CIL2010: Ref Desk Adventure: Simulation Game for Training

Scott Rice and Margaret Gregor - Appalachian State University

The need was to train students to work in the Instructional Materials Center.

In the game, a patron comes to the desk and asks for help.  The student is presented with a choice of answers as well as other things that can occur.  At the end of the game, the student received a report card.

Making the Game:

• Preconceptions - need to work through them
• Verbosity vs. allergic to verbiage - tried to compromise
• 6-8 topics versus more - kept with 6-8 topics
• Knowledge-based view vs. process-based view
• Evaluation of screencats - included graphics and screencasts
• We negotiated a lot

Pretest before the gave students the game:

• 10 questions using Google Forms
• Target test group -First test group was too knowledgeable.  Had to find students who didn't know anything about the IMC.
• Test was multiple choice and some students could figure out the correct answers

After the pretest, students then played the game.  8 Adventures.  Includes 29 screencasts!

The post-test showed that students did learn, sometimes significantly.

Scott used form-based software to create the scripts.  Thinking about the scripts -- and branching formula -- can be the most difficult part of writing the game. What happens when the person answers "X"?  What do they see?  Do?  Need to think through the scenarios.

Next Steps:

• Use/test with brand new students workers in the fall (with no previous experience)
• Add a hints section
• Use real voices
• Add evaluative questions to post test
• ADA compliance
• Special collections <--New game

Student worker - "This is good training.  I had no idea that so much material could be found in the IMC.  Every desk worker should learn these skills."

This game allows them to offer consistent training.  It takes less staff time to do the training.

The software that Scott has developed is open source and is available on the Appalachian State web site.  If you are interested in it and cannot find it, contact Scott.


BTW Scott co-edited the book Gaming in Academic Libraries.

CIL2010: From Podcasts to Blogs and Beyond!

Scherelene Schatz - New Jersey State Library - Using internal webinars to train library staff across the state. She ysed to travel across the state to do training.  Now that she is using webinars, people also have access to the archived webinars (a new feature that was available with the face-to-face sessions).  She is using a discussion list and blog posts to promote them. 

Scherelene is using HiDef Conferencing for the webinars.  The webinars are done by phone, rather than VOIP because everyone has access to a phone.  The conference site allows her to setup a registration form.  The site will also allow you to set polling questions and evaluation questions that you will want to ask during or after the session.

One interesting feature of the software is that it can tell is participants are paying attention.  I wonder how it knows if you have switched screens and doing email or something else?

Tips:

• Make sure that the event is on your calendar!  (Not that any of us would forgot about an upcoming training session.)
• Be organized
• Include time for questions
• Ask students to mute their phones  (If possible, tell them how to do it.)
• Send handouts in advance.  Some people need handouts for notetaking.
• Using the polling questions to keep people active.
• Look at the evaluations and see what can be changed to make the webinars better.
• Look at any reports that the software will give you.

Jason Puckett  (Georgia State University Library) & Rachel Borchardt (American University) -One of their podcasts is Adventures in Library Instruction.

What is a podcast?  RSS+MP3=podcast

A single audio file is a monograph.  A podcast is a serial.

Podcasting can be done cheaply and will sound fine.  Some institutions may have studios that are nore fully equiped for creating audio/podcasts. 

Tips:

• Short podcasts can work very well with people that may have a short attention span.
• Don't use a script because it can sound very scripted.  Do have some rough notes.
• One voice can be boring, so have 2-3 people and make it conversational.
• Makret it to students and teachers.
• Work with your marketing deparment on your marketing efforts.
• It is okay to experiment.
• Putting podcasts in iTunesU can help to get the podcasts out to a broader audience.
• Podcasts can be hard to assess.  Yes, you know the number of downloads, but you may not get good feedback.
• Having podcasting partners means that you can share responsiblities.

They like Arizona State and the podcasting they are doing, including something called "Library Minute".  Check out http://lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/category/podcasts/.

 One of the sayings from this conference is "Free like kittens, not free like beer."  Kittens require care and feeding.  Podcasts are like kittens.

Rachel talked about using podcasts to supplement other instruction efforts.  They would have students listen to a podcast before an instruction session.

CIL2010: Peer Training for Digital Literacy

Lisa Mages, Jennifer Manning & Rita Tehan -- all Information Research Specialists from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress.

The peer training they are talking about occurs in two divisions within CRS.  ~170 employees located on multiple floors with a variety of skills and abilities.   Some are incredibly technically proficient, while others are limited in what technology they use or feel comfortable using.  Who can train staff on things that others take for granted?

Their program was inspired by a program at National Geographics.

Peer training began four years ago as a grass roots effort, lead by 5 people.  Fixed schedule with two classes per month.  In 2.5 years, 62 classes with an average attendance of 15.  Over 40 employees have participated as speakers or instructors.

Types of sessions:

• Tips and tricks for existing resources
• Introduction to research tools
• Introduction to tech concepts
• Conference and trip highlights

Classes are repeated as necessary.

Managing the program:

• Core group - They meet quarterly to plan the next three months - topics and speakers.  Use discussion boards in SharePoint to help with planning ans reduce email traffic.  They recruit new hires to help.  New employees can get better known by doing these. (Looks good on their annual reviews, too.)
• SharePoint - It is a repository of documents, discussions, etc.  They use the free version.  One benefit is that handouts are available for reuse.
• Standard operating procedures - helps to lessen administrative burden
• SurveyMonkey is used for participant feedback

Benefits:

• Increase digital literacy 
• No financial costs
• Minimal admin burden
• Accessible documentation
• Train the trainer
• Share conference knowledge

While there are a number of challenges, they recommend that others try it.  Challenges:

• Finding time in addition to daily work
• Cancellations
• Recruiting new presenters
• Not integrated with staff development plans
• Pressure to expand

CIL2010: Staff Development: Soft Skills, Firm Results

Janie Hermann - Princeton Public Library - Did an unconference as staff development day (Camp PPL).  Had buy-in from the top, but staff was reticent.  From previous staff development day, they knew that this would meet people's need.  Why do it?

• Save $
• New experience for staff
• Allow for active and shared learning
• Introduce new web tools

The logo was done in-house by a staff member who really wanted to create it.  The person went out of her comfort zone to do it. 

Asked people for feedback on what they wanted to discuss in "Birds of a Feather" sessions.  Also asked people if they wanted to give lightening talks.  They used Google Forms to gather this information. Out of this they came up with 17 choices.  They used Zommerang to narrow down the choices.

They closed down the library for the day.  They do it on a day when the public expects them to be closed (Nov. 11).  It becomes a floating holiday for staff.

Some staff challenged themselves to do presentations who had not done any before...or to use technology that was new to them.

Created a wall where people could share ideas.  The event was very visual. 

Colleen Harris & Mary Carmen Chimato - North Carolina State University - Their library gets 14,000 visits per day (2008-2009).  The lend technology as well as books, etc.  Because they lend technology, more people need to know how to use them and support them.  In addition, there is technology built into the building that needs to be supported.

First Annual ADS (Access & Deliver Services) Staff Retreat, Aug. 5, 2009.  What they learned from the staff retreat:

• What more feedback at every level
• More delegation
• Allow risk taking
• Generate higher expectations
• More training 
• Acknowledge achievements

What does excellent customer service look like?  If you require this, then define what it is.  How will you know what it occurs?  Create indicators, measure, whatever will help you and your employees.

Find and exploit learning internal and external learning opportunities.  But not everything learns at the same rate and not everyone can (or wants) to learn what you need to learn.  Two challenges - desire & ability.

Actual versus desired performance.  Are your employees doing what you desire?  What are the firm consequences if they do not do what is desired?   Can you have a discussion about the person's performance or do you need to go down a disciplinary route?  Be specific.  Also empower them to be part of the discussion.  Gain agreement and make it their personal responsibility.

BTW it is NCSU that create WolfWalk, which uses digitized images.

CIL2010: Training in the Cloud: 30 things in 20 minutes

Resources from this presentation are at http://sites.google.com/site/traininginthecloud/

I'm listing below what was mentioned during the presentations (categories and tools).  Most of the tools are services that exist on the Internet and in  (a version of) the cloud.

1. Scheduling - 30 Boxes
2. Scheduling - Doodle
3. Curriculum development - wikispaces
4. Curriculum development - Delicious (diigo)
5. Mindmapping - freemind, mindmapster
6. Resource sharing - Custom start pages - netvibes
7. Feed My Inbox --> RSS to email
8. Blogs
9. File sharing -- Google, Slideshare
10. File sharing - Dropbox - file sharing, folder sharing
11. File sharing - Box.net
12. File sharing - Drop.io
13. Communication during class - Twitter
14. Communication during class -Friendfeed
15. Anytime class space - Ning
16. Anytime class space - Jing
17. Live class space - Skype
18. Live class space -Tinychat
19. Live class space -  dimdim
20. Evaluation - Poll everywhere
21. Evaluations - Online surveys - SurveyMonkey, Zommerang
22. Archiving - SlideShare
23. Archiving - Audacity
24. Archiving - Wink
25. Archiving - UStream (mentioned "Archiving - TalkShoe" which was not on a slide)
26. Google & Zoho
1. Forms
2. Sites
3. Documents
27. Sharing video - Vimeo, YouTube, BlipTV, TeachTV
28. Zotero - For creating bibliographies
29. Elluminate - chat, whiteboard, video