Reflections on Code Academy and Code Year so far

I've started Code Academy and as of last night, completed Week 1. This is a free program with weekly, online lessons to learn how to code (Javascript). Librarians have started using the hashtag, #codeyear to communicate with each other on their progress (and you can sign up for the lessons at the Code Year site). There has been a push in Libraryland for librarians to learn coding so we can be more self-sufficient in developing digital services and products, as well as just communicating better with IT professionals. There is even a newly-established ALA Connect group for librarians to discuss and help each other with the weekly lessons.

My impressions so far of Code Academy are mixed. Of course, no doubt, this is a great thing. It's free, it's accessible, and it's an intro-level program that is incredibly interactive. It can be hard to teach yourself these types of skills, so opening up the playing field is huge.

It's also nice that the lessons are given in increments, so you get Week 1 for a week, and then are sent Week 2 the next week. You can do more if there is more content up on the site, but it at least makes it more digestible. The leveling up and getting badges is another thing I like. It could be a little bit of gamification, but since these lessons have been made more social through Code Academy and also through the library community, it adds a little more fun to it. I've taken a particular interest as well as to how the Mozilla Open Badges project will relate to library instruction (or could relate), so experiencing a badge-generating program is useful to me and I'm seeing how it could potentially work with students. Although the Mozilla Open Badges project is for open access education, I still think it could be a beneficial concept to try in university and other formal academic settings as well.

Back to Code Academy, there are also some things that I am finding problematic. When considering good pedagogy, detailed feedback contributes to effective learning. Code Academy does not really give any feedback. You put your code in and run it, and then you are right or wrong. There is a little bit of info that pops up when you do enter wrong code, but it's not often enough to help you figure out where you went wrong. The hints are great at the beginning of the lessons, but get more obtuse and mysterious as you progress. I think it can be a good method that they are giving sort of a sandbox atmosphere to try out coding without being bogged down with theory and memorizing definitions (and where you don't have to be afraid of failure, which is a quality of a good game BTW) but at the same time, not really understanding the logic behind how some of the code works makes it very hard to understand why your answer does not work. I was glad to have other librarians who understand coding logic explain why my answer for Week 1, Lesson 8.2 was incorrect, so I was able to progress and finish the week.

Overall, I really do think Code Academy is great, and I'm going to continue on with the lessons. It can be difficult to weave detailed feedback in to an automatic, teach yourself-type program, but at the same time, it is essential for people who are just starting out. I think this article by Tech Crunch, "Will we need teachers or algorithms" (interesting read also for emerging trends in education) rings true here to a degree. Human or AI-driven though, if you can't figure out what you did wrong in a meaningful way, you can't learn from your mistakes and progress.

Catching up to reality

I haven't posted in awhile, so thought I'd do a general update. Typically, it's pretty boring when bloggers just talk about themselves in posts, but since I've had a lot of (awesome) recent changes and projects going on, I'm going to just barf them all out on the page for you so everything is up-to-date... I'll try to be quick!

My new office (prior to a couple more pieces of furniture)

First, and most important, as of the end of October I've started my new position as an Instructional Services Librarian for the University of Arizona! I left my job at the community college, and although it was a great experience and I met some nice people in Dallas, this is an amazing fit for me and I'm so happy to be at the UA. And this is a tenure-track position -- exciting!


After getting settled in Tucson, I've had a few other things going on:

One) My article with ALA Emerging Leaders teammate, Erik Bobilin, has been published in American Libraries Magazine. We are continuing to work on our plans for research in socially responsible selection of videogames, an expanded MARC record, and delving into the burgeoning area of critical theory and gaming. You can keep up more with that on our project site. **Update: Our proposal for ALA EL 2012 has been selected, so Erik, JP Porcaro, and I will be mentors for Team H! And we are lucky to have Jenny Levine as our ALA Staff Liaison! (Excited, obviously.)

Two) Staying on the topic of Emerging Leaders, an article I wrote with Justin Hoenke, one of Team G's mentors, will be appearing in the February 2012 issue of the LLAMA journal. We wrote it in September in the format of interviewing each other, reflecting on the Emerging Leaders experience, leadership skills, and how to be an effective teammate.

Three) I was a panelist on the SLIS Library 2.011 Virtual Conference panel, Riding the "Long Tail:" Leveraging a niche to build a network. Moderated by John Jackson and Young Lee, myself (Librarian Wardrobe) along with Micah Vandegrift (Hack Library School) and Daniel Ransom (Info Amateurs Social Club) discussed building grassroots professional networks within niches. We had some really interesting questions and conversation -- the recording is available at that link.

Four) For the North Texas Collective of Radical Reference, I've published an Alternative Guide to Dallas for ALA MW 2012. Radical Reference collectives have created guides for various cities, so this was put together for people looking for things to do that might not be in mainstream city guides -- especially vegans hoping for assistance on where to find edibles.

Five) Most recently, I have a guest post on Erin Dorney's Library Scenester blog talking about the concept of a "career compass" that I came up with as a panelist for the REFORMA's session on finding your first library job back at ALA Annual 2011.

Otherwise, I hope to meet many of you at ALA Midwinter in Dallas. Please say hi! I am a Co-chair for planning the ACRL Instruction Section Soiree, am organizing the Tweetup with John Jackson, and will also be helping with the Unconference. And keep an eye out for both special edition posts on Librarian Wardrobe for packing interviews and conference photographers' profiles. 

Uf that wasn't quick at all!

Research as conversation: Critical thinking and affect

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/page/10

For a quick lunchbreak post...

I was catching up on recent On the Media podcasts and a particular segment on publishing, scientific journals, and retractions really caught my eye... well, ear.

Brooke Gladstone was interviewing Ivan Oranksy about issues surrounding retractions and their effect on the scientific community and its publications ("Ivan Oransky is a doctor, the executive director of Reuters Health and founder, along with Adam Marcus, of Retraction Watch, a blog that scours scientific journals for retractions and investigates the stories behind them"). I thought this would be interesting for information literacy purposes, and what I especially thought was of particular significance was:

BROOKE GLADSTONE:
[LAUGHS] Having covered the medical research business so closely and of these retractions, what do you think about the state of scientific journals and the way that scientists communicate with each other before all of that stuff gets communicated to the rest of us?
IVAN ORANSKY:
When you look at a paper, there's a kind of finality to it. It’s, look, here it is. It's something you can almost frame and put on your wall or, in this case, on your CV.
If you were to say, look, here's what we found so far, and let us open up the data for you, let us show it to you, which would have probably prevented some really high profile cases from going as far as they did, if you treat that as a process and say this is how science works, nothing is final, we’re just getting there.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
So papers are artificial endings to a process that doesn’t end.
IVAN ORANSKY:
Absolutely. When you actually look at the process of how science works, there aren't that many eureka moments. And when you learn the most is when you’ve actually made a mistake or tried something that didn't work. And if we start using that narrative and don't have to end it

This really drives home the concept that research is a conversation and can teach students that publications, while they should have some authority, are not always 100% accurate nor final. Other researchers will respond and the conversation will continue. This helps students learn that they should always have a critical eye, and not only that, but it helps them better understand how to write a research paper themselves: that it should be their ideas responding to the research they read, and not just a summary or a personal opinion piece with nothing to substantiate that opinion. Explaining research as a conversation (and as non-linear) can also tie in to Kuhlthau's Information Search Process [PDF] (which I also wrote about here, examining if the ISP is still relevant today through participating in the Sheffield iSchool Journal Club). Students seeing that researchers make mistakes -- and even they have struggles and can get frustrated -- can make the research process seem more human and relatable.

Learning about instructional literacy

http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2896

I finished Char Booth's Reflective teaching effective learning: Instructional literacy for library educators (RTEL) this weekend. I had started it back in the winter, but got very wrapped up with Emerging Leaders research and had to postpone other reading.

A lot of library instruction books I've read tend to cover only one aspect of instruction, are too heavily rooted in theory (or the other extreme, are practical only), and often are not very customizable. What I especially liked about RTEL was that it had an even balance of theory and praxis, was able to be customized for academic instruction librarians and trainers (with some applicability for other librarians as well), and also had a personal voice. It's not too often that authors will talk about personal struggles getting accustomed to doing instruction, so it was really nice to hear that someone as capable and skilled as Char Booth was actually nervous at some point and was able to grow into the skillset she has now. Knowing how to teach is not really an innate quality in most people.

The book introduces theory, gives practical examples, and offers opportunities for reflection in worksheet-style questions and summary questions after each chapter. Different aspects of instruction (information technology, educational theory, and instructional design, for example) are drawn upon throughout the book through Char Booth's USER method: Understand, Structure, Engage, Reflect. It's also holistic in covering developing lesson plans, differentiating instruction to reach multiple learning styles in student-centered instruction, and the very important assessment.

A common theme throughout the book is to consider WIIFM, or "What's in it for me," that students either actively or subconsciously wonder, and this is an important key to get and maintain interest, as well as direct instruction.

Analyzing students through this principle as well as some suggested learner analysis strategies helps to paint a better picture of how to develop instruction and related materials. This more naturally leads to better assessment, and for those confused on the distinction between objectives and outcomes, these are delineated with real-life examples given for each. To clarify, according to the book, objectives are, "...learner-focused, action-oriented statements that provide the concrete criteria to evaluate if learning has occurred." Objectives are linked to Bloom's Taxonomy, and examples are structured as a condition, one or more actions, and a performance standard. An example given in the book is: "Given access to bSpace and a computer, the faculty member will be able to upload ADA-accessible files to the Resources are a of a course site. (taxonomy level: Understanding, Applying)."

Outcomes, on the other hand, are "the actionable, real-world result of the interaction..." A related outcome provided as an example is, "Faculty will provide more online course material through open access and library subscriptions."

There is so much more great information in this book I'd love to highlight, but I'm going to cut it off here; as you can see from these examples, material is explained in an easy-to-understand way that is still intelligent and thought provoking... just how instruction should be.