Tag Archives: Self-paced courses

ENABLE!

I love reading PUBLIB one of the OCLC discussion lists (listservs)[1] that includes more than 9,000 public librarians from around the world with whom you can share your successes, questions and problems. One of the messages that capture my attention was from Dr. Ruth V. Small, ENABLE project Director talking about the project.

ENABLE stands for Expanding Nondiscriminatory Access By Librarians Everywhere, the website is available at: https://projectenable.syr.edu. Since 2012, Project ENABLE, funded in part by a series of grants from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian and Laura Bush 21st Century Library Continuation Grants of the Institute for Museum & Library Services and from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.

Vision and Goals[2]

Project ENABLE Provides professional development for library professionals from all types of libraries in order to build capacity for providing equitable access and services to students with disabilities, an underserved population. Project ENABLE training is intended to:

  • Raising the level of librarians’ understanding of and sensitivity for the library and information needs of students with disabilities and
  • Fostering their ability to develop programs and services, provide adequate facilities, and select appropriate resources and technologies to meet those needs.

While this site provides training for all educators who support diverse learners, they focus particularly on the school, public, and academic librarian to reach their goal of equity for all students.

Learning Modules:

Project ENABLE training site offers most comprehensive, totally free, online training site for librarians in the area of libraries and disabilities. It also contains self-paced learning modules, each focused on a major area of content related to library and information services to students with disabilities. Each module includes an introduction, learning objectives, a set of topics, examples, activities, related resources, and a brief self-assessment. The learning modules are:

  • Module 1: Disability Awareness
  • Module 2: Disability Law & Policy
  • Module 3: Creating an Accessible Library
  • Module 4: Planning Inclusive Programs and Instruction
  • Module five: Assistive Technology in Libraries
  • Module 6: Targeting Autism in Libraries

Dr. Ruth mentioned in his message that the website was recently updated and contains the following:

  1. Interactive challenge videos, featuring real-life librarians who describe how they faced (and overcame) specific accessibility and inclusion challenges.
  2. Created and published the first issue of PE News, a semi-annual e-newsletter with informative articles written by disabilities experts, professional librarians, and pre-service librarians.
  3. ENABLE is partnering with Infopeople, the high quality professional development site, to provide a series of free online courses, webinars and discussions related to libraries and disabilities.
  4. They have created a “Train the Trainer” section of training (to be available in early 2021) that will contain workshop/course outlines and templates, learning support materials, PowerPoints, suggested readings and assessments that everyone can use to create and deliver customized training to their staff, paraprofessionals and/or volunteers.

This is indeed a great initiative that really deserve to be highlighted as it offers all the previous resources for free to all librarians.

[1]  https://www.oclc.org/content/forms/worldwide/en/internet-subscription.html

[2] https://projectenable.syr.edu/AboutUs

Ready for more intensive professional Development: WebJunction is the key and it’s all free

One of the most interesting resource that will sure catch your attention is WebJunction.

WebJunction is a program of OCLC Research, it was launched since 2003 and has helped more than 140,000 learners build the knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver transformational services to their communities.

WebJunction is free and open to all libraries to use, regardless of size, type or location. It is so rich in content as it includes a variety of self-paced, web-based training resources (about 372) available for free for all library workers and volunteers.

What you need as a new learners is to create an account when you log on https://learn.webjunction.org/, after that you will be able to explore the self-paced course and webinars. It is worth mentioning that certificates of completion will be available after completing the course or webinar.

WebJunction course catalog includes the following topics:

Library Service:

  • Access & Equity (15 webinars)
  • Children (20 webinars & 4 self-paced courses)
  • Collections Management (24 webinars & 5 self-paced courses)
  • Customer Service (7 webinars & 2 self-paced courses)
  • Health (19 webinars)
  • Marketing (14 webinars)
  • Older Adults & Seniors (5 webinars)
  • Outreach (9 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Programming (21 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Readers’ Advisory (4 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Reference (11 webinars & 2 self-paced course)
  • Teaching Patrons (15 webinars)
  • Young Adults & Teens (12 webinars & 1 self-paced course)

Management:

  • Advocacy (7 webinars)
  • Assessment, Evaluation & Planning (25 webinar)
  • Budgets & Funding (10 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Friends, Trustees & Volunteers (6 webinars)
  • Organizational Management (23 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Space Planning (5 webinars)
  • Making Space for Active Learning (3 self-paced course)
  1. Active Learning and Community Discovery introduces the concepts of active learning and placemaking, and the tools and process for community discovery.
  2. From Discovery to Design builds on the results of the community discovery process, adapting design thinking approaches to arrive at an actionable idea and a space ready for transformation.
  3. Action Planning and Implementation takes the planning through the steps of making the space and service transformation happen.

Staff Training & Development:

  • Create & Deliver Training (8 webinars)
  • Manage Staff Development (9 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Personal Growth & Development (13 webinars & self-paced course)
  • Alternative Basic Library Education (ABLE) Program (13 self-paced curses)
  1. Collection Development Sequence (5 self-paced courses)
  2. Technical Services Sequence (4 self-paced courses)
  3. Public Services Sequence (4 self-paced courses)
  •  (D4L) Online Teaching and Learning Skills for Library Workers (7 self-paced course)

Technology:

  • Technology (19 webinars)
  • eBooks & Devices (10 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Social Media (12 webinars & 1 self-paced course)
  • Media Smart Libraries: Building Partnerships to Support Children in a Digital Age (3 self-paced courses)
  1. Module 1: Media Literacy for Children & Teens
  2. Module 2: Film Education & Production for Youth and School Librarians
  3. Module 3: Computational Thinking and Coding.

Resources:

https://learn.webjunction.org/

https://www.webjunction.org/events/webjunction/webjunction-overview-webinar.html

https://www.webjunction.org/about-us.html