Christ in the Cloud?

Many Christians find the practice of daily devotional reading important for their spiritual development. Since 1956 an evangelical Christian ministry Radio Bible Class has produced a little booklet called "Our Daily Bread" that includes a daily Bible reading and related inspirational thought. Other popular devotional booklets are "The Upper Room" (1935) and the Roman Catholic publication "The Word Among Us" (1981). There have been "Daily Breads" around our house since I was a child, and they remain a helpful tool for worship and reflection.

Media has changed, and I was interested to see that these ministries have enthusiastically adopted new media to communicate their message. You can still get "Our Daily Bread" in booklet form, but also as a streaming audio, podcast, mobile download, RSS or Twitter Feed.

What caught my attention was the tag cloud built of descriptive terms (tags) associated with each devotional and "weighted" based of popularity of that tag. Like the tag list I have on my blog except theirs is much cooler. These tags are actually assigned by the author, and as such aren't really "social tags" where the readers, not the author, decides what the devotional is "about" and tags it accordingly.

It is interesting to see the very different tags in this floating cloud. I was wondering how the tags would be different if I tagged the devotionals or if you did. I was looking at the tags for the devotional on October 22, 2009; I would have chosen some of them, but others seemed too abstract or theological. Who are they for? Faith is very personal; I would think that the tags would tell you as much about me as they likely would about the devotionals. Maybe I'll need to suggest social tagging to the folks at "Our Daily Bread."

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What I Learned-ed 3: What are you saying?

I wanted to tell you about a paper by Cameron Hoffman and Sarah Polkinghorne. The session was entitled “Discourse identity and practice: analyzing librarians’ conversations about information literacy and the social web.”

They analyzed posts to the email list ILI-L (an email discussion list for Information Literacy Instruction Librarians). The idea behind the study was that by examining how we talk about something we can often identify the assumptions and motivations behind the text. Hoffman and Polkinghorne considered what instruction librarians said about the use of the social web (Facebook, MySpace, Youtube etc.) in information literacy instruction.

I wasn’t surprised by their results, though I am certainly concerned. Although librarians are adopting social software for instruction, their concerns, as expressed on the list, aren't always about pedagogy; rather it was often about control. First, librarian posters frequently portrayed their clients as consumers not learners, and then themselves as service providers. (Wait a second, isn’t this list about teaching? Why does it suddenly sound like marketing?)

Hoffman and Polkinghorne then identified four themes in this discourse:

• Tips, tricks and techniques – Librarians weren’t really interested in pedagogy (learning theory and practice). They wanted tips on “making them listen” etc.
  
• Moral language – Wikedpedia is pure evil, we are gatekeepers to the good.
• Anxiety – There is a lot of anxiety around social web and instruction, and the future role of librarians.
• Sensitivity to new technologies – We think we need to be masters of the social web. (I guess the joke is on librarians: no one masters the social web.)

I’m over simplifying their research, but what I began to ask "is it really about the social web or is it whether librarians know how to teach?" Are wikis a tool in your teacher kit or is that the sum of your game? If you don’t understand teaching, then the gimmicks will only take you so far. But if you understand learners and learning, and when the social web can be engaged to foster learning, then you really have little to fear.

We need to talk about this more...

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What I Learned-ed 2: Beautiful CHIN

The plenary session of the CAIS conference was with Danielle Boily, Manager, Portal Management and Design, with the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN). (So if they had their budget cut, would it be “taking one on the chin”?)

This department's mandate is to "allow Canadian museums to engage their audiences through the use of innovative technologies." Started in the 1970s with a mandate to record the collections of Canada's museums, CHIN has substantially increased its size as the organization has matured. (Does that mean they have a middle-aged double chin? :-p ) She spoke about the work they are now doing to publicize Canada’s artifacts and treasures (do you have any Canadian treasures?). One branch of CHIN (cleft chin?) is the Virtual Museum of Canada, and they have engaged in a re-design of the websites. She shared some of the inspiring design principles they were following: (I believe she said that these originated from a presentation at Southwest by Southwest).

• Beauty in Design: there is an Aesthetic-Usability effect as beautiful things are easier to use. The tips: get emotional, think bigger, lead, be brave.

• The art of persuasion: persuasion versus manipulation. The tips: use curiosity, play hard to get, lighten up, take a chance, and be frisky.(Can you imagine how the “be frisky” went over in a room of librarians and information scientists? Then imagine what happened where they tried to imagine “frisky” web designers.)

• Thinking Visually: Solve any problem with a picture (portrait, chart, map, timeline, flowchart.)

I was thinking about these ideas in relation to both church and library websites. Both are information institutions, that rely heavily on text to communicate. I looked at some "best" church websites particularly for their aesthetic qualities. Some are very visual like Watermark or Renaissance. Others are edgy like Red Rocks. I don't know if I saw any site that was particularly beautiful. Suggestions?

Then there are library websites. Many are very functional but are any really beautiful? Or inviting? Something to think about as we re-design our own website. I know I want it to be functional but "a thing of beauty" as well? Can you think of a beautiful library website?

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What I learned-ed 1: Peoples' Stories

So between the CSSR and CAIS society meetings I attended one plenary, one workshop, one banquet, one business meeting and twenty-eight papers, and ate untold number of cinnamon buns over four days. Yeah, I know, brain strained, body tired, belly fat.

So what did I learned-ed at the Learneds Congress?

I was reminded again that in Montreal, traffic lights are mostly decorative.

I learned that there is fascinating research being conducted by scholars and librarians. Inspiring stuff, and I needed the inspiration. I’ll share some of the more personally intriguing papers over the next few blogs. I learned once again that not even brilliant content can overcome a bad powerpoint presentation. I chose to use Prezi software that, incidentally, went over very well. (Thanks again Karen.)

I learned again that behind the research are interesting personal stories. Most research does not pop out of thin air. As I talked to researchers one-on-one, I heard stories about personal struggles, compassion, anger and frustration. These are real people wanting to change their little corner of the world. It is too bad that the academic and publishing structures will strip the personal out of the research. Now some research is strictly an intellectual exercise (“what in the heck was that flow chart??? It even confused you and you made it!!!”)

I can’t share all the private stories, but next time you hear about interesting research, ask about the story behind the story; the passion that gave it life.

It just might surprise you.

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