Pedagogical Considerations in Developing an Online Tutorial in Information Literacy

Editor's Notes

• #2: Thank you all for coming here today. My name is Loreena Sandalwood. Outside Second Life, I am Eleni Zazani and work as a Learning Support Adviser at Birkbeck College Library, University of London.I will summarise the main points of the paper, and then open the discussionToday's paper is Skagen, T.,Torras, M., Kavli, S., Mikki, S., Hafstad, S., & Hunskår, I. (2009). Pedagogical Considerations in Developing an Online Tutorial in Information Literacy. Communications in Information Literacy, 2(2).Available at http://www.comminfolit.org/index.php/cil/article/view/Fall2008AR2/74There is also a notice in this room where you can get a notecard.I sent out a few questions along with the invitation to this meeting:**Are you involved in creating online tutorials/learning Objects? ****Would you consider more “didactic conditions” while planning online tutorials? ****What standards (IL of pedagogies), if any, do you use? ****While planning online tutorials or learning objects, do you find it difficult to apply standards? **** Which is your favourite software/platform? ****Are there any Information Literacy barriers? ****Do online tutorials replace face-to-face Information Literacy sessions? **and in terms of the article itself...** What strengths or weaknesses do you see in this paper? **Today’s paper explains how the “Didactic Relation/ or Relationship model” was used to design an online tutorial. The tutorial is called “Søk & Skriv” ('Search and Write' in English) From this point on, I will refer to it as “Search and Write” The English version of the Tutorial (Search & write) can be found at http://sokogskriv.no/english/This tutorial was the final product of the Norwegian project 'Digital Literacy through Flexible Learning' (2004-2006)It was designed to enable Distance Learning students to improve their Information and Digital Literacy skills and to also show them the way to “learn-how-to-learn”.The authors, Maria CarmeTorras et al, explain that they used the “Didactic Relation Model” as a framework for planning the content of the online Tutorial.
• #3: To make sense of the Didactic Relation Model we need to explain what “Didactic” means.The first slide on the display prim explains exactly what “Didactic” means. The etymology of the word refers to the Greek origin of the word “διδακτικός”.In short didactic means preceptive. It’s not about the action (verb: to teach) but the way we teach Having this in mind the model is not about the stages of teaching, etc. But the way we plan the lesson and the all these elements we take into consideration for planning.
• #4: A General form of the Didactic Relation Model was originally invented by the Norwegian educational researchers Bjørndal and Lieberg (1978),  and then two other Researchers, Hilde Hiim and Else Hippe, built upon the model implementing constructivist dimensions.They defined the basic elements that we need to take into consideration while planning teaching. These elements are called Didactic Conditions or Didactic Categories. The third slide shows you that the basic Didactic conditions of the model are:The learning conditionsThe SettingsThe learning goalsThe contentThe learning processAnd finally the Assessment
• #5: The model does NOT only focus on these basic aspects for planning but also on the RELATIONS between the different aspects. The arrows show that all aspects are mutually dependent; changes in one aspect affect all the other aspects ...The next slide briefly explains the way the authors interpreted the Model and used it for the “Search and Write” online tutorial....
• #6: The “Learning Conditions” include the main target audience (in this case Distance Education Students), some general demographics of this Audience, like the students’ social and cultural background, and of course Access issues in terms of technology and special needs.The tutorial can be also used by on campus students. It was considered very important that distance education students need to be able to relate their previous experience and knowledge to their studies.In the “Settings” condition the designers took external factors into consideration, like governmental efforts to promote ICT and Literacy skills and to promote a student-centred and process-centred education.Other internal “setting” factors, like the institutional VLE, educational policies, use of online resources, etc played a role in the design of the Tutorial.“Learning Goals” is what we want students to be able to accomplish. In this case the designers implemented two levels of competence and defined specific learning goals based on the American IL standards for each component.The American standards can be found here http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standards.pdfThe “Content” condition fosters the two levels of the “learning goals”. A basic level and an advanced level. The Advanced level consists of 5 Learning Objects (LOs)Other IL models and educational theories were considered while designing these LOs, for example Kuhlthau’s ISP model (Information Research Process).For those who regularly attend these Journal Club Meetings, you may remember that Pancha led the first discussion and explained the ISP model (29 Sep 2010)For those interested, the paper on the ISP model can be found at http://informationr.net/ir/13-4/paper355.htmlThe content promotes the students’ learning-by-doing and learning-by-reflecting and includes several activities to encourage them.The “Learning Process” condition adopts all the aforementioned standards and theories to address both intellectual and emotional stages of the learning process and its activities encourage students to interact with their peers, librarians, tutors, etc through dialogue and collaboration rather than isolation.Finally the “Assessment” condition refers to what extent the learning goals have been met. For that reason while planning the tutorial the authors took into account both the product and the process. The Product refers to what students have learnt after completing the designated learning goals.“Search and Write” focuses on a process-oriented Assessment,and online feedback is given to students on their performance in solving exercises.
• #7: So that was a summary of the paper and we can now discuss ....
• #14: Reference was given to explore more on the CIBER research outcomes at: Google Generation II: web behaviour experiments with the BBC by David Nicholas, Ian Rowlands, David Clark, Peter Williams (pp. 28 - 45) Aslib proceedings Volume 63 issue 1 (2011)
• #15: A reference for further reading was given:Systematic Design of Instruction, 7ed, Walter Dick, Lou Carey, James O. Carey, ISBN-10: 0205585566 ISBN-13: 9780205585564 Publisher: Allyn & Bacon, 2009; 432 pp
• #20: The questions above, were raised during the discussion.
• #21: The questions above, were raised during the discussion.