What to do with this blog

I realize there is a lot of material on this blog, but don't despair! All you have to do is choose ONE of the "Follow-up exercise" posts and post a comment. The links at the bottom of the page will take you to my wiki (which includes the handouts and the PowerPoint presentation I used in class), the CARS PDFs, Phil Agre's "How to Help Someone Use a Computer", and John Kupersmith's Technostress page for librarians, which includes additional bibliographic resources if you wish to further research this topic. For those of you with a sick sense of humor, I've also included some funny Onion articles to send you off into the holiday break in a good mood.

Thanks for visiting!
Lesley

Follow-up Exercise: What would YOU do?

Choose one of the following scenarios, and using the "Three As", describe how you would deal with computer anxiety and technostress in your learners (or yourself!).
1) You are working as an instructional services librarian at a large academic library, which has purchased an institutional license for EndNote bibliographic software. You are placed in charge of planning a student workshop on plagiarism and citing sources, with an emphasis on the demonstration of EndNote for students. You have never used this software before.
2) You are working at a public library. According to your library’s last user survey, many of your patrons have access to computers only through the library. You would like to offer a workshop on Microsoft Word. You have noticed that many patrons seem comfortable using the Internet to email friends and relatives or to browse websites, but you have not noticed them using the library’s OPAC or MS Office, both of which are also available on your library’s computer stations.

There's Always a Kernel of Truth in Humor

Google Launches 'The Google' For Older Adults

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—The popular search engine Google announced plans Friday to launch a new site, TheGoogle.com, to appeal to older adults not...

WARNING! The link below contains offensive language; if you dislike curse words, give it a pass...

My Computer Totally Hates Me! vs. God, Do I Hate That Bitch

Follow-up exercise:How NOT to Help Technostressed Users!

Watch the video called "How NOT to Help Technostressed Users" (click on the image in the left-hand column of this page; the video will play at the top of the page). Now refer to Phil Agre's "How to Help Someone Use a Computer" (if you do not have your handout, there is a link to it at the bottom of this page). How are some of Agre's observations demonstrated in this skit? List at least three things that the character Nick Burns is doing wrong. Have you ever felt humiliated by someone who was helping you perform some task on a computer? Have you ever inadvertently been a Nick Burns? If you were Nick Burns, how would you go about identifying, assessing, and alleviating your users' computer anxiety or technostress?

Follow-up exercise:What is your technological "type"?

Take this Pew Quiz and determine your technological "type". What were your results? Do you think your result is accurate? Now scroll down to the chart at the bottom of the page called "The Typology Groups". Do any of these statistics surprise you? How might these statistics be skewed? Of these types, which one(s) do you think might be the most technostressed? Say you were designing an instructional module on using WorldCat, and you knew that most of your learners were members of this typology group (or groups). List three things you might build in to your instruction (this can be either in-person and/or remote) to alleviate computer anxiety and technostress.