that. As I listened to her tell the story I sensed she really wanted to do something to bring the community together for a shared experience. She believed it would make the community a better place, and the community members believed in her – and shared the vision for what Pi Day could offer. The next time you have an idea try to do more than capture it on paper. Share it with colleagues. Play with it. Come up with some prototypes for it. If there’s a positive response, take it to the next level. But always keep the “why” question front and center. If you strongly believe in the WHY – if it is more about doing something for the community and is less about how it advances your career – then it should be easy to articulate for yourself and demonstrate to others the WHY behind your great idea. Start there and you will make a difference.

Addendum: You can view the video of Mimi’s TEDxNJLIBS presentation here.

If you choose to become the director at a college or small university library, particularly one with a small professional staff, it’s quite likely that you will not only have the opportunity to continue performing in public services, but it will most probably be required. Any significant outreach effort involving active liaison duties, embedded librarianship, a proactive library instruction program and other efforts to extend beyond the walls of the library can be hard on a small staff. The library director can’t afford to sit behind a desk in their corner office – and why would he or she want to? More meetings and administrative tasks means less time for public service, but the college library director that wants to continue being involved should have ample opportunities.

The other common administrative track is the assistant director or associate university librarian in a larger university setting. In this situation, it’s more likely the library has a well-staffed reference and instruction department capable of meeting the demand. Though the situation might not necessitate administrator involvement, I’d advocate for library administrators to seek out a weekly shift on the reference desk and to take on a few instruction sessions each semester. Here’s why. First, if it’s something you really enjoy, having the opportunity to participate on the front line will make the job that much more satisfying. Second, if public services are part of your portfolio, serving the public will make you a better informed and more effective administrator. How can you make good decisions that impact the staff and user community if you are out of touch with the delivery of public service? Third, keeping connected to the work of reference librarians and instructors enables you to better understand the day-to-day challenges that front-line professionals face. When they express frustrations about a clumsy printer setup or an inadequate training room, you are much better prepared to understand the situation and act decisively on it if you have experienced it firsthand. Nothing frustrates a front-line librarian more than an administrator who pooh-poohs a dilemma without really understanding its complexities. Being involved has its advantages, but be careful not to micromanage the situation or use your administrative power to gain leverage over others. That can be equally frustrating or downright annoying. Fourth, if reference and instruction activity really picks up, it may actually overwhelm the staff. An involved academic library administrator can help meet the demand or fill in for front-line librarians who are stretched thin.

I’m not sure where my career is headed next, but whatever administrative position I might hold in the future I will most likely want to continue to retain some involvement in direct public service. I’ve found that a regular shift at the reference desk and a few instruction sessions each semester, in addition to allowing me an opportunity to keep practicing what I really enjoy, does enable me to keep my reference and instruction skills somewhat sharp. Fortunately, I’ve not found myself in a situation where the front-line staff prefers the administrator to stay off the front line and in their office. That’s another situation all together, and one that a good library administrator should be able to decipher and manage.

As I’ve said before, one of the best reasons to become a library administrator is to have the golden opportunity to bring your personal vision of what an academic library can be to an institution, and to work with a dedicated and passionate staff to bring that vision to fruition. Doing so will mean making sacrifices, like giving up daily interaction with library users at public service desks or leaving behind all those instruction sessions. Well, for some that might not be a sacrifice but rather a much appreciated change. After twenty years of 40 to 50 instruction sessions a semester, an administrative position might seem like a nice break. But I think a good academic library administrator is an involved, engaged and participative library administrator.

A few weeks ago my Temple University colleagues and I traveled to Princeton University for a joint staff development program on digital reference. Stephen Francouer did a fine job of leading us through the evolution of digital reference, and shared his thoughts on where the technology and service is headed. Francouer summarized the key points of his talk in a post at his blog if you want to read what he had to say. There was no lack of excited conversation about the different appoaches our libraries were taking with chat and text reference. The discussion focused on using these technologies to connect with users and extend our traditional services in ways that better serve the user community.

What if the program theme had been tagging or podcasting or blogging or facebook profiles or any of the other 2.0 technologies academic libraries have adopted? I think the character of the conversations would have been far less dynamic with much less enthusiasm for where we are headed. It was as if we were talking about the next frontier – even though digital reference is hardly new. But digital reference is emerging as the library service – and technology – that best moves us into the next Web revolution.

According to BusinessWeek, that revolution is the “real-time web” which it describes as:

the exploding number of live social activities online, from tweets to status updates on Facebook to the sharing of news, Web links and videos on myriad other sites. It’s a whole new layer of innovation that’s opening up on the Web.

Academic libraries always had elements of Web 2.0 to them, but without the 2.0 technology. Much the same, the exchange of information in real-time (think phone and F2F reference) is not new to libraries, but now we have the convenience, immediacy and community presence of the real-time web world. We are poised to move there.

What are some characteristics of the real-time library?

* The real-time library is socially networked but it’s about more than just owning social network accounts; the real-time library has an active presence and shares information in real time.

* The real-time library updates its status regularly.

* The real-time library offers targeted services to the networked community.

* The real-time library is accessible on real-time communication devices.

* The real-time library is ready and waiting – all the time – to deliver information services.

* The real-time library monitors the multitude of emerging real-time web services and experiments to find those with the potential to enhance service in real-time mode.

* The real-time library designs information services specifically for delivery and use on the real-time web.

* Real-time librarians are adept at creating relationships with real-time library users.

At our program we explored the opportunities opening up to academic librarians connected to the real-time web – although “real-time web” was not a part of our terminology. But much of the conversation was about providing services in real time, and how to do that successfully. There was some talk of the Google’s Wave product. It will be a few months before we fully grasp the details, but the early announcements suggest it may offer a platform for real-time libraries that want to move even further into new communication and information exchange environments with their users. In real-time environments we may be able to work more collaboratively with each other and our users – even to the point of seeing the words of the other person’s messages as they are typed.

For now, don’t expect a set of principles for real-time librarians, the Real-Time Librarian blog or real-time library manifestos. This is all part of the user-generated/user-participation web evolution. As our users – our next generation of students – develop new behaviors and expectations for how they acquire and use information it is important that we pay attention to it, understand it and design it into the services we deliver.

But apparently I came off appearing rather naive to at least two bloggers. Both Ellie Collier and Roy Tennant took my post as an opportunity to warn the librarian community about these sites which are little more than an effort to scam us into doing something that wastes our time and benefits the site owners. BTW, see my comment to Ellie’s post. Turns out that AL Direct picked up on my post and broadcast it out to the library community at large; that’s where Roy picked it up (gosh, I thought he was a regular ACRLog reader – now I find out he only reads it if AL Direct mentions it). Both Roy and Ellie explain these scam sites pretty well, so go read their posts if you want to understand it better.

I was actually a bit concerned that AL Direct did mention it – no, I never mind getting referrals from AL Direct – because just a few stories above that AL Direct was linking people to another bogus post from Learn-gasm on the “Top 100 blogs for library students” (Ok, I’m definitely NOT linking to that one. Doesn’t the site name “Learn-gasm” tip you off that something smells rotten). So I’m wondering if AL Direct realizes I’m not taking this stuff seriously. Anyway, speaking of that “top 100″ blogs post, someone from ACRL wrote to me to complain that ACRLog wasn’t included on the list but that ACRL Insider was – clearly an act of injustice. My response was “pay it no mind” as I tried to explain why that post was nothing but a scam job – and there was no problem in being left off it. I’m pretty sure aspiring academic librarians know about or will learn about ACRLog without the help of an affiliate site.

So fellow bloggers, I appreciate your public service announcements about the dangers of going to or providing links to these scam sites. I do understand your intent, and this post is in no way critical of your reactions to my original post. If that post provided an opportunity to bring a much larger problem to the attention of the library community – that’s a good thing. But I can assure you I wasn’t fooled, duped or otherwise led astray by the 25 predictions post. If that was the case I’d be linking to these dumb sites all the time. I must get at least 5 or more e-mails a month telling me to go see and share these posts – and then there are the “freelance bloggers” who want to know if they can write a post for ACRLog. In fact, to an extent my attempt at ridiculing them was mostly a pent-up burst of “now I’m going to take you to the woodshed” in return for all the spam mail they send me. Maybe that was not a good idea, but I don’t regret the post. It was definitely a one-off mention of one of these sites and you definitely won’t see it happen again at ACRLog.

So in the end it’s good to know that you other bloggers are reading us here at ACRLog. Now, I have just two requests for you:

1) Please do get my name right – it’s STEVEN, not Stephen.

2) How about a post where you tell your readers about the great new columns from Barbara and STEVEN.

I am an opportunist.
I am a creative genius (or part of a creative work team)
I am persistent
I am customer focused
I connect the dots
I am passionate
I am a risk taker

According to my research in preparation for a talk at Inspiration, Innovation, Celebration: An Entrepreneurial Conference for Librarians those are the seven core qualities of an entrepreneur; I learned a good deal about the characteristics and practices of entrepreneurs at my institution’s Center for Entrepreneur Research. Based on what I heard at various presentations delivered at the conference, at least one or more of these characteristics are indeed associated with with the work of librarian entrepreneurs. But for my closing keynote talk I raised a simple question: Is the term librarian entrepreneur an oxymoron? Considering what business and start-up entrepreneurs do how would academic librarians achieve entrepreneur status? I asked quite a few librarians if they could name a librarian entrepreneur. Ninety-eight percent could not. A few named someone entrepreneurial who created a library product or service, but who was not a librarian. If there are librarian entrepreneurs out there why don’t we know who they are?

Part of the confusion comes from the uncertainty about the work of entrepreneurs – and does coming up with an innovative idea make you an entrepreneur? In the classic business sense an entrepreneur is an individual or group that comes up with one big idea and essentially puts all their resources (time, money, energy, etc.) into pursuing it to make it happen with the intent of eventually being profitable. I shared tales of entrepreneurs who had done just that, putting everything they have into a single business idea. Clearly not the sort of thing we do in libraries. I also asked librarians to name any entreprenuer. Virtually all had no trouble answering that question; the most frequently named entrepreneurs were high visible, business people, usually technologists and wealthy (think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs). So the characteristics we associate with entrepreneurs would, for most people, hardly fit a librarian.

So even though I tried to raise some doubts about the viability of the librarian entrepreneur concept, it would be difficult to claim that librarians fail the entrepreneur test with the evidence delivered by the presenters. You can review the ideas that were shared at the conference site, and some of the presentation slides are now available. I liked the opportunism and creativity employed but the folks who developed a digital media center at SMU. Attendees were buzzing about the academic library that included an 18-hole mini-golf course in their library redesign project. At UNC-Greensboro they developed an A-Z journal finder that was eventually sold to a commercial vendor, and returned some profits to the institution. So while academic librarians rarely put everything into a single big idea with a go for broke attitude, there certainly are plenty of examples of projects that demonstrate creativity, innovation and some degree of risk.

I closed the conference with ten tips for aspiring library entrepreneurs, and a few messages about creating an entrepreneurial library from some folks who I think have proven to be particularly successful at doing just that. Those tips, messages and clips from my librarian interviews are embedded in my slides if you want to have a look (the embedded videos will run best on a mac). If you think of yourself as a librarian entrepreneur, share an example of something you’ve accomplished at or beyond your library.

The one aspect of the talk – I wouldn’t exactly call it a presentation – that most resonated with me was Glass’s discussion of telling stories. I’ve heard a number of good storytellers, and it’s fascinating when someone does it well. There’s not much storytelling at library conferences. I’d look forward to more of it because I imagine the presenters have interesting stories to share. Perhaps the reason it happens so rarely is evidenced in the comment of an audience member. She said that even though she can write just about any type document she couldn’t tell a story to save her life. Few librarians have opportunities to tell stories, and if you feel little confidence in your ability to tell a story it will fail. Glass used the book “One Thousand and One Nights” to provide an example of two things: how to tell a story and what a great story should accomplish.

Glass’ advice was to stick to a simple formula. Give an action. Then give a reflection. An action. Then a reflection. In other words, tell some story and then interject some meaning. But the action has to get the audience’s attention and keep them wondering what’s going to happen next. That’s the hook according to Glass. It’s not unlike a good joke. First you have some bait to get the listener hooked. Then there’s a series of facts that leads to a crescendo – the punchline. Other tips from Glass include using suspense to keep the listener wondering what happens next; aim for a point that relates to a universal human experience; avoid starting with a “here’s what I’m going to do” message because it eliminates the ability to build suspense. Probably the best instructor I ever had was a master at telling a story or sharing an anecdote from his many years of experience in higher education, but he’d quickly relate it to a theoretical point he wanted us to learn. Then he’d move from theory to another story. Waiting for the next story made it easy to get through those late night classes.

Few if any of us are naturally gifted story tellers. Becoming a better story teller, just like presenting well at any level, requires authentic practice. I’m trying to incorporate more storytelling in to my presentations – I wrote that in my post - just tell the story. Don’t worry so much about whether there are 10 or 11 words on a slide or if it has the right colors or images – well – if you’re going to use images they better fit what you are saying. Better yet, use images that help tell the story. We talk about how librarians can be better presenters. Perhaps focusing more on the story, and letting your images provide the backdrop is one way to do that.

Of course, it’s all going to depend on having good stories. Sometimes storytellers will depend on old folks tales. Sometimes it’s just something that happened to you. Good stories are all around us, but you have to keep your eyes and ears open for them. Perhaps something interesting happened at your reference desk or during an instruction session. For a presentation I’m preparing on the topic of entrepreneurship I found a nice little story to illustrate the importance of exploring new ideas that fall outside the boundaries of your official job duties. I came across it in a magazine that has nothing to do with librarianship. It can help to get outside our literature in search of potential stories. The catch is to find stories that lead into reflections that relate to the presentation topic – and that drive home the points without the “bullet points”.

Glass finished by reminding us that the Internet is full of stories – thousands of them. We are inundated with them. Some really inspire us. Others have a falseness to them. He said we know when we hear an authentic story because we can really empathize with it and it’s much more profound. A good story helps you sort out what’s real and what isn’t, and it makes you feel a bit saner. That’s why Glass likes to create stories for the radio – because it’s all about sharing a voice.

So I’m going to end this by pointing to a few videos – here, here and here – in which I share some stories. It’s an effort to get authentic practice. Keep in mind that I’m still learning how to do this, and working at improving my craft. I’m sure you can find other examples on the Internet of people – maybe even some librarians – telling stories. If you find a good one, share it with us.

So what is our role in all this? Clearly, we’re part of the infrastructure for making the case and providing the place for these materials to be made public. But – how often have you heard about an intriguing paper, published by an academic librarian in a journal that allows self-archiving (such as ACRL publications, portal, and Journal of Academic Librarianship) and been unable to find a copy online? How often have you wondered why librarians sign contracts with publishers who assume all rights and don’t allow for self-archiving? Why can’t we walk the walk?

That’s why I was so cheered to see at Infofetishist that Oregon State University librarians have adopted OA for themselves. Peter Suber thinks this is a good idea. It’s an important symbol to the rest of the academic community. It says to the world, we can do this.

What about you? Would you support an open access mandate in your library?

Students don’t research like they used to. And they have a hard time evaluating the credibility of information they find, both in print and online. At least that’s what two instructors at Mesa Community College saw in their courses. So the instructors, Rochelle L. Rodrigo and Susan K. Miller-Cochran, who is now an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University, wrote The Wadsworth Guide to Research, published this year by Cengage Learning. In November they presented some of their teaching strategies at the New Media Consortium’s Rock the Academy symposium, in Second Life.

Ms. Miller-Cochran talked to The Chronicle about how to help students determine when a source is reliable. She emphasizes the need for students to learn how to think critically about their information searches. In her class students learn about the publication process, and that leads them to better understand the difference between popular and scholarly literature – whatever format it is in. She said:

The most immediate difference is that my students don’t go to Wikipedia or Google first. When they come into class, that is usually their MO. Now they’re much more likely to go to a library database, for example. And when they use the library database, they might choose the option to search only for scholarly articles.

When I read a statement like this coming from a faculty member it pretty much validates, for me, everything I’ve said and written in the last 10 years about the vital role faculty can play in changing student research behavior when they make it a priority and integrate it into their course material. Just consider the amount of time Miller-Cochran’s students must spend on research skill development compared to an instructor who invites in a librarian to offer a one-time instruction session. And we know that students place enormous trust in what faculty tell them. As expected there were multiple comments to this post from librarians communicating a “we’re here to help you” message.

Then shortly after this article appeared, Inside Higher Ed came up with another example of faculty designing an information literacy component into their course. In an article about changes in the teaching of history at community colleges we learned that some faculty are “focusing on basic information literacy and research skills, which their students tend to lack.” Could our faculty colleagues finally be getting the message? We learn that Brian Casserly of North Seattle Community College uses assignments in a U.S. survey history course to teach the basics of conducting research and writing a research paper. I wish more faculty would consider taking on greater responsibility for teaching research skills in their courses as Casserly does.

But I can imagine some information literacy and instruction librarians asking themselves “if faculty do ever fully integrate this into their courses and teach it without me – what will I do for a living?” The possibility of librarians being made obsolete by faculty following the examples described above, I think, is highly unlikely. But even if the majority of faculty did, I think that academic librarians would still be needed to support the development and design of instructional activity and digital-learning materials. Our new opportunity would be back-end support – making sure faculty were up-to-date on the e-resources and well equipped with the tools to integrate them into their courses. This could be a whole new growth area for librarian educators. That’s where I’ve advocated the growing importance of instructional design and technology in the work of librarians. I don’t know exactly where academic librarians will be in the future, but if it wasn’t at the front of the classroom that would be fine with me – as long as we play a role in what happens there.

Some people felt it was a great assignment for these reasons:

–It used social media for higher-order educational ends
–It involved students in original authorship with an audience beyond one teacher
–It asked students to be creative with their research
–It taught students to think critically about sources
–It was a lot more fun for the students than traditional research
–It got a lot of press and demonstrated the power of social networks to spread information

Others, including Dietering, were bothered by it. Here are some of those reasons:

–Putting false information on Wikipedia is vandalism and vandalism is wrong
–Deliberately creating an elaborate hoax violates established trust networks; this project gave the whole idea of trust among historians a big Bronx cheer
–It took an easy approach to inculcating skepticism. It’s not that hard to feel superior when looking at a hoax site. It’s harder (but a much more useful skill) to look at serious approaches to issues and analyze their arguments and evidence.
–It suggested that creating an elaborate lie is much more creative and engaging than historical research, which is boringly confined by facts

On the whole, I have to agree. You can be creative with history and invent events and people using historical information and learn a lot about history in the process. You can use social networks to expand your audience for your scholarship. You can learn how to be skeptical of hoaxes and appropriately critical of secondary sources. And you can do all that without concocting an elaborate “gotcha” in which the mechanisms of creative mendacity take center stage over doing history or critical thinking.

But Anne-Marie says it better than I could.

I just don’t see where the information literacy skills here translate into what most students need in their real work with online information sources. Increasingly, I just think that a focus on deliberate hoaxes isn’t a very good way to teach students how to evaluate information.

Now I get that the work done to create the hoax might give the students in this class a greater appreciation for stuff that could make them more information literate, and that knowing specifically what they did to create a fake site might give them some stuff to look for in other sites, but I don’t really see the larger benefit here beyond the reminder that stuff on the Internet can be fake and I honestly don’t think that our students don’t know that full well already.

Because here’s the first thing – helping students learn that there is stuff on the wild, wild web that was put there just to trick them, to punk them or to prank them – well, there’s not a lot of value in that. . . . Most people who put fake or wrong or misleading information out there on the Internet have an agenda beyond April Fool’s – they’re trying to do more than trick us and what our students need is help identifying those agendas. They need help identifying the information that isn’t flat out lies, but that is a particular kind of truth.

At its heart, I think information literacy is inherently linked to inquiry, and discovery. It’s about the ability to learn from information – not just to find the sources worth learning from but to use that new information to change the way you understand things, and change the way you approach the next question.

And yes, I get that she’s pretend, but the fictional process the real class came up with does suggest that historical research is difficult and tedious and one doesn’t make the great discovery by engaging with sources in an open-minded way. If the class had been engaged in a discovery-based research process I would hope that that would have come through in their fictional avatar’s narrative. It doesn’t. There is no doubt that this group of students were truly engaged – playing with history, creating a new world and the characters to fill it. . . .

If the skills they were learning were about creativity and world-building it seems like the resulting project could have taken the form of an ARG or a similar project where those creative muscles could be flexed in the service of creating a world for the rest of us to play in, too.

And that’s probably what bothers me the most. It isn’t that a fictitious version of reality was invented. It isn’t just that the implication is that history, done the way historians do it, is boring and lacks creativity, though that does bug me. It was the way it was marketed and performed, as if the real object wasn’t to learn how to be skeptical or to create something historically plausible, but rather how to pull off a kind of performative sleight-of-hand that would fool the most people and gain the biggest gotcha.

It seems to me we get a constant barrage of social media self-promotion and manipulation through the media; learning how to add to it doesn’t seem the most direct way to understand its impact, any more than doing something many would consider unethical (deliberately creating a hoax) is the best hands-on way to explore ethics.

photo courtesy of magic74