I’ve
come back to work brimming with ideas that I can use to improve my information literacy sessions. The three events that made the most
impression were Transfrom your training the sequel: return of the interactive IL trainers by Emily Shields, Rosie Jones and Karen Peters; the Teach Meet and
Alan Carbery’s Arming the teacher librarian: using experiential learning and reflective practice to guide pedagogy.
As
well as the listening; thinking; reflecting and participating that went on
during the daytime there were also ample opportunities to socialise and
network.
Gorton Monastery was the venue for the conference dinner – a stunning interior, if a tad
chilly. The networking event was held at the John Rylands Library, a huge
Gothic building, built with the proceeds of a textiles business and very
archives/special collections in tone. I took a liking to the signs
displayed next to their collections – I think they helped to set the tone and
expectations about the building and purpose of the collections. Whilst networking I met some people I had
previously worked with and put faces to names I’m always seeing on mailing
lists.
Since
being back at work I’ve compiled a short action plan to make sure I apply all
the knowledge I gained at LILAC. Here are a couple of my information literacy ‘resolutions’.
A) Improve my presentation images
·
Take some useful images with my own
camera for use in my presentations.
·
Try the Public Domain Image site which I saw referenced on many slides.
B) Information literacy sessions
·
Try using PollEv for online voting.
·
Use the jigsaw method with Foundation
Degree students.
·
Use the IL trainers' activity called ‘choose a picture that represents…your feelings about searching’
with the Research group.
·
Question my current lesson plans – are they
inclusive of trans/digital literacy?
·
Suggest a researcher information
literacy strategy at work and use this to market our offer to PhD students, the
research centres and research active staff.
C) Personal Professional
Development
·
Begin to build a teaching portfolio
using a teaching journal as recommended in Alan's workshop.
D) Building my professional
reputation in my organisation
·
Keep blogging and tweeting.
·
I need to get more items in Faculty
newsletters; integrate to a greater extent with the research teams, muscle-in on staff
development days. I shall attempt to promote information literacy (or whatever
we want to call it) better at learning and teaching committees.
E) Building my professional
reputation in the library world
· I should and would like to present something
at a future LILAC event. I have previously been reluctant to realise that what
I do in my day-to-day work does have value and is of interest to other people
in the library world. There were a couple of sessions at LILAC where I sat back
and thought ‘I do that already’. However I think to present at a conference you
need to ground that work in theory.
