Ed

1. Competing with
Robots:
Making Research
Skills Relevant to
21st Century Students
Catherine L. Cranston
EdMedia 2012
Denver, Colorado

2. What I’ll Talk About Today
• Briefly describe High School Day event
• Describe and demonstrate Library contest
• Lessons learned from teaching as the
contest evolved
• Transferable lessons and takeaways
2

3. Colorado State University
• Land grant university
• ~27,000 undergrad and graduate students
• Fort Collins, CO (pop. 144,000)
• 65 miles north of Denver
• We’ve recently been in the national news
3

4. High Park Fire - Larimer County, Colorado (June 9, 2012) 4
Photo by Sam Cox (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sammcox/7356312458/) Used with permission.

5. Colorado State University Libraries
5

6. ISTeC High School Day
• Information Science & Technology Center
• Educational Advisory Committee (EAC)
– representatives from 8 colleges & the Libraries
• The EAC puts on High School Day each fall
6

7. ISTeC High School Day
• Brainchild of Dr. Michael de Miranda
• 200+ Colorado students bussed to CSU
• Sponsored by Colorado technology
companies and ISTeC; free for students
Dr. Michael de Miranda
High School Day
Mastermind
Dr. H.J. Siegel
Director of ISTeC
7

8. ISTeC High School Day
• Students
– arrive early for breakfast & opening reception
– participate in contests in the morning
– meet with IS&T company reps at lunch
– attend demonstrations in the afternoon
– celebrate at awards ceremony
8

9. ISTeC High School Day
• Contests have included:
– building and programming robots
– geocaching around campus
– television production
– facial recognition technology
– seismic imaging
– anatomy lab
9

10. 10

11. Imagine. . .
• You’re a teenager
• Yes, you’re getting a day off from school…
• But you’ve been forced to wake-up at the
crack of dawn
11

12. Imagine. . .
• Would you want to find out that while your
buddies are off to build robots, you’re
headed to the library for 2 ½ hours?!
12

13. Our Original Contest
• “Mastering Google and Beyond”
• Consisted of:
– a brief demo of library databases
– a 2-hour online scavenger hunt
– progressively more challenging questions
– Information Science &Technology topics
13

14. Where Did We Go Wrong?
A) Requiring H.S. students to sit still for 2.5
hours
B) Asking students to use library databases
when they knew darn well that Google
could get the job done
C) Giving H.S. students unfettered access to
YouTube, Facebook, etc.
D) All of the above
14

15. The Original Scenario
• The mind-set was:
– Give them what they need to succeed
(as an undergraduate)
– Show them there’s something better/other
than Google
– Teach them something
15

16. Typical Teaching Experience
• The Library “One-Shot”
• Content created based on faculty requests
and assignment parameters
• Often we. . .
– demo some library databases
– promote their superiority/differences to Google
– cover the basics in 50 minutes
16

17. Unique Teaching Experience
• High School Day = Carte Blanche
• Could be more creative
• Time for active and experiential learning
• Contest format = built-in assessments
17

18. New Mindset = New Contest
• Libraries are more than just books
• Google is great, but it should not be your
only information-seeking tool
• Research can be interesting and fun
• Our contest should be just as interesting as
building a robot!
18

19. The New and Improved Contest
• Built with:
– LibGuide Web Page
http://libguides.colostate.edu/beyondgoogle2011
– Google Docs Forms (embedded into LibGuide)
– Infographics (visual.ly)
– Online videos (YouTube, TED, NBC news, etc.)
19

20. LibGuide
20

21. Google Doc Forms
Input &
Embedding
21

22. Google Doc Forms
Recording &
Scoring
22

23. Infographics
23

24. Online Videos
24

25. Contest Format
• Limited to 30 students
• Met in a computer classroom
• Projector / Screens / Instructor Station
• Eight timed modules
• Two librarians there to lead and assist
25

26. #1 Meet Your Teammate
• Three purposes:
– An icebreaker to introduce students
– Check ability to navigate the LibGuide
– Practice filling out and submitting forms
26

27. My Favorite Icebreaker
• Which of the following would you hate to
live without the most for a month?
– Cell phone
– Internet access
– Car
– Video games
– Television
– Library card
27

28. #2 Communication Through the Ages
• Examine this infographic:
• Answer a series of questions about the
information found on the infographic
28

29. Example Question
• Which came first?
– Semaphore
– Carrier pigeons
– Smoke signals
– Twitter
29

30. #3 On the Day You Were Born
• New York Times database (1851-2008)
• Students found headline on their birth date
• Required more advanced techniques than
keyword searching
• Command line searching and using limiters
• Apply these skills to other questions
30

31. #3 On the Day You Were Born
• What was the headline on July 21, 1969?
31

32. #3 On the Day You Were Born
32

33. (side note) : Humans vs. Robots
33

34. #4 ESP Game
• Idea taken from Dr. Luis von Ahn’s
“Games with a Purpose” Web site
34

35. #4 ESP Game
• Describe photo - one word per line
• Try to have ESP with your teammate
• Match words to score points
• Blocked words = 0 points
• BLOCKED WORDS – dog, pillow
__________________________
__________________________
__________________________
__________________________
__________________________
35

36. Concept of Metadata
• ESP Game lets students create metadata
• Data about data
• To retrieve information online, you have to
figure out how something is described
– Are you sharing the same vocabulary?
– Do the words you use have the same meaning to
everyone?
36

37. Concept of Metadata
• What is this?
– cell phone
– cellular telephone
– mobile phone
– smartphone
– iPhone
37

38. Concept of Metadata
• Once you develop a sense of how
something is described, you can be more
creative and successful when using a
database to retrieve information
38

39. #5 Information in the Modern Era
• Tracking down article with a DOI
(digital object identifier)
39

40. #5 Information in the Modern Era
• Recording article metadata
40

41. #5 Connects to #6
• Article vs. Video
41

42. #6 Five Million Books
• The article students found in the previous
module is put into layman’s terms in this
TED video by the authors
What We Learned from Five Million Books
42

43. #6 Five Million Books
43

44. #7 WolframAlpha®
44

45. 45

46. 46

47. #8 Trust but Verify
47

48. #8 Trust but Verify
“Now folks, I’m no fan of
reality, and I’m no fan of
encyclopedias.
I’ve said it before, who is
Britannica to tell me that
George Washington had slaves?
If I want to say he didn’t, that’s
my right. And now, thanks to
Wikipedia, it’s also fact.”
48

49. New Mindset = New Contest
✔Libraries are more than just books
✔Google is great, but it should not be your
only information-seeking tool
✔Research can be interesting and fun
49

50. Transferable Takeaways
• Give yourself carte blanche
• Be creative
– explain the unexpected
• Active and experiential learning
– less teaching, more doing
• Game/Contest format
– assessments can be fun!
50

51. Transferable Takeaways
• Work with your librarian on new and
creative ways to explore the world of
information
51

52. We Competed with Robots!
• “I learned so much I can't even write it
all down right here. Thank you so much :)”
• “It was so much more fun than I ever
thought it would be.”
• “I think this program is great for students.
Colorado State University is going to be
awesome!”
52

53. Contact
• cathy.cranston [at] colostate.edu
• @cranston
• Presentation and LibGuide
http://bit.ly/competingwithrobots
• Paper
http://bit.ly/competingwithrobotspaper
53

54. Image Credits
• [slide 1] Yung Tsai – creative commons license
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26231770@N03/4677211838/ - slide
background adapted from this photo, courtesy of Charles Cranston
• [slide 4] Sam Cox – creative commons license (used with permission)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sammcox/7356312458/
• [slide 5] Cathy Cranston
• [slides 7 & 10] CSU ISTeC
• [slide 12] Yung Tsai – creative commons license
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26231770@N03/4677211998/
• [slide 12] screen capture from “The Librarian” by Holmes (Burton)
Films, Inc., 1947 http://archive.org/details/Libraria1947
• [slide 23] http://www.wordle.net
• [slide 29] Cathy Cranston
• [slide 31] Mateoone – creative commons license
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateoone/351952973/
54