2011 Highlights: Technology, Information Literacy and Tutoring Workshops

As part of its Title V mandate to create a series of comprehensive learning activities each year, the Library and Center for Academic Excellence increasingly partner to assess and survey student deficiences, design appropriate workshops to address identified needs and then market these activities through outreach to faculty.  Activities in the 2009-11 year were oriented around themes and were developed in a scaffolded approach from year to year.  The full list of activities are included in the attachments section.  The major samplings include:

• Technology Specialist Desk -  The Technology Specialist Desk, an initiative begun in November, 2010, also represents a mechanism through which the library provides techology troubleshooting, training and technology literacy assistance to patrons using the Learning Commons.  Because the Specialist Desk is run by students, it represents another means through which peer-to-peer collaboration and technology learning takes place in the library.  More information and data on the Specialist Desk is available under Learning Commons Activities (subset of Learning Commons Initiatives) in this folio.

2010: Learning Through Discovery and Technology:  The MCLLC Scavenger Hunt

The Scavenger Hunt provides freshmen in the Inquiry Seminars with a welcoming team-oriented, activity-based first exposure to the library and Library Learning Commons. The activities are centered around the concept of "Library/LLC as place"--both a physical and a virtual place that fosters learning and collaboration and connects users to the information resources and services they need.

A reflective assessment was made of the Hunt in fall of 2009 and it was decided that a more robust technology fluency component would be needed to provide students with a richer understanding of the creative possibilities of technology.  It was decided that students might enjoy exploring the library with user-friendly Flip cameras, recording themselves locating and distinguishing between different spaces and functions of the Library Learning Commons.  

Cameras were added to the Hunt in fall of 2010 and assignments were modified to include the new Flip technology.  The Media Services department provided critical assistance and training during the regrouping sessions following the Hunt. In the MCLC Instruction Lab, students would share their video clips and often laugh as they see themselves exploring the various nooks of the library.  But critically, they were also fundamentally absorbing the functions and resource layout of the Commons.  It was a fun, learning exercise appropriate for first-year students, enabling the acquisition of both practical information and the multimedia technology of recording, dowloading, editing and producing of information.

In this crucial sense, the MCLC Scavenger Hunt empowers students to see themselves as producers and not just consumers of knowledge.  The same ethos underlies Mercy's digital storytelling initiative.