Using Google like a librarian: a model workshop for teaching faculty [Panel]
This session was so popular that the original room was packed with people waiting outside, and we ended up moving to a fairly large auditorium. The presenter, from Grand Valley St. University, as well as a co-presenter from UT-Austin who recorded a video since she not able to attend the conference, had several interesting tips. She described a workshop that she held for her university's faculty and staff, teaching how to "Google like a librarian."
Admitting that Google and libraries are usually mutually exclusive, the presenter argued that we are better off taking advantage of Google, rather than trying to ignore its existence:
1. At the core, "Your students are using it. Your faculty are using it. You are using it. But how do we all use it?" The reality is that Googling has become a fundamental skill and many students/faculty are not using it to its potential or are using it incorrectly. Acc. to a recent study, 83% of college students start their search with a search engine. Better to help them use it smartly than to fruitlessly try to convince them not to use it at all.
2. Take advantage of this as an opportunity to use a widely-known, widely-available tool to teach the basics of IL. Show that it's possible to come up with credible information, so long as the results are evaluated effectively. Point out that Google's relevancy rankings are driven by advertising dollars and thus, must be evaluated for potential bias. Might also use Google to show how easily instructors can detect plagiarism.
3. Remind people that librarians are search experts. Turn the misconception that we hate Google on it's head. We can show them the best ways to use the tools, so that their research starts with tips that they learned from the library; also breaks down the barrier between librarians and students. Google is common ground for us all.
The workshop with faculty covered advanced Google searches; Google Scholar; Google Books; and Google Translate. Some of the tips:
- Google shows several key stats on the main search page (without having to link to other sites), if you follow a certain vocab. Ex:
- Population Savannah
- Sunrise Birmingham
- Time London
- To find Web sites similar to a given site, key in: related: www.cnn.com (or www.macy's.com for shopping sites; scad.edu for art colleges
- Google handles Conversions - ex: tablespoons in 2 cups; feet in 10 kilometers
- To make sure flight is on time, enter airline and flight # (e.g. delta 2113)
- unemployment rate [state]
- To find images similar to a given image: option to either paste url with image or upload image (kinda scary...)
- For Google Scholar, option to see which results are available in a local library (I don't think this works for our lib?)
- Google Books: can be used to quickly search public domain books for specific words. Greatly simplifies textual analysis.
(The demo for this point was very interesting; searched On the Origin of Species, which everyone associates with evolution, for the words evolution, evolving, or evolve. The results: the book only mentions "evolve" and only as the very final world. Weird.)
- Google Books also allows highlighting textual material and clipping and/or translating passages.
- Google Translate: use for passages or entire Web sites
The presenter made a very strong argument for teaching Google strategies, though I still feel uneasy about it, esp. when we try so hard to convince students and faculty to use our databases. Certainly, it is helpful to learn more about how Google works, adding to our bag of tricks for performing more effective Reference searches when our Virtual Library falls short, but not sure that, allo I'd spend time teaching faculty how to bypass our databases. Tricky line.
This session ended a little early, so I raced over to a room with a block of 3 30-minute sessions, and the last one (on Jing!) was just starting. The title:
Libtube Team: Creating Tutorials Together, On a Dime, and In No Time
Jing, as we discovered last Wednesday, is an open source program from Technsmith (also the creators of Camtasia) used to create screen capture videos. The N. Georgia College library uses Jing videos to answer common library questions, allowing students access to them 24/7. They subscribe to Jing Pro ($14.99/year) because the free version has some limitations (more about this later - the free version could be ok for us).
To start the process of creating Jings ,they write scripts so that the narrative behind each video is more or less consistent. They keep the dialogue fairly informal, aiming for a student's perspective, but spelling out the dialogue, along with pause points and reminders to click in the screen (offset in < >brackets), keeps the recording end smooth. Their "actors" are student workers and recent grades (we might consider some of our frequent student visitors and/or select mentors). As a rule of thumb, 1 page of script generally equals 1 minute of recording.
While Jing does not allow inserted pictures or pre-recorded video, you can switch between screens. So, you can put the images in a Powerpoint presentation and then pause the Jing recording and switch from a web browser page to the PP. We probably won't worry about this trick for our first attempt, but nice to know a way around it.
NGCSU posts their videos directly to YouTube, but they can also be saved or posted to Screencast (supplies a link - more about this later).
Using the free version, videos are limited to a max length of 2 minutes. While presenters in this session and others all used the Pro paid subscription that allows 5 minutes, they said 2 minutes is really an ideal length for this type of video, to keep students' attention. The Pro version also allows saving the video as an mp4 file (possibly other file types) that can be stored on an FTP server, rather than the Screencast streaming site that requires viewers to have Shockwave.
The presenter, a very nice guy, offered to help out with any technical issues, and I have his email addy.
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