Week 10: Class Reflection
Last week in class we discussed Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science, as well as a couple of more recent incarnations of them. We spent the bulk of our discussion time on embedded librarianship and online learning. During the remainder, we met with our webinar groups to come up with a topic and a plan.
We discussed why institutions offer online learning program, why people choose online or face to face programs, possible pitfalls in online learning interfaces and communication. Before I came to SI, I had a choice between an online program at another highly ranked institution and the face-to-face program here. Because it was important to me to get to know my teachers and classmates, to get hands-on experience during the program, and to build up my professional network throughout, and because I know myself well enough to realize that I am not sufficiently self-motivated to stay on top of assignments in an online program, I chose the face to face program. Of course, every student has different priorities. If I was already working in a library with opportunity for advancement and an enjoyable work environment, I may have made the choice to attend an online program.
Week 11: Twitter
I've been on Twitter for a while, mostly using it to keep up with local events and friends, but this exercise has really revealed to me the usefulness of the tool in keeping up with library news and identifying innovative services and programs in libraries. I have to admit, however, I felt a bit uncomfortable with the whole retweeting thing. I don't really know why, though. I guess I feel like it's similar to introducing yourself to a stranger out of the blue, and that idea definitely makes me nervous.
I agree with Meggan, though, too. There's a lot of Facebook-ish triviality on Twitter. When I was looking for people to follow, I'd decide based on their descriptions. After I looked at my feed, though, I deleted the people who posted mainly about dinner, cats, etc. If I knew them personally, I'd probably leave them there and giggle at them. I find the wide range of topics interesting. Do many people, I wonder, have a personal and a professional Twitter account?
I prioritized face-to-face full-time when I came here, too. Having a community was important to me, and I've never been a person who is entirely comfortable communicating in an online space. I didn't feel that I could create the kind of relationships online that I have made here in person.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about online learning as you do. I wonder if these are things we can work to solve, though. We are lucky enough that we were able to come to an in-person program if we wanted to, but what about those who have no other choice but distance learning? It seems important that we try to incorporate these missing elements for them.
ReplyDeleteI think that people will continue to prioritize face to face for some times of information gathering too. What we were looking for in schools might be what some people are looking for in the library!
ReplyDeleteI had the same experience with following people based on their descriptions and then being annoyed by the actual (lack of) content of many of their posts. I also wonder if people have separate personal and professional accounts. That's certainly what I would do if I to use Twitter in a personal capacity-- there's no way I want people I professionally network with to hear random things about my personal life. And if I'm using it for professional purposes, I don't want everything cluttered up by posts about what people had for dinner and the like. Some people feel really comfortable merging their personal and professional identities, but that's just not me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the posters. I also think that in light of my experience with the webinars(I assume that the lectures are similar in nature to a webinar) that my decision to do a face to face progam(while never actually a real dilema) was 100 percent the right choice. For me it was less about the networking(although important) and more about the fact that I knew I would never be able to focus as well with online courses.
ReplyDeletemultiple twitters would be a lot to keep up with! at the same time, it would really help me by weeding out a lot of crap from my feed.
ReplyDelete