The role of technology- What if?

               Technology is only a tool (Henry, 2008)

I have been curious about digital reference services.  I know they must be available for students but I wondered what known benefits and drawbacks exist. I read two articles on the topic. The first titled Just Curious: Children’s Use of Digital Reference For Unimposed Queries and Its Importance in Informal Education (Silverstein, 2005) and After School and Online (Thompson, 2003). Each article stated that students accessed the services when they were available but that they needed assistance formulating questions, students were motivated by some topic areas more than others and provided valuable findings for software developers to create user-friendly interfaces.

The study After School and Online, focused on chat based live digital reference services, and outlined a trial project that provided online support for students. I found it interesting to read about some of the barriers of online reference services. For example, they questioned whether students were able to evaluate information because of using this service. When a librarian helped a student narrow their topic and formulate a question, the study asked the question “was the student able to do this independently in the future” and the findings indicated that it was hard to track. Another finding in both studies was librarians found that students constantly disappeared and felt that it could have been because of connection issues but also stated that students reported that would get bored or distracted. Both articles pondered how Internet savvy the audience was.

In the last eight years the world wide web has advanced more than I can describe, I wonder if there are specific interfaces set up now for teacher librarians to accept questions without the pressure to respond at all times of the day, or if there is a peer system established so that students can help each other. Perhaps it would be worth creating a support page of useful reference links  (maybe a wikki) for students so that they can access the page from home and go to an external support like AskJeeves etc. After reading these two articles I have jumped forward a year to when I start in a school library and I have started to think about whether I will provide electronic reference support.

The final article I read was titled Another Opinion: Can’t We All Just Get Along? Technophiles and Bibliophiles in School Libraries? (Henry, 2008) and it was a good article to read this week as we discuss online resources. The discussion question presented in the article is “are we creating readers or learners?”  Henry (2008) reminds us that technology is only one of many tools used to teach students how to effectively use information. He says, “Do not be afraid of new formats, after all books were new once upon a time. [He reminds us to] use new formats to help kids become life long learners, adapt, change, grow” (p.44).  I like the idea of posting a sign that says technology is only a tool in the library. The following quote ties into Anne’s question of the week surrounding purchasing book and electronic resources and it made me chuckle. “ At times there seems to be an undercurrent of hostility between those who love technology and those whose love is reserved for the printed word” (p. 44). Isn’t that the truth and doesn’t it come down to adequate training and resources for educators to begin to be comfortable in the electronic world? It is not just a matter of training; training and time to apply learning is critical for educators if we are ever going to support information literacy development in the 21^st century.

References

Henry, R. (2008). Another opinion: can't we all just get along? technophiles and bibliophiles in school libraries. Library Media Connection , 27(2), Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=34928333&site=ehost-live

Silverstein, J. (2005). Just curious: children's use of digital reference for unimposed queries and its importance in informal education. Library Trends, 54(2), Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=20486704&site=ehost-live

Thompson, J. (2003). After school and online. Library Journal , 128(1), Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=8939517&site=ehost-live