I am teaching two sections of Success Strategies. I actually love teaching and enjoy the challenge to juggle both librarian and faculty duties.
One section is a Monday night class. The other is Tuesday and Thursday morning ... 8 am. Unfortunately, the students in the 8am class aren't what I would call "morning people." To make it more interesting, I'm a bit tired on Tuesday mornings from teaching the night before.
One Tuesday morning a few weeks ago, I was teaching on the topic of how to find information on the internet effectively. The 6 students in the class were following along with me on their own computers as we were looking at meta search engines and subject directories online. For some reason, I mentioned Facebook, and how I had just made an account with my Rasmussen.edu email. I opened up Facebook to show them my account, and I was stunned to see 5 new "friends" notifications! They were from 5 of the 6 students in the classroom! These students have since then "thrown ghosts", waved, shared pictures on their profile I can use as "fodder" in class (nice costume, Caleb!).
I definitely think students, especially of that particular age group that is not afraid to use technology, will find me more approachable. The students who are willing to try new technology (like the 6th person in the classroom who didn't yet have an account) has tried it out and feels more like the other students, despite the age difference.
Facebook is only one of many social networking tools that librarians obviously are using to their advantage (see all of the library-related groups available)! I'm attempting to load meebo.com as a widget on the site as well.
Feel free to add me when / if you have a Facebook account. It's pretty darn fun besides.
GOA9: Progress Report
2 days ago
3 comments:
How exciting for you, Karen.
The MySpace phenomenon gained popularity well after I left school so I never got pulled into it by peers. Plus, every time I come across a MySpace site, I can't help but be turned off by how busy they are. (Pictures + Wallpaper + Music=Sensory overload) Lately some MLIS students at St. Kate's have discussed creating a library Facebook group and I've considered joining to offer my advice for future students. If I do, I'll try and find you.
To take this topic off onto a little tangent, have you discussed your students' opinions on privacy issues involved with social networking sites? I find that some teenagers and young adults don't seem to be aware of how public their information actually is. They might put things on their page that they don't want future employers seeing.
What an excellent idea! The Information Literacy section (this week) might be a good segue into online privacy. :)
My last employer (William Mitchell College of Law) had workshops that would show law students how searchable they were on the web. Our circulation librarian teamed up with the Career Services Department. The workshop taught students how to make their myspace or facebook accounts absolutely private. The workshops were always well attended. Although I do not think it's the librarian's duty to teach students about privacy risks on social network sites, I do think that librarians are sometimes the most qualified b/c of our tech savvyness (patting myself on the back) :)
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