Wikipedia, iPods, and Chickens: An Active Learning Exercise to Teach Evaluation of

Information

Latisha Reynolds & Anna Marie Johnson

University of Louisville

Information Literacy at UofL

• Fall of 2007: 21,689 students, FTE 17,214• 4373 degrees conferred in 2006-07• 312 IL instruction sessions in 2007• 8 librarians who teach

Communications 111/112

• Speech class• Traditional assignment/library session• Problems with plagiarism and boredom• New assignment/session

Our Influences• Meola, M. (2004). Chucking the checklist: a

contextual approach to teaching undergraudates web-site evaluation. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4(3), 331-344.

• Keyser, M. W. (2000). Active learning and cooperative learning: understanding the difference and using both styles effectively. Research Strategies, 17, 35-44.

• Colleen Bell’s website at Oregon State University

The Session • Interactive• Librarian as facilitator not

lecturer• Hands-on but not tool-based

The Session Part II

Chickens!

Some of our other examples…

• Wikipedia• Jayson Blair/NYT• Scholarly journal example/iPods

Play along: aka Audience Participation

• Look at the article we gave you• With a partner or by yourself, come up with 2-

3 Guiding Questions for students at your institution based on your institution’s resources (8 minutes?)

• We’ll spend about 5 minutes sharing the questions we generated.

Strengths & Weaknesses

• Critical thinking• Interactivity• Group work

• Assessment isn’t long term; doesn’t generate data

• Amount of time that the exercise takes

Assessment

• Talk about what we’re doing• Spend 3 minutes brainstorming other types of

assessment one could do with this class• Share your brainstorming

Photo Credits• “Chickens”---Anna Marie Johnson• “Flower”---Anna Marie Johnson• “Talking

heads”---http://www.flickr.com/photos/dailypic/1459055735/sizes/o/

• “Fireworks: Thunder over Louisville”--Arindam Das http://www.flickr.com/photos/arindam_soma/3464630370/sizes/l/

• “iPods”--http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoelf/3305275656/sizes/l/

• “Kodak scales” – Captain Kodak http://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak/272746539/sizes/l/

Adiós• If you want our materials electronically, write

your e-mail on our sheet.