Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes

The article below presents an interesting discussion of the potential value of using the social web for IL instruction within the context of constructive alignment. Bobish suggests a variety of learning activities using blogs, flickr, wikis and social bookmarking sites which are direcly aligned with the learning outcomes derived from the ACRL IL standards. Some interesting ideas!

Bobish, G. (2011). Participation and Pedagogy: Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37(1), 54-63.

For example, for one of the performance indicators for standard two ("Identifies keywords, synonyms and related terms for the information needed") the following is one of the TLAs suggested:

"Social bookmarking: After students have located a variety of
online resources on their topic, have them organize them in
Delicious by creating their own tags relevant to the project they
are working on. Discuss why they chose these tags rather than
pre-existing ones, or if they prefer the pre-existing ones, why
they prefer them."

I think the way this activity could encourage the individual to reflect on the 'aboutness' of the resource and what it directly means to them (in formulating their own individual tags) as well as where it fits within the broader/external context (pre-existing tags) is interesting, and could link more explicitly into a discussion on the concept of subject headings as well if desired.