Ruth Rikowski Updates

Twenty-Third News Update

PART FOUR

11. HELEN NICOLL’S TALK, ‘THE BUSINESS OF KNOWING’ (WITH A FOCUS ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND THE NHS) AT A CILIP LONDON MEETING, ON 9th JANUARY 2008

Helen Nicoll, from NHS ‘Connecting for Health’ (Capacity and Capability Programme Manager), gave a very interesting talk at a CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) London meeting on 9th January 2008, which I went along to. The talk was entitled ‘Web 2.0, Knowledge Management and the corporate librarian’.

Helen discussed many issues such as how do people learn; the importance of blogs and how to access good blogs (such as through Technorati); communities of practice; the transferability and interchangability of skills, information and knowledge (particularly between librarians and educators); the value of technology and related online environments for effective knowledge sharing; video conferencing, tele-conferencing and Web 2.0 as well as the value and importance of knowledge sharing in general.

Some of the key points raised and later discussed were the value of KM (and IM) in general, and Web 2.0 in particular; the need for educationalists and librarians to work closer together and the value of using technologies alongside face-to-face contact.

Helen also recently achieved a distinction for her M.Ed dissertation in Training & Development, which included interviewing Project Managers about blogs and related topics.

Helen, indeed, is very keen on blogs, in particular, (and they certainly can be an effective part of KM!) and following on from the meeting she inserted an item about this meeting on her blog. See:

http://thebusinessofknowing.blogspot.com/2008/01/cilip-event-web-20-knowledge-management.html

In this blog item, she also referred to the book that I have edited on knowledge management, so thanks Helen for that!

Helen said that she usually gives talks with all the I.T. itinerary at her disposal (PowerPoint etc), and was a bit shocked at first to discover that there was none at the CILIP London meeting, as the meetings are held in a room above a pub (the Seckforde Arms). She said that she was not quite sure how she was going to handle it, but that she was very pleasantly surprised. Here is what she actually said on her blog in regard to this:

“I felt incredibly comfortable with just sitting there, talking to people, without thinking about what my slides said, without worrying about whether I'd missed bits, whether the videos would work...all that distracting stuff you get with technology. I could listen to what I was saying, listen properly to questions, watch the group for non-verbal cues (like nodding off, head shaking, frowning) which I'd probably have missed had I been concentrating on the technology I was using to present with. I felt like, almost anyway, a storyteller. I'm going to try to avoid PowerPoint in future...

Wow  – I thought that was really something, especially as I had the same feeling when I gave a talk at a London CILIP meeting about one year ago now, on my work on globalisation and libraries. In fact, I felt, and still do feel, that it was one of the best talks that I had ever given! Like Helen I found that I was able to establish a really good rapport with my audience and there was a very good discussion. I always aim to invite contributions, discussions and interjections from the audience, but sometimes that works, and at other times it does not work so well. After all, one of my aims is to try to change the world in some small way, so finding out what other people think on the matter is important! The audience themselves at my talk at the CILIP London meeting were very receptive, wanted to participate and had clear views of their own, which obviously helped! I think that Ralph Adam, who organises all these talks, should be congratulated for obtaining this very successful formula for talks and presentations and perhaps others might want to follow his lead!

I am also incidentally developing the idea of the ‘interactive lecture’ further in my teaching practice, particularly through my teaching observations at London South Bank University (as part of the CLTHE course).  This can be seen, in one sense, to be an attempt to bring the lecture and seminar together. Obviously, there are limitations – space, numbers etc, but I think it is a useful direction for lecturers to be moving in. Students are given some informationin the lecture, and whilst it is still fresh in their mind, they can then discuss it further in a structured way. This can also be followed up with further lectures, seminars, tutorials and interactive lectures (whatever seems most appropriate), as and when. This should help to overcome dry lectures and non-participatory seminars. Tariq Tahar (2008) speaks enthusiastically about the interactive lecture in this months’ Times Higher Education saying that:

“The interactive lecture is now seen as the future, the students no longer merely the passive recipients of information.” (Tahar, 2008, p 39, in ‘Are You Reaching Those at the Back?: some academics routinely lecture to hundreds of students, but is this still the best way to teach?’, Times Higher Education, 10th January, pg37-39)

It is an interesting idea anyway, I think, and is something that I intend to develop further.

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