Preaching, Teaching and Presenting

2014 has been a hectic year as far as making a difference in the lives of people. Being involved in Information Literacy as a Training Librarian never leaves a dull moment.

Using my God given gift of teaching and preaching, I have over the years developed InfoLit courses because it used to freak me out when students came to the Library and did not have a cooking-clue of what it was all about and trying to teach them life-skills on a one-to-one basis is soul destroying.
Honestly one student had the mouse on the screen of the monitor trying to ''click'' on the catalogue button.

The existing content when I arrived around 18 years ago ran for 30 minutes, was presented at first on a hand-written transparency and was bogged down with library terminology and information overload. Having taken photos and moving to a slide projector the training at least had some visual content even though all the librarians had to march in, stand down the wall of the training room and smile - it was a start.  Once PowerPoint appeared on the market and I leaned to tweak it - we started to fly. Evaluations show that the students enjoy the training and would recommend it to others to attend. 

Over the years different people moved in and out of the curriculum development scene leaving their stamp and expertise intermingled with my modules - including since the merger of a whole lot of institutions to form Tshwane University of Technology an "Information Literacy Committee". I love their brains.

Today I have what I feel is an user-friendly, suited for 1st years from city or disadvantaged rural communities, Information Literacy course made up of 6 modules and ever expanding to YouTube as well.

It is blended with interactive sections, games, videos [some self-made], quizzes etc.  I am no longer the 'king-pin' but have a deep sense of satisfaction that I birthed almost 18 years ago - will around 2015 or a year later, become a full academic subject on the time table of every student at TUT.  The feeling is almost as good as when I put the first 386 desktop PC down for students to use and the whole Librarian body was up-in-arms - ''how dare I allow a student to touch a computer''. Later when I suggested we try to be a bit more creative with the interior design as the infant Internet slowly made an appearance - they nearly passed out. "We are academic, we have an image to keep" mmmm - like black and white bullet pointed PowerPoint presentations, flat shoes and a bun in the hair, glasses on the nose, suited clothing - is what they meant. Man a lot has changed LOL. Those were the days. Lest we forget.

Today I sit next to a 64 computer lab in the library [one of many on the different campuses], - guide students in using Internet from an academic perspective and introduce them to the secrets hidden in the databases we subscribe to, plus I keep redeveloping the methods and content in the modules.

This year I won the award for best speaker at the OCLC flash talks in Cape Town covering the story of a library I started in a rural school in Soshanguve, gave a workshop covering advanced PowerPoint training for Trainers that includes how to bring life to PowerPoint when teaching students [would make those initial baby-boomer librarians turn in their graves] and have trained over the years in excess of 20 000 students making them independent researchers who now find security in the library, love the online libraries of the world including ours and understand how to reference correctly and evaluate content - no longer needing the librarian to provide the information but only to guide them to the information.

Goals for the future - to make online tutorials [just taught myself Camtasia] and online assessments in Blackboard.  Look for new methods for the changing generations and their learning preferences - immaterial if its a baby-boomer who came for training and is asking 'what happened to the books and journals'? Even a X-generation. Immaterial if its a left or a right brained person, a 1st year who could be 18 or 38 years or a post graduate - myself being a right brain, dominated by a left brain baby-boomer,  I am flexible enough to adapt and old enough to have empathy.  That is why I love what I do. They say only 20% of the world is in a job they love, it's great to be in the minority. Two more years then I pension - wonder what doors will open up after that. Can't wait!!