DO get technical! Using technology in library instruction

Sherpa Romeo green journalToday’s post-secondary students are digital natives. Much has been said and written about how to reach this generation, and the consensus seems to be that we need to meet them on their turf. In this session, presented at WILU 2011 in Regina, SK, two librarians from the University of Lethbridge shared their experiences with using technology to engage students in library instruction. The hands-on session introduced some simple tools librarians can learn quickly and apply to spice up their instruction with technology. These include creating online animated videos using Xtranormal, a low-cost way to create polished and humorous videos to introduce or summarize key information literacy concepts; and adding interactive polling to PowerPoint presentations using a tool called Poll Everywhere, which is an effective way to instantly engage students in instruction using the web or web-enabled devices. Interactive polling eliminates many of the challenges of using clickers which are prevalent in many post-secondary library instruction environments. The presenters also discussed how they have experimented with wikis to encourage active learning and student collaboration in a series of library instruction sessions. Wikis allow for free and paperless student participation in knowledge creation in an online forum. Finally, they demonstrated how they have used Skype to deliver library instruction at a distance, including the use of the screen sharing feature. The presenters stressed the ease of use of these free or low-cost tools to improve classroom engagement and add interest to sessions.Ye