February 3, 2015 (Tuesday)

Time: 10am-11am; 7pm-9pm (3)
Hours completed (IST): 24.5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 8/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 32.5/150

Today I attended a departmental meeting and spent some more time learning the new ACRL Framework. Much of the meeting was spent with librarians updating each other on the current state of projects. We were also given a new project assignment: Instruction Services was tasked with reviewing our core skill modules (n=5) to determine what needs to be updated, changed, or fixed about them. This will be an initial step before fully redoing these modules at a later date. Each member of the group was given a number of modules to check with a specific web browser on a specific platform. Because I was the only member of the group with Windows 8.1, I was asked to review all  the skill modules with Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, and Chrome. We were given about three weeks to have this done.

We also planned to discuss the ACRL Framework at the next meeting, specifically how it may or may not change how we provide instruction and do assessments. So that I am able to participate, Tammy asked be to read the Framework. It is an interesting piece of writing but I am unsure how effective it will be. It also seems too post-modern and too detached from actual instruction to be worthwhile. For example, Authority is Constructed and Contextual is absolutely true but are we, as instructors, meant to understand the truth of this or meant to convey this to students. If the latter, how do we do this without undermining our arguments about why Wikipedia is not a good source?

I'm skeptical, but not against; however, I feel it's going to take a lot more reading before I know what it is that I am dealing with.