Reflecting on 23 Things: using 23 Things

in an Information literacy class

Sheila Yoshikawa / Sheila Webber

University of Sheffield, Information School

December 2011

Origins of 23 Things

Helene Blowers at the Public Library of

Charlotte & Mecklenburg County

http://plcmcl2-about.blogspot.com/

43 Things website “Join over 3 Million people who list their goals, share their progress and cheer each other on” http://www.43things.com/

“brainstorm-in-the-shower idea” (Blowers, 2008)

Abram‟s (2006) “43 Things I

might want to do this year”

e.g. “Register at Blogger and start a blog.”

Hundreds of 23

Things initiatives

around the world

Sheila Webber, 2011

Common characteristics • Team of facilitators; often based in one institution

• Main blog or wiki + individual participant blogs

• 23 Things timetable announced in advance

• Programme usually lasts 11-13 weeks (plus extensions!)

• Focus on discovering Web 2.0 tools

• Includes reflection & interaction

• Each starter posting has information on the “Thing” + instructions for one or more tasks

• May be face to face support sessions

• Celebration at the end including voting for favourite bloggers, posts etc.; parties

• Certificate for those completing all 23 Things in given period

Sheila Webber, 2011

The originator‟s tips

1. “Encourage networking and the learning will follow

2. “Allow participants to blog anonymously

3. “Use 1.0 methods to communicate

4. “Encourage group discovery

5. “Design the program for late bloomers

6. “Focus on discovery, not skill building

7. “Reward staff for learning

8. “Online means hands-on, not hands-off

9. “Enable transparency and practice radical trust

10. “Continually encourage staff to play”

Blowers, 2008.

Sheila Webber, 2011

Recent examples

• 23 Things @ Sims Library, USA (April-August 2011): http://simslibrary.blogspot.com/

• 23 Things City University, UK (June-September 2011): http://23thingscity.blogspot.com/

• University of Saskatchewan‟s (Canada) University Library 23 Things (January-May 2011): http://uofslibrary23things.blogspot.com/

• 23 Things for Professional Development (CPD23) (UK) (June - October 2011): http://cpd23.blogspot.com/

• List of 23-things-type blogs on Delicious: http://www.delicious.com/hblowers/learning2.0libraries

Sheila Webber, 2011

http://23thingscity.blogspot.com/

“Over the next 11 weeks we will be looking at a range of Web 2.0 technologies, testing them out and seeing how they have been used in libraries and exploring how we could use them here at City. Each week we'll also have a Cool Extra Thing, which you can look at if you're already familiar with that weeks Things, if you're feeling adventurous or if you want to look at concepts in more depth”

Sheila Webber, 2011

http://23thingswarwick.blogspot.com/

23 Things Warwick (UK university)

• Publishing on the Web (Things 1-3) Create a blog; Write a post; Register your blog with the programme)

• Keeping up to date (Things 4-6) Create iGoogle start page; Learn about RSS; Subscribe to an RSS feed

• Time Management (Things 7-9) Using Doodle; Firefox

• Networking (Things 10-12) Using Twitter & Facebook

• Reflection (Things 13 & 23)

• Getting organised (Things 14-16) Diego; Zotero; EndNote

• Multimedia sharing (Things 17-19) Flickr; Creative Commons; Youtube.

• Office 2.0 (Things 20-22) Wiki; Google Docs; Slideshare.

Completions

• For 23 Things based at one institution, stated

completion rates vary between 24% (Evans and

Barrett, 2009) and 80% (Whitehead, 2009)

• For CPD23 “780+ registered; 78 completed the

evaluation survey; 54 registered for completer‟s

certificate” (Birkwood 2011)

Sheila Webber, 2011

“The four most frequent reasons given by the group

for not completing the Learning 2.0 program were:

1. lack of time;

2. other priorities;

3. [lack of] relevance; and

4. being a part-time staff

member”

(Gross and Leslie, 2010: 661)

Edith Cowan University, Australia http://eculibrarylearning.blogspot.com/

Sheila Webber, 2011

Community & networking important

“Library and careers staff had a sense of community and shared learning because they were already cohesive units and had opportunities to discuss the programme at coffee or during their working day. This was not the case with staff across many different departments”

[Irish programme aimed at faculty and other non-library staff]

(McCaffrey et al, 2010: 27)

Sheila Webber, 2011

Follow-ons in individual workplaces? • Adding new “Things” to the original exercise

• Incorporating learning new skills into appraisals

(Titangos and Mason, 2008)

• “Lite” version with 5 or 6 Things (Leech, 2010)

• Short face-to-face training sessions on specific Web

2.0 tools

“23 Things provided us with the opportunity to reach a critical mass of staff and raise awareness of Web 2.0 technologies. However, we have found that to maintain current awareness of new technologies, we need to incorporate a wider choice of options when giving staff opportunities for workplace learning.” (Gross and Leslie, 2010: 665) Sheila Webber, 2011

Outcomes Key outcomes: • more comfort with Web 2.0;

• more use of Web 2.0 tools in workplace;

• more innovation;

• more networking.

(Though evaluation not always rigorous)

“The Learning 2.0 program has had a great impact on staff, who now know they are capable of learning new technologies, and that it is OK to learn through exploring and playing with web applications, rather than having to wait for more formal structured training to be scheduled.”

(Lewis, 2008)

Sheila Webber, 2011

“With the incentive of the sure prize of an MP3 player and the

possible grand prize of a laptop, and more meaningfully,

inspired by the newly-acquired knowledge of Library 2.0, 43 of

98 learners managed to overcome all obstacles and complete

the program. On February 14, 2008, over 40 people gathered in

the Central Branch‟s meeting room to attend „23 Things

Valentines Day Celebration‟.” [Santa Cruz Public Libraries]

(Titangos and Mason, 2009: 48-49)

“The project is like a forceful storm, sweeping away mental dust and

cobwebs, along the route.” (Titangos and Mason, 2009: 54)

Sheila Webber, 2011

23 Things in: Inf6350:

Information Resources and Information

Literacy

Sheila Webber, 2011

Basics about the class

• Core class for Masters students (worth quarter of all

credits in semester 1)

• 115 students: 29 British, 63 Chinese, rest from 10

other countries

• MA Librarianship (32) and most of rest MSc

Information Management: majority of class have not

worked, and do not intend to work, in libraries

Sheila Webber, 2011

Module aims

To enable students to:

• understand from both theoretical and practical perspectives the notions of information needs, information literacy and information behaviour;

• understand the nature and function of different types and forms of information resources;

• develop their own information literacy and understanding of its application to their future lives; and

• develop specialised skills in searching for, evaluating and packaging information in response to a user query using a variety of information resources.

Learning environment

• Base room: long lab, with bays of 8 computers either side

• Use of Blackboard for powerpoints, handouts, sign-up/information on assignments etc.

• Variety of sessions, for example

– “Information literacy in our future careers” - preparation and exhibition in a large hall

– Smaller-group seminars, on abstracting & discussing a research article

– Lecture + workshop on the information interview

– Focus on types of searching (search engines, Dialog, journals etc.)

Videos (trailers and exhibition vid)

Search Inf6350 on youtube.com

Sheila Webber, 2011

(My) aims for the 23 Things

• Students learn more about blogging and some other tools

• Provide a small-team focus in this large class (socialisation aspect)

• Place to share resources (e.g. of items about information literacy) and perceptions (e.g. of the “IL in our careers” exhibition)

• Opportunity to practice writing, and presenting information

• As I was aware of the growing pressures of assignments, there was deliberately less focus/pressure on the blogs in the later weeks of the semester

Sheila Webber, 2011

Organisation

• Put students in teams of 4, each paired with another team

• Used Blogger as Sheffield uses Goggle for uni email

• Cultural mix in each pair of teams

• Some exercises required teams to interact

• Reasons for not making them individual blogs:

– Socialisation

– Learning from each other

– Logistics: easier to keep track of 30 team blogs than 115 blogs!

Sheila Webber, 2011

Followed standard practice in -

• Publicising Things & Timetable

• 12 week schedule

• Main blog, with team blogs linked into home page

• Making first activity setting up the blogs & posting

• (Mostly) Identifying topic and setting tasks - but

– Most tasks at least started in class

– Later on, tasks framed as more optional, or a task which

is not blogged (e.g. critiquing an article in the seminar)

Sheila Webber, 2011

The Things

1. Blogs (Present)

2. Information Literacy: Seven Pillars

3. Abstracting (Present)

4. The new information universe (Scope)

5. Information Literacy: global picture

6. Google secrets (Plan and Gather)

7. Monitoring (Gather)

8. Communicating using posters (Present)

9. Legal & ethical use (Manage)

10. Documenting events

11. Wise use of Wikipedia (Evaluate and Manage)

12. Uses of social media

13 Favourite Things 1

14. Auditing information behaviour (IB)

15. Favourite IB models

16. Information interviewing (Identify & Scope)

17. Favourite Things 2

18. Teaching information literacy

19. Extracting information from databases (Plan & Gather)

20. Critiquing an article

21 Effective use of Dialog (Plan & Gather)

22. Evidence Based Information use (Evaluate & Manage)

23. Evaluating 23 Things

“Present” etc refers to the SCONUL 7 Pillars of Information Literacy Sheila Webber, 2011

Difficult to decide on Things!

• Not trying to cover all the learning outcomes with

the Things

• Wanted the Things to support the outcomes,

intertwined with the other approaches to learning,

teaching and assessment

Sheila Webber, 2011

Example: Thing 5: IL Global Picture

“1. Each of you individually should find an item about information literacy that is in your own language. It can be a website, a tutorial, an article or a report, but it must use the phrase that means "information literacy" in your native language. 2. Each of you should post a link to that item on your team blog. If more than one person in one team posts the same item - the first person to post it keeps it - the next person has to find something different and post that instead. 3. Next week, I will ask you to explain to someone who is not a native speaker of your language what the item is about. [They had to explain to their partner teams] 4. Please then add a sentence or two in English to your blog post explaining what the item is, if you have not already done so. In this way we will create a collective international bibliography of material about Information Literacy through your blogs.”

資訊素養

Sheila Webber, 2011

Example: Thing 6: Google secrets

“Immediately after the Alastair's session, make an

individual post on your team blog, listing one new

thing you learnt about Google (or about some

other search engine) … if you were already a

search engine wizard when you came to Sheffield,

say what your best Google search tip is.”

Sheila Webber, 2011

My reflections

• Am just getting formal feedback now, so mainly my views + informal feedback/ observation

• Team aspect was helpful:

– Teams sat in the same place in the lab each week

– Got to know their team members

– We could more easily monitor who was missing & who was not contributing: blogs good way of starting discussion on this

– Some students not comfortable with the web, helped by teams (sometimes too shielded by them too?)

– also logistically useful when students divided up & going to different rooms! (they knew their Team)

Sheila Webber, 2011

23 Things aspect • Visible learning about blogs (i.e. they improved) & some

more confidence in using features like embedding pictures and videos

• Blogs were more creative focus (than Blackboard) for sharing links, pictures, videos, reflections

– Good way for everyone to share in class exercises like the “IL in my language” one

• Useful (for educators) being able to highlight the “tasks for you” in the blog

• Creative and thoughtful posts

• Attendance has been better this year (though no research as to cause/effect!)

Sheila Webber, 2011

Negatives/ Things to change

• Too many major Things, especially in mid-point! Could have split some Things into smaller chunks

• Despite efforts, some teams disengaged in last weeks

• Did not do enough to encourage interaction between blogs (student suggested today that we have subsets of blogs)

• Needed more of a team doing the online part (mostly me, although more help from colleagues in class)

• Some Things worked, others so-so

• Some students needed some even more basic help at start

• Could have more of a Web 2.0 slant (though some of the non-Web 2.0 Things worked well)

Sheila Webber, 2011

Will I do it again next year??

I think I will

Sheila Webber, 2011

Sheila Webber

s.webber@shef.ac.uk

Twitter & SL: Sheila Yoshikawa

http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/

Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com/sheilawebber

References • Abram, S. (2006) 43 things I might want to do this year. Information Outlook, 5.

Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FWE/is_2_10/ai_n16133338/

• Alcorn, L. (2011) Beyond 23Things. Presented at: Computers in Libraries 2011. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/lalcorn/beyond-23-things-computers-in-libraries-2011

• Birkwood, K. (2011) 23 things for professional development, training and networking in hard times. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/maedchenimmond/23-things-for-professional-development-training-and-networking-in-hard-times-katie-birkwood

• Blowers, H. (2008) Ten Tips About 23 Things. School Library Journal, 54 (10), 53-57. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6600689.html

• Evans, J. and Barratt, L. (2009) Getting to know Web 2.0 tools. Library and Information Update, November, 40-43

• Greenhill, K. (2009) Why learning about emerging technologies is part of every librarian‟s job. Paper presented at: EDUCAUSE Australasia 2009, Perth, W.A., 3-6 May 2009. Retrieved from http://www.caudit.edu.au/educauseaustralasia09/index.php

• Gross, J. and Leslie, L. (2010) Learning 2.0: a catalyst for library organisational change. Electronic Library, 28 (5), 657-668

Sheila Webber, 2011

References • Gross, J. and Leslie, L. (2008) Twenty-three steps to learning Web 2.0 technologies in

an academic library. Electronic Library, 26 ( 6), 790-802.

• Leech, H. (2010) 23 Things in Public Libraries. Ariadne, (24). Retrieved from

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/leech/

• Lewis, L. (2008) Library 2.0: taking it to the street. Paper presented at: VALA2008 14th

Biennial Conference, Melbourne, Australia from 5 - 7 February 2008. Retrieved from

http://www.valaconf.org.au/vala2008/papers2008/35_Lewis_Final.pdf

• McCaffrey, C. , Reilly, P. and Feighan, H. (2010) 23 Things @ UL: A Web 2.0 Learning

Experience for Faculty and Staff at the University of Limerick. SCONUL Focus, (50), 25-

28. Retrieved from http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/50/8.pdf

• Titangos, H. and Mason, G. (2009) Learning Library 2.0: 23 Things @SCPL. Library

Management, 30 (1/2), 44-56.

• Whitehead, D. (2009) 23 Things: How Librarians learned to love Web 2.0 through a

unique staff development program. Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Retrieved from

http://repository.lib.polyu.edu.hk/jspui/handle/10397/1258

Sheila Webber, 2011