Building an Online Learning Community for "Blended" Librarians Steven J. Bell, Philadelphia University Steve Gilbert, TLT Group Hope Kandel, Learning Times Network John Shank, Penn State Berks

Introducing Our Panel Moderator: Steven Bell, Director of the Library Philadelphia University Panelists: Steve Gilbert, President, Teaching, Learning and Technology Group Hope Kandel, Director of Operations Learning Times Network John Shank, Director of the Center for Learning Technologies and Instructional Design Librarian, Penn State Berks

About Our Program Dialogue with the panelists about the value of organizational collaboration in creating online learning communities Learn about Learning Times Network How the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community began and evolved Issues related to building and sustaining online learning communities How you can get involved

What Is An Online Learning Community? “A virtual environment where people come together to learn.” “The members are drawn together by their mutual interests or shared challenges.” “Features advanced technology such as VoIP, desktop sharing, online polling, whiteboards, etc.” Source: Steven Bell, “Creating Community Online.” American Libraries, April 2005, p.68

Some Questions For You Are you a member of or otherwise involved in an online learning community? Have you participated in an online synchronous event with audio? Are you familiar with: (a) TLT Group (b) Learning Times (c) Blended Librarians

Director, Library and Information Services Senior Producer and Trainer LearningTimes Introducing Hope Kandel

Why Do We Do What We Do?

Learning weblogs -- text and audio Live webcasts & workshops Virtual conferences Discussion forums File repositories &image galleries Meeting room Instant messaging & text chat Recorded archives for on-demand review Voice boards Community Features Blending the Asynchronous and Synchronous

Individual faculty members -- projects, papers and presentations Global Collaboration Grants -- teachers and students from around the world Online discussions to effect change -- weekly meetings for faculty support Event planning -- online conferences Learning Times and Collaborative Endeavors

How It All Began Library Online Conference 2003 –The LearningTimes Library Online Conference is a completely online community featuring innovations by information professionals worldwide. ACRL/TLT Workshops –Effective Collaboration for Campus-wide Information Literacy: The Blended Librarian’s Perspective on How To Make It Work Blended Librarians Online Learning Community –Space on the Learning Times Network where Blended Librarians programming and activity occur

Blended Librarian Timeline –2003 The formation –2004 The Implementation –2005 The Growth Take a look at web site and a video clipweb site More about Blended Librarianship –Mission & Vision Statement

Mission Statement Librarians, faculty, instructional designers and technologists, and other academic support personnel working collaboratively to integrate the library into the teaching and learning process…To encourage and enable academic librarians to evolve into a new role that blends existing library and information skills with those of instructional design and technology…Leverages innovation, collaboration, and communication to bring together its members in a virtual environment for professional development and learning opportunities.

Vision Statement Our vision for BL is a community that: Enables academic librarians to integrate instructional design and technology skills into their existing library and information technology skill set … to promote better connections with faculty and other academic support professionals. Brings together librarians, faculty, and other academic support professionals to find ways to effectively collaborate …to help students achieve designated institutional learning outcomes.

Focus On Professional Development Offers members access to continuing professional development through ongoing discussions and webcasts focusing on how we fit into the teaching and learning process. Encouraging librarians to support faculty’s integration of technology, library resources, and information fluency into their courses through the development of digital learning materials.

What Happens In The Community Webcasts Chats Discussion boards Resource sharing Professional announcements

What Does the Future Hold “…jobs utilizing new and more pervasive technologies have appeared, representing a kind of professional transformation.” Joan Starr

Biggest Challenge Overload; Too many attractive options; Expectations exceed resources Increasing need for UNIVERSAL, LIFELONG, HYBRID, COLLABORATIVE, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Inadequate priority, time, money, collaboration Who cares? Why bother? Who can help me/us? Whom can I/we help?

Chaos  Coalition  Community When is a community not a community? –Multi-dimensional –Stake in each others’ lives –Joys and sorrows –[Include the people who wear uniforms when they work?] What kinds of communities or groups can function best/worst online? Purely online? Why are we here today?

TLT Group focuses on themes TLT Group looks for issues that fit… THEMES Collaboration Dangerous Discussions Assessment Professional Development ISSUES Blended Librarianship Information Literacy Class Size Student Course Evaluations Lifelong Learning

Dangerous Discussions

Dangerous Discussions Select issues –Significant, controversial, and tractable Bring diverse stakeholders together for civil, constructive conversations –(Re)Formulate issues fairly and inclusively –Share essential information, useful options –Keep asking: “How can we help each other?” “How can we work together?” –Develop/use guidelines, techniques, technologies, … Develop solutions –Challenge, implement, test, and improve solutions

Lessons from Online Institute Commitment to teams, multiple roles for leader/presenters Challenge, desirability of getting teams to participate as registrants Continuing effort to balance technology flexibility, ease of use, reliability, quality of audio, etc. Who has enough time? No assignments?

Sustainability & Community Building Lessons from Hope Lessons from SteveG Lessons from John & StevenB

Discussion Points How does LearningTimes foster collaborative projects? How can collaboration be fostered online? Why work online together? What are we doing in Orlando that we could do online in a community and what can we do here that we can’t do in an online community?