Tag: information

Transformation and Autonomy with a twist: from information to learning – Critical Reflection INF530

It’s been quite a ride this INF530, and as they say “it ain’t over until it’s over”, I have yet to complete my digital essay and enter that huge time warp black hole of combining words with media and images in such a way that it enhances rather than distracts, compels rather than confuses.

 

INF530 key wordsLooking back on the topic headings I decided to make a wordle, to see things with a little visual perspective. What jumped out was “information” and “learning” and I had to think back to previous courses where the nuances of data, information, knowledge, wisdom were picked over in meticulous detail (Barrett, Cappleman, Shoib, & Walsham, 2004; Hecker, 2012; Pantzar, 2000; UNESCO, 2005) or the role of the teacher or school or librarian is discussed, particularly in the light of information literacy (Eisenberg, 2008; Mihailidis, 2012; O’Connell, 2008; Sheng & Sun, 2007; Wallis, 2003). Yes these are all part of the picture, but the words that I’d like to contribute and focus on are not there, because they are implicit and essential rather than explicit. Integral to information and learning are transformation and autonomy.

 

Firstly transformation, it’s synonyms (conversion, metamorphosis, renewal, revolution, shift, alteration) and its’ derivatives:

  • the doing – to transform,
  • the process – transformation,
  • the subject and the state – transformed, and
  • the agent – transformer.

And the twist, because in education we are simultaneously the agent and the subject, the initiator, the process and the end state. We cannot “do” without “being”. And that is the value of plunging into a distance-learning course that takes one beyond the mundane and everyday into personally being transformed and feeling the simultaneous discomfort and thrill of not always being in control of the process or the outcome. Sometimes the truth is found in the antonym – stagnation and sameness. The resistance to change that saps energy rather than re-energises as transformation does.

 

Conole (2013, p. 61) stated “We have to accept that it is impossible to keep up with all the changes, so we need to develop coping strategies which enable individuals to create their own personal digital environment of supporting tools and networks to facilitate access to and use of relevant information for their needs.” That is part of the solution, the other is finding one’s place in digital and physical learning ecologies (O’Connell, 2014; Vasiliou, Ioannou, & Zaphiris, 2014; Wang, Guo, Yang, Chen, & Zhang, 2015). Yes ecologies, because we are, and our students and children will be “shape shifting portfolio people” (Gee & Hayes, 2011) whether we want to acknowledge and embrace the fact or not.

 

Which brings me to the second of “my” take-away words. Autonomy. It is autonomy with a difference – autonomy within communities and networks of our own and others’ making. As Downes (2012, bk. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge) puts it “knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, … learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks”.

 

However without the aforementioned transformation we can’t have the autonomy. It is an autonomy hard won, through dint of our own efforts, the pushing and pulling and attraction of our teachers, mentors, peers and heroes. Autonomy feeds off motivation and self-regulatory control (Kormos & Csizér, 2014). The latter including commitment, meta-cognitive, satiation, emotion and environmental control (Tseng, Dörnyei, & Schmitt, 2006). Ironically we need others to attain autonomy. Autonomy is not independence but interdependence, not being on your own, but being part of a larger community of learners all together on individual journeys. It’s the forums, blogs, comments, feedback and Facebook posts. The emojis, irrelevant and irreverent tweets; words of encouragement and critique, ideas and suggestions that propel us forward and backward and around in circles – but ever expanding circles and cycles of improvement and transformation.

 

Thank-you to my peers, my course co-ordinator Judy, those who went before us and those who will come after us may we transform and be transformed, gain autonomy and enable others do so too in this journey of life-long learning.

What you are speaks so loud I can not hear what you say - Original Quote by Emerson
What you are speaks so loud I can not hear what you say – Original Quote by Emerson

References

Barrett, M., Cappleman, S., Shoib, G., & Walsham, G. (2004). Learning in knowledge communities. European Management Journal, 22(1), 1–11. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2003.11.019

Conole, G. (2013). Open, social and participatory media. In Designing for learning in an open world (pp. 47–63). New York ; Heidelberg: Springer.

Downes, S. (2012). My eBooks [Web Log]. Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://www.downes.ca/me/mybooks.htm

Eisenberg, M. B. (2008). Information literacy: Essential skills for the information age. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, 28(2), 39–47. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=51198131&site=ehost-live

Gee, J. P., & Hayes, E. (2011). Language and learning in the digital age (1st ed). New York, NY: Routledge.

Hecker, A. (2012). Knowledge beyond the individual? Making sense of a notion of collective knowledge in organization theory. Organization Studies, 33(3), 423–445. http://doi.org/10.1177/0170840611433995

Kormos, J., & Csizér, K. (2014). The interaction of motivation, self-regulatory strategies, and autonomous learning behavior in different learner groups. TESOL Quarterly, 48(2), 275–299. http://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.129

Mihailidis, P. (2012). Media literacy and learning commons in the digital age: Toward a knowledge model for successful integration into the 21st century school library. The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 2. Retrieved from http://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2012/04/media-literacy-and-learning-commons-in-the-digital-age-toward-a-knowledge-model-for-successful-integration-into-the-21st-century-school-library/

O’Connell, J. (2008). School library 2.0 : new skills, new knowledge, new futures. In P. Godwin & J. Parker (Eds.), Information literacy meets Library 2.0 (pp. 51–62). London: Facet.

O’Connell, J. (2014, July 19). Information ecology at the heart of knowledge [Web Log]. Retrieved March 28, 2015, from http://judyoconnell.com/2014/07/19/information-ecology-at-the-heart-of-knowledge/

Pantzar, E. (2000). Knowledge and wisdom in the information society. Foresight, 2(2), 230–236.

Sheng, X., & Sun, L. (2007). Developing knowledge innovation culture of libraries. Library Management, 28(1/2), 36–52. http://doi.org/10.1108/01435120710723536

Tseng, W.-T., Dörnyei, Z., & Schmitt, N. (2006). A new approach to assessing strategic learning: The case of self-regulation in vocabulary acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 78–102. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/ami046

UNESCO. (2005). Towards knowledge societies. Retrieved fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001418/141843e.pdf

Vasiliou, C., Ioannou, A., & Zaphiris, P. (2014). Understanding collaborative learning activities in an information ecology: A distributed cognition account. Computers in Human Behavior, 41(0), 544–553. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.057

Wallis, J. (2003). Information-saturated yet ignorant: information mediation as social empowerment in the knowledge economy. Library Review, 52(8), 369–372. http://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310493770

Wang, X., Guo, Y., Yang, M., Chen, Y., & Zhang, W. (2015). Information ecology research: past, present, and future. Information Technology and Management, 1–13. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-015-0219-3

Paying lip service to information

One of the paragraphs in this week’s modules struck me:

“It is often said that we live in an information age, and that the price of failing to act promptly to take advantage of positive new developments or to dampen the impact of negative ones is often likely to be rapid and painful. Yet there is plentiful evidence that sources of information, including both special and public libraries, are under-utilised by those in business and very often seriously underfunded. It is possible to conclude that business (like, one fears, some politicians, local government representatives, university administrators and school principals) is more likely to pay lip service to the importance of good information services than to support them in a practical way.” (INF538, Charles Sturt University, 2014)

I think it is something that librarians have to battle with on a daily – if not some days, hourly basis. Yesterday was a case in point. Our library received not one, but two, lengthy requests for materials and resources (mainly really expensive books) to support curriculum.   Oh, but that’s a good thing. It’s a great thing you may think.  Teachers reaching out to libraries to support their information needs.   Yes.  And no.    You see, the need for information, the seeking of and the request for and the acquisition and dissemination of the same is not so much an “on / off” switch (or email request) as a dialogue.  And what was missing from these interactions was the dialogue.

An information resource does not exist in a vacuum.  It has a context.  And in a school the context is made up of so many things.  And without the dialogue the quality is likely to suffer.

In our training, a big deal is made of the “information interview”  and there is reason for this.  We need to know details about what the client needs.  This includes the age group and reading and understanding level of the students.  Where the module fits into the curriculum for the year and where it fits into what has come before and what will happen in the next year.   The cultural composition of students.  The teacher needs to know what we have in the library.  What databases we have access to. What ebooks and digital materials are available.   Videos, youtube clips, and libguides we have created.  What other teachers have requested in the same and higher and lower grades.

This is why the first step and not the last should be to pop into the library and have a quick chat.  That way there is less waste of time while teachers make lists from google or amazon that may be entirely inappropriate, or a duplication for what already exists.

“support them in a practical way” … what does this mean for an organisation and a library service.  I think more than anything else, is to give it credit as an integral part of the information flow in the library.  Not an add on, but embedded.

And now the chicken and the egg question.  Is it the responsibility of the library / librarian or the administrator?  Where does one start?  How slowly must the process move?  At least one teacher said during a meeting yesterday (adhoc, impromptu and sudden for an ‘urgent’ reactive need)  “I wish I’d talked to you earlier”.    To which we responded by just fitting in with their plans and agreeing to meet their needs.   I can’t help thinking about the time management boxes that were so popular a while back with the “urgent, important etc. blocks”   Clearly something structural needs to occur.  But what and how?

Everyone is trying their best. Everyone has time and other pressures.  There never is a steady state.  So how do we become drivers, or at least co-pilots instead of passengers on this trip?