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2002 ALA Annual Conference
Emerging Technologies in Instruction Committee: Meeting I
Saturday, 15 June 2002
2:00-4:00pm
Members Present: Peter Tagtmeyer, chair, Marianne Stowell Bracke, Erin Daix, Lori DuBois, John Hickok, Melissa Koenig, Kathy Magarrell, Leslie Murtha, Judy Smith, Sharon Verba, Carrie Kruse, Intern, Scribe
Members Excused: Robin Lockerby, Francesca Lane Rasmus, Janelle Wertzberger
Visitors:
Incoming committee members:
Norman Buchwald, Jennifer McCarty
Others:
Larry Papenfuss, Josephine Donley, Brian Moore, and a few others who stayed briefly and didn't sign in.
Agenda:
- Introductions, conference news
Introductions were given all around.
Peter distributed various handouts: meeting agenda, midwinter meeting minutes, Emerging Technologies (Etech) committee action plan, existing Internet Education Project (IEP) criteria, and the IEP review results (to members only).
Peter made the following announcements:
- The IS Teaching Methods brainstorming session
(how to implement the competency standards) will be held later today
(June 15th) at 4:30.
- IS and the Library Instruction Round Table
(LIRT) are holding a 25th anniversary party at 12:30 on Sunday, June
16th, in the Marriott Marquis, between the LIRT morning program and IS
afternoon program.
- The IS program is on Sunday, June 16th from 1:30-3:30 in the Marriott Marquis, Imperial Ballroom, Salon A. The program is titled: Building Premier Learning Communities: Strategies for Successful Library Involvement.
- Review of the minutes of January 19 & 20, 2002
Peter suggested that we review the minutes from the Midwinter conference meetings to see if there are any points that we needed to follow up on. Were there any actions that we said we would do that haven't been done yet? Are there any outcomes that people had questions about?
- IEP logo: Francesca sent a draft logo to the group via email. Please send comments to her directly and we'll try to finalize the logo over email to be able bring the design to the Executive committee meeting for approval at ALA Midwinter 2003.
- Future agenda item: how far back in the IEP
database will we be distributing the logo? The logo will have a date
indicating when they were accepted into the IEP. Do we want to have
all sites (regardless of changes having happened to the sites since
they were accepted) have
- Related future discussion item: do we need to do any "clean-up" of the IEP database; make sure all sites included still exist, etc.
- The minutes stated that the 2 surveys (IEP survey: "what technology did you use to create this?" to be sent to recent accepted sites into the IEP; and the Instructional Technology survey (aka Techne for Teaching), to be sent out more generally to find out how people are using technology for instruction) needed approval by Executive. Peter reported that they had both been approved.
- IEP survey needs to be created
online – it only exists as a document at this time. [posted on the
ETech committee Blackboard site for discussion 1/31/02]
- IT survey is done and online, just needs to
be sent out. Questions were raised about how to send it out and to
whom? Heads of Instruction (some noted this was difficult
information to find out), Library Directors (rarely are they the
ones who would be filling it out – they would need to forward), all
ACRL members (possibly too broad)? Peter will ask for feedback from
the Advisory Committee.
- Suggestion from Melissa and Lori: the results of the IT survey could potentially be used for a future ALA program, perhaps in conjunction with LITA's Top Technologies project.
- Promotion of the IEP didn't go as planned, although some people did send out an announcement about the review and Peter wrote a piece for the IS newsletter about IEP in general. Because we had already had a high number of submissions, it was determined that it hadn't been necessary to promote new submissions anyway. We will do the promotions suggested at midwinter with the next "call for submissions". John asked that he not be involved in that project this next time due to a busy work season ahead.
- Other promotion ideas: the IEP itself should
be promoted, not just a call for submissions. IS newsletter
articles, conference programs, etc. could be venues for that.
- The next email promotion to various lists could be a "joint" promotion: what the IEP is, new sites have been added (take a look!), call for submissions for the next review period – all in one email message.
- The review timeline devised at Midwinter to be quarterly doesn't seem to be workable. We will revert to the original plan to review sites before conference meetings in order to be able to discuss the review process and scoring at our conference meetings. All agreed that it was useful to review a number of sites together, rather than do one or two at a time. It helps to put each site in context (innovations, unique use of technology, etc.) by looking at others.
- Discuss current IEP review process and the selection criteria
The review seemed to go well based on the consistency of scoring and results. Peter noted that the sites reviewed by team #1 were not accurate on the handout he distributed due to a calculation error. This team had 4 members, but the scores had been divided by 3. With corrections, only one site had a change that brought the score high enough to be added to the IEP. Reviews for two sites were still not finished. Overall, 18 of the 20 sites had final scores, and of those 18, 7 will be added to the IEP.
Although there was more consistency in the scoring, many members of the committee had some difficulty with using the criteria and scoring rubric to do the review process.
The criterion that caused the most concern was #8, which had been divided into two different rubrics to accommodate the fact that it was looking at relevancy to others based either on content or by being a model for other developers. Not all the reviewers agreed on which of those two should be used to score. Discussion on this matter turned to re-writing the criterion to deal just with the matter of material being relevant as a model, since most submissions to the IEP are instructional within the context of a particular institution, and the fact that a topic might be generic enough (e.g. evaluation of Web sites) isn't a big enough factor in and of itself to judge a material's usefulness.
Discussion then turned to criteria #1 and #2, which deal with issues of pedagogy and learning, and it was determined that some general reviewing and rewriting of the criteria was necessary. We decided to defer further rewrites to the end of the meeting after other agenda items had been dealt with.
- Review and discuss committee projects
This midwinter progress report shows which projects our committee is working on, how they relate to the strategic goals, what value they have to the section, and our timelines for completion.
Most items from this were discussed already in
agenda item 2.
- Identify and delegate project assignments to committee members
To do:
Transfer IEP survey from document to Web form (Peter, Melissa, Lori) Send IEP survey to those accepted from the Midwinter review period, and along with new acceptances from this review period (Melissa, Lori) Promote IEP: combined email message noting new entries added, advertising IEP generally, asking for new submissions (Judy) Determine whom to send the IT survey (Peter will report from Advisory)
Other matters will need to be assigned as needed via email.
- Other business
Will we be moving our committee online discussion from Blackboard (hosted at Peter's institution) to the ALA WebCT server? The general feeling from committee members was that using Blackboard for discussion was not necessarily easier than email. The discussion thread mechanism didn't always work well for following through on comments, and generally needing to log in to another system besides email was a bother. The benefits of having the discussions archived didn't seem to be enough to warrant continuing committee business in that environment. Using the committee email list serve does offer archiving of messages.
Decision: We will not move to WebCT; future committee work will be done via email only. The Blackboard discussions will be archived, but not continued.
- Return to revisions of
IEP criteria and scoring rubrics (from agenda item
#3)
Criterion #1
Discussion:
There was trouble with wording in the following examples of the rubric:
#1 not all submissions stated objectives – decision to leave as is, in that missing this one would give a score of 4.
#4 "learning requires higher order thinking skills" because of the wording "requires"
#5 "demonstrates the application of a learning theory" – any learning theory? Replace with statement using language from Criterion #2 about learning styles.
#6 "uses multiple assessment techniques" – allow for single assessment technique.
New wording:
Criterion #1
The instructional design is pedagogically effective, i.e. it teaches well according to the scope and learning objectives stated by the submitter.
- Purpose and objectives are clearly stated.
- The resource's organization supports the
objectives.
- The resource's content supports the
objectives.
- Offers opportunities to utilize higher order
thinking skills (think, reflect, discuss, hypothesize, compare,
classify, etc.)
- Allows for different learning styles, e.g.
kinetic, visual, auditory.
- Uses assessment technique(s).
Criterion #2
Discussion:
The examples
for the rubric under Criterion #3 seem more in tune
with this one. We reworded example #1 (about ability for different
learning styles to learn equally well) and moved it to Criterion #1. We replaced the rest of the examples
with #2-5 (with some slight rewording) from Criterion
#3.
New wording:
Criterion #2
The technology used to create the material enhances the learning experience, i.e. is appropriate and effective.
- The technology enhances and does not distract
from the learning experience.
- The technology chosen is stable and able to
operate as an effective mode of delivery.
- Is cross-browser/cross-platform compatible, or
clear guidelines and instructions are provided.
- Required plug-ins or downloads are easily obtained and easy to install.
Criterion #3
Discussion:
There is continued difficulty with what defines an emerging technology. We decided to reword the criterion itself to focus on the use of technology in an innovative way.
Submissions either are or are not innovative. Coming up with more examples for scoring is a challenge. The suggestion from Melissa was to make this an item that gets scored either a 5 or a 3. If it's innovative, it gets a 5. If not, it gets a 3 (neutral score). Giving it a 1 for not being innovative would be too damaging for the overall score.
New wording:
Criterion #3
This material provides instruction using technology in an innovative manner.
- The technology used has not yet been extensively used to create instructional material, or has been implemented in an unusual and/or creative manner.
Score 5: yes
Score 3: no
Criterion #4
Discussion:
Examples need to be broken out so that two things (goals, audience) are not being dealt with in one example. Reword "stated goals" to "goals".
New wording:
Criterion #4
The content and language of the material are clear and effective.
- Instructions and explanations are easy to
follow.
- Language is appropriate to the goal(s) of the
project.
- Language is appropriate to the audience of the
project.
- Content is appropriate to the goal(s) of the
project.
- Content is appropriate to the audience of the project.
Criterion #5
Discussion:
Does one typo count? Reword example #1 to say "significant typographical errors"
Remove example #5, because we can assume librarians are qualified, and don't really know specifics about credentials.
New wording:
Criterion #5
All information included within the material is accurate.
- The site does not contain significant
typographical errors.
- There are no apparent factual errors.
- The site provides indications of maintenance,
e.g. information about when it was last updated.
- The site offers some type of contact information (email, phone, or postal address) for author and Webmaster if questions or technical problems arise.
Criterion #6
Discussion:
This one seems fine as is.
Keep wording:
Criterion #6
Organization of the material is clear and easy to use.
- There is an index, table of contents, or site
map to facilitate navigation.
- Users can easily find their way back to the
home page and/or to other sections.
- Has a visible and logical sequence or
structure.
- The text is easy to read and graphics are easy to understand.
Criterion #7
Discussion:
This one seems fine as is.
Keep wording:
Criterion #7
This material demonstrates unique or creative use of graphics, examples, interactive elements such as programmed feedback and flexible learning paths, and other supporting elements.
- The material incorporates design elements such
as graphics, multimedia, flexible learning paths, and/or
interactivity.
- The design elements show evidence of
creativity; they are not tired copies of material from other learning
objects. (A Venn diagram isn't creative, but a Venn diagram of singing
grapes is unusual.)
- The design elements are appropriate to the
target audience.
- The design elements contribute to the
coherence of the material.
- The design elements are well-executed and professional, e.g. graphics don't look like scribbles, animations aren't jerky, sound and video have been edited to flow smoothly, text within graphics is visible and legible, spoken words are comprehensible, interactive elements are easy to use, flexible learning paths don't turn into mazes, etc.
Criterion #8
Discussion:
See agenda item #3 above: remove two versions of #8. Keep example #5 from 8a and move to 8b. Use 8b as new #8.
New wording: Criterion #8
This material is relevant to those outside of the developer's institution because it presents a model for other developers.
- It is possible for people outside of the
developer's institution to gain access to the material. If access to
some elements is restricted, this does not significantly detract from
an outsider's opportunity to investigate the material.
- The structure of the material (e.g. chunking,
sequencing, transitions, connections, reinforcement, assessment,
feedback) can be adapted to teaching other skills, resources, or
ideas.
- The method of presentation (e.g. use of text,
sound, graphics, animation, video, language, layout, pacing, examples)
can be adapted to teaching other skills, resources, or ideas.
- The technology used to develop the material is
available outside of the developer's institution.
- Information about the system requirements for
effective use of the material is readily available.
- The developer's approach to teaching or to the use of technology is thought provoking; it stimulates ideas about ways to communicate with learners.
- Transition of committee chairs
Peter Tagtmeyer was applauded for his contributions as committee chair for the past three years. Melissa Koenig and Lori Dubois were welcomed as incoming co-chairs.
Respectfully submitted,
Carrie Kruse
Intern
September 5, 2002
Approved June 24, 2002
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