The day began with a keynote address by Dr. Carol Simpson of the School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of North Texas. In her address, entitled "Can You? Should You," sponsored in part by Linworth Publishing, she discussed the "current fair use climate and the raging battle between those who think educators should force educational fair use to the wall, and their oppornents who advocate a more conservative approach." While she didn't present anything new for those of us who have been following IP issues (albeit, in my case anyway, marginally), nonetheless much of the information she presented was new to many in her audience. Her presentation was clear and well put together, using humor in the right places and in the right proportions. I especially like her use of the David Pogue video on RIAA at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF7cHmyEJ-c.
I also attended Panel 35, beginning with "Just Google It: Bringing Students' Information Literacy to the Composition Classroom" by Susanna Coleman. I thought she had a very interesting spin, using text messaging skills to help students figure out keywords for Google and/or library database searches (so long as the students learn to spell the words out instead of "txt-ing" them!). She also showed a comparison of Google Advanced Search screen with an Ebsco database search screen, arguing that we can help students learn to navigate the admittedly complex world of scholarly databases by helping them see how it is similar to what they already know. Unfortunately, of course, in my experience few students use the advanced search feature in Google….
Thomas Ferstle next presented "Information Literacy the WIKI Way," in which he likened WIKIs to participatory, democratic (and fun?) forums, arguing that such forums enhance students' writing to each other and therefore tends to be "better" than students writing just for the teacher.
The panel ended with "Blogging, Information Literacy, and the College Classroom" by Catherine Ramsdell. She discussed how blogs have gone from early beginnings (c. 2000?) to mainstream in 2008. Students are excited about writing, she says, especially when they get comments from real readers.
Wow, there's SOOOOO much more I could have said about the great presentations and the wonderful people at this conference. But then, people might think I'm a bit biased since I'm one of the conference's organizers….
Ah, well, maybe those people will just have to come and see for themselves!
Georgia Conference on Information Literacy
Savannah, GA, September 25-26, 2009
Or, as they say in this neck of the woods,
"Y'all come!"
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