Ascilite here we come

I’m heading off to the Ascilite 2009 conference in Auckland in a few days. The Ascilite (Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education) conference is held every year and this will be only the second time that the conference has been held in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The themes for Ascilite Same places, different spaces December 6-9, 2009 are: Blended Space, Virtual Space, Social Space, Mobile Space, Work Space.

Keynotes are:

Scott Diener, who has led the development of the University of Auckland's simulation island in Second Life; Grainne Conole, a Professor of e-Learning at the Open University, UK; James Clay ILT & Learning Resources Manager at Gloucestershire College.

The full programme and all the papers went online last week. I really like the idea of putting papers up ahead of time so delegates can get a better idea of what is on offer. Most library conferences seem to do this after the event.

There is the Ascilite09 Conference Hub , a fabulous way to facilitate communication and interaction, before during and after the conference. There's lot of great stuff here for delegates including a Twitter stream which is starting to take off.

An Ascilite SlideShare account has also been set up, but nothing has been uploaded, yet.

You can follow Ascilite on Twitter. And if you are tweeting about the conference the hash tag is #ascilte09

This will be my first Ascilite conference, so should be a blast. I’ll be presenting a paper:
Julia Gross and Eva Dobozy: Adding value to first year student learning with embedded library pod/vodcasts PDF

The other thing about Ascilite is they publish the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

Learning spaces: students tell us what they think

The ECU Library’s learning spaces photo competition attracted some interest from ECU students when it ran during October 2009.

We were asking students to take photos of what they considered “good” and “bad” learning spaces around the campuses and to give us some reasons why they made their choice. Photos were taken of a range of areas such as e-labs, libraries, teaching spaces and outdoor areas on all campuses: Joondalup, Bunbury and Mount Lawley.

Adrianna Pracas, a final year Teacher Education student from Mount Lawley Campus was the lucky winner of teh photo competition. Dan Archibald, University Librarian, presented the iPod Touch prize at a morning tea function. Thanks to all students who participated.

This is a small part of a much bigger ALTC Project: Retrofitting university learning spaces: from teaching spaces to learning spaces. Queensland University of Technology is leading the project, joined by Charles Darwin University and Edith Cowan University.

The outcome of the project, including student photos and comments, will inform the redesign of learning spaces and contribute to developing an integrated campus learning environment.

Embedding library media in the LMS

Here's my presentation from Friday November 20, 2009 at the WISE ShareCase held at Notre Dame University, Fremantle, Western Australia. WISE stands for WAGUL Information Sharing Exchange. And WAGUL is the Western Australian Group of University Librarians.

Each university library in Perth and also TAFE presented. A great event and thanks to the organisers.

If anyone else puts up their presentation can you let me know and I'll link to it.

Library podcasts and vodcasts

View more presentations from Julia Gross.

Impressions of LIANZA Conference October 2009

I got back to Perth last week from the excellent LIANZA Library Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. The conference was a great mix of outstanding keynotes, targeted papers, with some opportunities for interaction with colleagues in the embedded unconference and workshop settings. The conference started with the Powhiri which is the NZ equivalent to our Indigenous "welcome to country" and was all conducted in Maori (see pic). Luckily I was standing next to an ex-Aussie who explained what was going on and how the local tribe were welcoming the visitors to their patch. The theme of the conference was: He Tangata He Tangata He Tangata meaning It is people, it is people, it is people.

New Zealand is ahead of Australia in terms of digitisation projects which are capturing local history and knowledge, in development of open source softwares (eg ketes), and funding for public libraries. And, it goes without saying, way ahead in terms of recognition of indigenous knowledges and the need for librarians to have cultural awareness.

Some of the abstracts are on the LIANZA website, but not the full papers yet. I do hope the papers or at least Powerpoints will be added in due course, but as the conference papers are not peer reviewed before, this may not occur.

All the keynotes featured high calibre international and local experts, so I’ll just highlight a few:

The opening keynote, Generation Ngai Tahu was Sir Tipene O’Regan and Hana O’Regan, engaging father and daughter team talking with love and humour about sharing of indigenous knowledges across generations.

Libraries Building Communities: Communities Building Libraries Jessica Dorr of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation talked about the Foundation’s work in United States libraries starting back in 1997 and how this work raised so many related issues about local and indigenous communities and lack of services. The Foundation is now spreading this work internationally.

Penny Carnaby, the National Librarian of New Zealand is a very inspirational speaker. Her keynote, A new equity emerges: citizen-created content powering the knowledge
Economy brought home for me how New Zealand is a world leader in cultural digitisation projects.

Some of the conference sessions I attended were Our journey into the future: Using ePortfolios to capture our learning and development with Gillian Hallam of QUT. She was speaking about an ALTC project using Pebble Pad software to help new career librarians develop E-Portfolios. Librarians involved in the project found this very beneficial for career advancement and finding work in this difficult financial environment. Co-incidentally some Australian tertiary organisations are using New Zealand Open Source software, Mahara to develop E-Portfolios.

Talking to the World: Using Online Identities for Professional (and Personal)
Communication: Brenda Chawner of School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington talking about how librarians are using Web 2.0 and social software for professional development and to build learning networks, how her surveys show how this has changed over time.

Here, there and virtually everywhere. Library services for distance learners with Anne Ferrier-Watson, Information Services Librarian of Waikato University Library, Hamilton. This was of particular relevance to me as it dealt with my subject area of services for teacher education. The Waikato University School of Education has developed VERD (Virtual Education Reference Desk) which provides an online communication channel to meet the needs of distance and online learners. It is a Moodle based online resource which combines web technology and learner-focussed service to help distance students find the resources and information they need. This could be implemented in many learning environments and across other disciplines where the majority of students are distance students.

One session I did not attend, but which was very well received, dealt with the problem of engaging university students with library orientation and first year student sessions. Simon Hart and Charlotte Brown of University of Otago Library, Dunedin delivered this session called: “I had no idea that the Library has so much to offer!” The Cephalonia method of library induction: shaped by students, for students, and starring students! Their ideas are soundly based in constructivist pedagogy and I feel could be adapted to other settings.

Connecting your Library to DigitalNZ delivered by Andy Neale, Jo Eaton, Virginia Gow, of DigitalNZ, National Library of NZ, Wellington. The DigitalNZ search system brings together NZ digital content from a wide range of content providers. They use search widgets, gadgets, enhanced catalogues, and mashups to enhance and deliver the data. DigitalNZ content can be embedded in blogs and on websites etc. I'd like to explore this more and embed some DigitalNZ into this blog.

There was a LIANZA 2009 Conference blog which is continuing to post follow ups. All in all a great conference, smaller and more accessible and interactive than some of the larger library conferences. The next LIANZA will be held in Dunedin in December 2010.

Richard Stallman will speak at LIANZA Conference 2009

I'm really looking forward to hearing Richard Stallman the free software activist an author of Free as in Freedom, deliver a keynote at the LIANZA Conference in New Zealand, October 2009. He's been getting some press in New Zealand during his visit there and was interviewed on NZ radio. If the podcast of the interview is anything to go by, this promises to be an inspiring and controversial keynote. Of course Wikipedia has lots of background information on Richard Stallman

The LIANZA conference blog is full of all sort of news and advice for attendees too.

Fires burning at Perth Library Camp

We had another really successful Library Unconference in Perth on Saturday October 3rd 2009. This year called Libcamp 09 LibraryCamp Perth 2009: Keeping the fire burning.

One of the highlights for me was our last minute surprise guest participant and Web Tamer: Michael Stephens.

Michael is part way through a CAVAL research project looking at outcomes of the 23 Things Learning 2.0 program in Australian libraries and he presented some of the preliminary findings of the research and also generously made himself available to answer questions and ask questions of the group.

Along the same vein it was also great the hear the Murdoch library people talking about implementing their 14 things ( an updated version of the 23 Things) for academic, library and other staff at Murdoch University.

One of the best parts of these days are the serendipitous lunchtime chats with people about all sorts of things like the recent: IAML conference in Amsterdam ...makes me wish I was still a music librarian!

Also heard about Central TAFE signing up to Microsoft Live@Edu

Another good session was on the New Zealand Kete. Kete Horowhenua is “a knowledge basket of images, audio, video and documents which are collected and catalogued by the community”. Kete seems to be like a Digital Commons for community and local history information

Coverage of called Library Camp Perth is at the wiki

Session notes here and there is also a Twitterfountain harvesting all the Twitter feed on the Librarians Matter blog.

Thanks to Michael, all the un-organisers and those who gave up their Saturday to participate and make the Library Unconference a great success.

Learning spaces, good and bad, what do university students think?

We are about to embark on a “photo elicitation” project with ECU students to taking photos of what they consider good and bad learning spaces around the campus. Participants will go in the draw to win an iPod Touch

Our students will be taking photos during October and it will be interesting to see what campus spaces students value for their learning.

This project is a small part of a much bigger ALTC Project: Retrofitting university learning spaces: from teaching spaces to learning spaces. Queensland University of Technology is leading the project, joined by Charles Darwin University and Edith Cowan University (ECU).

The project will develop guidelines, principles, exemplars and evaluation rubrics to guide the sustainable refurbishment of existing tertiary learning spaces to support a range of current and emerging pedagogical practices. Guidelines for academic staff development, facilities, AV and IT support, and for architects involved in institutional refurbishments are also included.

Eventually a selection of photos will be stored and made available on a Flickr photo site