John, thanks so much for making this point. I think this is really useful 
feedback in a number of ways - not least because I'm not sure how far the 
library community goes in questioning the terms we use and looking at what 
messages they carry to other stakeholders. Since I've started following 
this list I've become much more aware of terminological nuance!

I do agree that there is a significant difference between 'learner 
development' and 'learning development', and thank you for your very cogent 
explanation of the implications of each position. That difference 
definitely chimes with the position we have tried to take in the ANCIL 
project documents, and it's something that I will certainly want to explore 
further.

Incidentally, I believe the first time I heard the term 'learning 
development' was very recently, and probably in connection with LDHEN 
rather than in a library context :( I'd be very interested to know of any 
connections between librarians and learning deveopment staff in other 
institutions, as sadly there are none at Cambridge - and I'd like to hope 
we're unique, as it seems to me this could be an extremely fruitful 
partnership. (Please feel free to reply off-list if that's more appropriate 
- I feel I've done a lot of posting lately for someone who's only just 
delurked!)

All good wishes,
Emma.

>Hello Emma, Zoe and all
>
> Thanks for your recent postings. I was inspired by Doug's screencasts on 
> writing in 'plain legal English' 
> http://www.youtube.com/user/djaguilfoyle#p/u/6/jL5AdTwDuCo - these are 
> full of great, well presented advice and would be of relevance to writers 
> in all subject areas.
>
> With reference to the NCIL project - again, really useful and interesting 
> stuff. We can, of course, debate terms, categories, labels and their 
> relations to each other endlessly ... I'd like to comment however on just 
> one aspect in Figure 1: 'the information literacy landscape' - I think it 
> under-represents a key dimension: that of criticality. For example, it 
> places what it calls 'learner development' within the academic literacies 
> domain. I think this is mistaken - it assumes there is a 'developed' 
> learner subject-position that is known to, and agreed by some 
> authoritative entity. I would argue that you would be better to use the 
> term learning development instead - and indeed to locate your work more 
> fully in the LD field. Your model would then have the capacity to 
> acknowledge the ongoingly developmental nature of learning, and the 
> inter-related roles of students, academics, professionals and others in 
> its co-construction. This also activates the potential for critical 
> thinking and its outputs in texts, objects and social action to call for 
> and effect change! This may at first seem like nit-picking but I strongly 
> believe that a change in your project perspective away from a 
> *learner-development* and towards a *learning development* underpinning 
> would lead to profound changes - and great possibilities for the model. 
> There is more to say about how the model might be altered to represent 
> learning, information and knowledge practices more fully (e.g. in 
> relation to the economic and cultural environment) but I think the 
> important work in NCIL will be helpful to learning developers in 
> informing our involvement in digital literacy work.
>
> Thanks again Emma for sharing the NCIL work with us ... and Zoe for 
> Doug's screencasts .. and I look forward to checking out the studykick 
> blog!
>
>
>John 
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: learning development in higher education 
> network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Emma Coonan Sent: 05 
> August 2011 17:44 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: New Curriculum 
> for Information Literacy project
>
>Hello again,
>
> Zoe and anyone else interested, please do go ahead and use, copy, share 
> or adapt anything from the New Curriculum materials - they're licensed as 
> CC-BY-NC-SA (i.e. please attribute the source, use the same licence for 
> any materials you adapt, and don't make pots of dough out of it ...).
>
> Our one request would be that if you find any element interesting enough 
> to use or adapt, we'd love to know about it. I'll create a Google form or 
> similar and add it to the wiki so that there's an easy way to let us 
> know.
>
>Thank you to everyone for your feedback and your welcome!
>
>Best wishes,
>Emma.
>
>
>On Aug 4 2011, Zoe Rose wrote:
>
>>Hi Emma and LDHEN,
>>
>> Time for me to de-cloak too, I think! I'm currently working on a new 
>> blog specifically for disseminating information on good study and 
>> research practices to undergraduate students. It will be at 
>> www.studykick.com, but it hasn't launched yet - right now there's 
>> nothing there!
>>
>> Emma, I've looked at your curriculum, and there's a lot there that I'd 
>> like to incorporate into/reference in Studykick - is that ok by you?
>>
>> I should point out that I'm not an academic - my husband and our 
>> friends are, and I've been listening to them worry terribly about the 
>> skills that their undergraduates arrive at university with for a long 
>> time. Another thing I hear a lot is frustration about navigating all the 
>> ways how they theselves can best use technology to improve their 
>> teaching practice. Doug (my husband) and I have combined our backgrounds 
>> - his in international law, mine in elearning - to try some new 
>> strategies, some of which have proved to have a great return on the time 
>> invested. A good example would be Doug's youtube channel and screencasts 
>> here: http://bit.ly/oM7bMh. (Feel free to use them with your students it 
>> if you like - the 'introduction to plain legal English' videos are very 
>> versatile, I think!)
>>
>> On the topic of the blog - if anyone else is interested in setting the 
>> direction of Studykick (or maybe even contributing!) then I'd love to 
>> hear from you. Eventually, it will be used to let students know about a 
>> web service that I'm building, but it will never achieve that if it 
>> doesn't have valid, valuable information in it! The webservice itself it 
>> for undergratuate students, and is designed to help them take better 
>> lecture notes. If anyone is interested in that, do let me know!
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Zoe
>>
>>On 3 August 2011 10:30, Emma Coonan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear LDHEN,
>>>
>>> [Lurking librarian de-cloaking nervously ... ]
>>>
>>> I've just completed a 10-week research project at Cambridge University 
>>> as part of the Arcadia Project, which is intended to explore in a 
>>> number of ways the role of the academic library in the digital age. I 
>>> work as Research Skills Librarian at Cambridge University Library, and 
>>> my project partner was Dr Jane Secker of LSE's Centre for Learning 
>>> Technology. Our brief was to design a curriculum for information 
>>> literacy that would meet the changing needs of undergraduates coming 
>>> into HE over the next five years. (No pressure, then ... )
>>>
>>> We reviewed the existing state of information literacy in higher 
>>> education (including the contested and problematic nature of the term 
>>> 'information literacy' itself) and interviewed a number of experts from 
>>> the fields of education and information. This research fed into the 
>>> design of a practical curriculum outlining ten thematic strands within 
>>> information literacy and offering example activities and assessments 
>>> within each strand, as well as a number of supporting documents. Our 
>>> research was informed by an understanding of information literacy as a 
>>> complex continuum of skills, competencies, attitudes and behaviours, 
>>> and by the belief that IL is a fundamental element in the ongoing 
>>> development of the individual, social as well as academic. We 
>>> endeavoured throughout to take a learner-centred approach rather than a 
>>> library-focused perspective, which was helped greatly by having a 
>>> learning developer as a member of our support team (BIG hat-tip to 
>>> Helen Webster).
>>>
>>> All of the project outputs are now available at 
>>> http://ccfil.pbworks.com/w/**page/42119030/project%**20reports<http://ccfil.pbworks.com/w/page/42119030/project%20reports>. 
>>> There are four documents in all: the curriculum itself; a report on the 
>>> expert consultation process and outcomes; a paper exploring the 
>>> theoretical background; and an executive summary. If you have time to 
>>> take a look, we would be very grateful for any comments or feedback on 
>>> any aspect of the research. We hope that the curriculum is both 
>>> flexible enough to complement existing provision and to evolve with 
>>> use, so it would be very helpful to know if there are aspects that 
>>> would particularly benefit from further work, or aspects that you feel 
>>> won't work at all in their current state!
>>>
>>> With best wishes,
>>> Emma.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr. Emma Coonan, M.Sc.
>>> Research Skills&  Development Librarian
>>> Cambridge University Library
>>> Tel. 01223-747457
>>> --
>>> www.lib.cam.ac.uk/courses
>>> --
>>> "What's another word for thesaurus?"
>>> (Steven Wright)
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Dr. Emma Coonan, M.Sc.
Research Skills & Development Librarian
Cambridge University Library
Tel. 01223-747457
--
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." 
(Jorge Luis Borges)