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San Jose State U.: San Jose State U. library science school goes digital, bringing students together from across country(U-Wire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) UWIRE-12/09/2008-San Jose State U.: San Jose State U. library science school goes digital, bringing students together from across country (C) 2008 Spartan Daily via UWIRE By Corinne Speckert, Spartan Daily (San Jose State U.) SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Students may not be familiar with San Jose State University's school of library and information science because there is no physical building. There is, however, a virtual one. Anthony Bernier, an assistant professor for the school, said students don't need to commute or move to receive the benefits of the program because all courses, lectures and seminars are available online through course management systems, where students can log in to watch videotaped lectures. "We have students who are all over the country-in fact, all over the world," he said. This school, which is primarily online, gives graduate students an American Librarian Association accredited degree in librarianship upon graduation. Dale David, an instructional technology assistant for the library program, said the school is about 95 percent online, and is represented in at least 10 states and six to 10 countries. He said a lot of their students aren't based in San Jose, which is why they started working with online education in 2000. "It's an online system, so it allows us to experiment and we kind of do everything in-house," he said. "We don't rely on a lot of the university-level services, so it's pretty much a home-grown and home-maintained program." Jeremy Kemp, a lecturer of the school, said it has had students involved in distance education for about a decade and has multiple online resources to accommodate different students' learning preferences. "We use all these different tools, and they all get mixed into the pot of distance education tools," he said. "Each one of these tools has different methods and a different set of people it serves." Bernier said the school looks for new ways to technically reach students, which is why two years ago they used a $30,000 grant from the George Soros Foundation to create its own college on an island in Second Life. Second Life is a 3-D, virtual world used as a social network by its users. "Most of us never see our students physically, face to face, except maybe at graduation. But otherwise, Second Life is an example of an immersive environment," he said. Bernier said Second Life offers students the personal interaction absent in online courses because they can virtually attend seminars when the professors are actually giving them. Students create their own avatars, or virtual students, which attend classes and school functions in Second Life. "We were the first library school in the country to have our own island on Second Life," Bernier said. "We had a Halloween party that drew 250 people." Bernier said Second Life is increasingly being used as a form of instruction. "I would appear on Second Life on a particular time and day and my students would show up on that day and I would deliver a lecture in Second Life, or we would do a group exercise or several," he said. Kemp said Second Life is a good tool for students who do better in a class setting. "There's a really rich community of people around us, so my students go out into the community and work with other people in Second Life," he said. "Having a place that you can go to is very helpful for some students. It has real teaching and learning benefits to feel like you're at a place, to feel like your present." Kemp said there are about 150 universities and libraries on the island, which also has a theater, student union, info desk, tiki bar, stage and 11 faculty offices. David said students' opinions on Second Life differ and it's hard to implement curriculum, he said, and it can't be managed or controlled when it's down. "Some people like it, some people just really hate it," David said. "One of the things we emphasize is it's about finding who your users are and providing services, regardless of whether it's in a physical place or a virtual place." The library school is broken down into two sessions: regular session for local students and special session for non-local students. David said their tuition, based on other library schools, is within the bottom 5 to 10 percent and is competitive because of its accessibility for students with families or careers. "A lot of our students are working professionals," he said. "We have younger students, but also get a lot of older people in their second or third careers with families. It kind of gives them an opportunity so they don't have to move to a graduate school [and] allows students to work full-time, but also take care of their families and get an education in the comforts of wherever they live." Along with lectures and seminars, the school also has a weekly colloquium series, where weekly interviews with professionals from the librarian field are videotaped and put on its Web site for students. "[It's] put up on our Web site where our students from all over the country can look at the archive and at any point access our Web page and bring up the whole presentation," Bernier said. Bernier said the popularity of the colloquium series, which started off averaging about 125 viewers, is growing-it now averages about 275 per presentation. "If you can imagine 275 people in this room at different times, that's what would happen," he said. "So when you come expecting to see a big audience at the colloquium, it's a virtual audience." ##30## ((Distributed on bahalf of U-Wire via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((U-Wire - http://www.uwire.com)) Copyright ? 2008 U-Wire |