The ipod generation

Did you know – 59% of students have an MP3 player, 79% have their own laptop or PC and 99.8% a mobile phone. (more detail) How times have changed from when I was a student and all we had was pen and paper, and relied on books for information.
What strikes me is that we have to keep up with the ipod generation, and work with them using their channels and their technology if we want to engage with them. Pen and paper and books alone just aren’t enough any more.

This is why its no surprise that podcasts are so popular. Sheffield have had over 1700 downloads of their excellent audio tours; Curtin are using weekly library podcasts to promote library services – with casts covering everything from resources and referencing to information about wireless access, borrowing and stories on historic Freemantle. They have had 5000 downloads since September.

The information isn’t new, but the way that we reach our students and engage with them is (or needs to be) and I think if we don’t start using “their” technology we are in danger of being by-passed.

Camtasia

Picture: The University Lake in Autumn

Just received an additional copy of the Camtasia software (and sister product: SnagIt) that we’ve used for the Digital Recordings and Podcasts. This is really sophisticated software for combining audio and multi-media presentations and screen-capture and we will certainly be exploring this further, to allow us to develop really high quality and durable RLOs. I’m particularly keen to investigate adding further interactivity to engage students more (we can use ‘interactive flash hot spots’) and there are some nice features such as having background music and ‘zoom and pan’ (zooming into specific areas of a video to highlight them).

Responses so far...

We've already had several positive responses to our posting on LIS-INFOLITERACY. Thank you to all those who have contacted us. Most respondees sent details of similar projects with links, so I'll put these up on the right hand side. It's good to note that those who contacted us are interested in collaboration and that they're producing RLOs for local respositories, either institution-wide or in the region.

So, there are several other efforts being made across the UK to create RLOs and organise them in some way. I wonder if eventually we will have fewer number of larger repositories across the UK hosting these RLOs? Or do librarians/academics prefer to have local learning objects, subject-specific and relevant only to their institution? I may well dig around LISA to find articles on any projects/repositories further afield (Australia/US/Europe).