MOOCs Now

Alman, Susan W. and Jennifer Jumba (eds). MOOCs Now: Everything You Need to Know to Design, Set Up, and Run a Massive Open Online Course. Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-4408-4457-7.

Use this practical and realistic guide to make the right decisions about whether and how to offer MOOCs.

Learn from experts who have created and presented Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that can reach a vast audience, and discover how to develop and present this new online form of continuing education.

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have become popular with eager learners as well as some educators wanting to test the boundaries of learning. Understandably, many educators approach MOOCs with trepidation and a number of questions. Are MOOCs simply a fad? Does this new venue threaten traditional higher education models? How are teachers to be remunerated for their efforts? And what can be done about student retention in an anonymous venue of a MOOC?

This book answers these questions and many more, offering a practical and realistic guide to MOOCs—one that will help anyone involved in higher education to better understand MOOCs and enable them to make decisions about whether and how to offer MOOCs. The authors address topics such as the various costs of offering a MOOC (teachers, developers, licensing, and software), explain accessibility options, examine the challenges of copyright and the administration required, and explore what the librarian's role should be. This insightful guide also explains your options for the presentation of text, video, and audio content; whether to give assignments or tests; and how to decide whether you should offer your MOOC for free or require a fee and offer a certificate upon course completion.

• Covers the phenomenon of MOOCs from the perspective of veteran librarians—the first book to do so
• Offers in-depth understanding and practical guidance to those considering offering MOOCs
• Identifies the pitfalls to avoid and outcomes to pursue with this fast-growing trend in educational technology and online learning
• Presents balanced coverage of the subject that provides readers with the pros as well as the cons in considering a MOOC

Creating and Sharing Online Library Instruction

Creating and Sharing Online Library Instruction: A How-To-Do-It Manual For Librarians by Joelle Pitts, Sara K. Kearns, and Heather Collins. Neal-Schuman, 2017. 978-0-8389-1562-2.

Publisher's Description

Designed to be reused and shared, learning objects are digital content and assessments centered on student learning outcomes. The promise of sharing online instruction across libraries, campuses, or a consortium holds time-saving appeal. An easy to follow tutorial for creating online library instruction with learning objects, this manual is written by three librarians with the New Literacies Alliance (NLA). Winner of the 2016 ACRL IS Innovation Award, NLA is an interinstitutional information literacy consortium that addresses the “new” literacies required for academic success and lifelong learning. This book

• walks readers through creating and sharing outcome-based lessons that allow students to master skills at their own pace;
• demonstrates how to use assessment to ensure that students learn foundational research and critical thinking skills rather than simply how to use a database or discovery platform;
• sketches in the background and mission of NLA, sharing examples of successful collaboration across institutions;
• includes an assortment of NLA’s workflows, design processes, and style guides; and
• offers project planning and implementation tools, including checklists, steps, and critical questions to consider.

Written for groups or individuals who want to collaborate to build learning objects, this book will also be useful to anyone with a desire to learn more about resource sharing, instructional design, and library instruction.

More Information
See the publisher's website for Table of Contents and author information.

Online Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Crane, Beverley E. Online Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4422-6716-9

Designed for experienced librarians, librarians new to the profession, and library school students, Online Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians provides a comprehensive framework that encompasses all aspects of planning, designing, creating, implementing, and assessing online learning for all types of libraries, including public, academic, special, and K-12. It also provides a valuable guide for teachers, administrators, and other educators.

Online Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians features three main sections:

• Section I: Theory into Practice forms the basis in theory of learning that ultimately influences practice. It includes definition, importance in today’s society, benefits and challenges, and categories and types of online learning with examples to illustrate each.
  
• Section II: Creating Online Instruction explores how to create an online course--describing components and stepping through the process using a model on the topic of information literacy. Design and instructional tips for creating other types of online instruction are also given.
  
• Section III: Practical Applications provides examples of different types of online instruction and materials in all types of libraries. Then, step-by-step detail explains how librarians can create this type of instruction and/or learning materials on their own. Included are worksheets, handouts, and exercises.

Online Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians puts it all together to provide what the library must consider as it prepares for this new challenge and opportunity. It provides a comprehensive guide instructing online programs how to employ library services as part of their program. It is also designed to instruct librarians to incorporate the skills necessary to build a virtual library environment and teach the skills required to meet the needs of online learners. As the educational landscape changes with blended and online learning taking center stage, new and established librarians need a guide to inform them of skills they will need and show them how to create the resources for their new online audience.

The Wiki Way of Learning

The Wiki Way of Learning: Creating Learning Experiences Using Collaborative Web Pages by Michele Notari, Rebecca Reynolds, Samuel Kai Wah Chu, and Beat Döbeli Honegger. American Library Association, 2016.

Given the limited budgets of schools, educators, and school librarians, free and open source tools for learning are more important than ever. Essentially, wikis are easily accessible webpages for creating, browsing, and searching through information, making them ideal vehicles for teaching and collaboration. In this pathbreaking collection, theoreticians and practitioners from a range of international settings explore how wikis are being used to create learning experiences in a variety of educational environments, from grade schools through universities. 

Offering numerous hands-on examples of using collaborative webpages with learners, this book gives teachers, educators, and instructor librarians

·        a theoretical overview of the concept of web-based collaboration and the social implications of the participative web written by Mark Guzdial, a pioneer in using wikis in education;

·        an understanding of how wiki-engines function as a flexible tool for collaboratively creating, linking, revising and regrouping hypertext content;

·        pragmatic guidelines for the educational use and application of wikis, including applications as e-learning management systems, informational resource libraries, online tutorials, maker community project creation, and digital asset file management; 

·        strategies for setting up a learning unit the “Wiki Way” and choosing the most appropriate and suitable wiki-engine in a particular education setting; and

·        coverage of two different scaffolding models for learning scenarios which have been implemented and tested in the US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and China.

Enabling readers to see how wikis’ content and content creation processes can be harnessed for instructional design, this collection represents an important advance in improving education through collaborative technologies.

For more information on this title, see the publisher’s web page.

E-Learning in Libraries: Best Practices

Harmon, Charles and Michael Messina (eds.), E-Learning in Libraries: Best Practices. Scarecrow Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-8108-8750-3

Description

Nine case studies are presented, demonstrating the wide range of e-learning programs at different types of libraries. Topics covered include online credit-based instruction for undergraduates, digital reference, information-literacy e-learning collaboration, open-source software that supports online interactive learning, and screencasting for instruction. 

Table of Contents

• Introducing Online Credit-Based Instruction for Undergraduates by Lauren Pressley, Wake Forest University Library, Winston-Salem, NC
• NCompass Live: Educating Nebraska’s Librarians Online by Christa Burns and Michael P. Sauers, The Nebraska Library Commission
• Digital Reference that supports E-Learning at the University of California by Teal Smith and Donald Barclay, University of California, Kolligian Library, Merced
• The Critical Thinking Skills Initiative: An Information Literacy E-Learning Collaboration
  by Barbara Carrel, Jane Devine, Ann Matsuuchi, and Steven Ovadia, City University of New York Libraries
• Cutting to the Quick: Library Instruction in the Age of Happy Distraction by Lura Sanborn, St. Paul’s School Library, Concord, NH
• Developing and Sharing an Open Source Software Tool that Supports Online, Interactive Learning by Leslie Sult, The University of Arizona University Libraries, Tucson
• Screencasting for Instruction & Reference by Greg Notess, Montana State University Library, Bozeman
• Promoting Faculty Adoption of E-Learning Solutions and Library Services through Streaming Videos by Coleen Meyers Martin and Lynn D. Lampert, California State University Library, Northridge
• E-Learning and Holocaust Education in a School Library by Margaret Lincoln, Lakeview Schools District, Battle Creek, MI