As I mentioned in my previous blog post, library professionals are increasingly engaging in instructional design. The Library 2.0 virtual conference – Library 2.019: Shaping the Future of Libraries with Instructional Design –explored this topic on March 13, 2019, attracting close to 6000 registrants from around the world. The virtual conference consisted of an opening keynote, 16 concurrent crowd-sourced presentations, and a closing keynote. It explored how librarians are engaging in instructional design practices and how advances in technology are changing how instruction in libraries is being delivered.
Opening Keynote Panel
The conference kicked off with an opening keynote panel featuring three instructional design experts Dana Bryant (Emory University), Michael Flieri (Purdue University), and Lindsay O’Neill (California State University, Fullerton). The session was moderated by Steven Bell (Temple University) and John Shank (Penn State University). In advance of the conference, conference attendees helped pick which questions the keynote panel would address.
The keynote panelists were asked to give a one sentence definition of instructional design, identify what their “go to” educational technology is, provide suggestions for librarians who want to build instructional design skills, discuss how best to keep instructional design skills up to date, discuss how to plan for “one shot instruction,” provide their thoughts about how instructional designers can shape the future of libraries, and provide their perspective on how librarians who are not formally trained in instructional design can implement instructional design principles in their work.
In response to the question about giving a one sentence definition of instructional design, the speaker responses ranged from defining instructional design as an approach for creating learning environments that is conducive to student learning and student success to instructional design as solving an instructional problem with the tools and resources you have on hand.
Collection of Resources Mentioned by the Speakers
When answering the question about what “go to” educational technology is, many great resources were suggested by the keynote panel – and, through the chat, suggested by the participants as well. Peggy George, one of the participants, created a Wakelet collection of the resources that were mentioned during the keynote: http://wke.lt/w/s/zwHDc
How to Develop Instructional Design Skills
Lindsay O’Neill, who has a Master’s degree in Instructional Design, felt that this was a very good way to develop in depth skills and knowledge around instructional design. The speakers recommended several ways to keep instructional design skills up to date, particularly by attending conferences and getting involved in different instructional design communities. Their suggestions included Educause/ELI, Online Learning Consortium (OLC), eLearning Guild, Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD), and International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL).
For More Conference Highlights
There were many other useful tips that the speakers mentioned. For more highlights from the Library 2.019: Shaping the Future of Libraries with Instructional Design conference, I recommend reading this blog post: https://ischool.sjsu.edu/istudent-blog/highlights-library-20-instructional-design-conference
Conference Recordings are Free
I also recommend listening to the video recordings to learn more from the opening keynote session, as well as the other contributed sessions and the closing keynote. All of the conference recordings are free to watch, but you do have to sign up (for free) to the Library 2.0 network in order to access them.
Upcoming Library 2.019 Conferences
I hope you will participate in these upcoming free Library 2.019 virtual conferences (all 12-3pm Pacific Time) — one of these will focus on Open Data on June 5th and another will focus on Emerging Technology on October 30th.