If you haven't determined whether you want your students to learn skills or acquire knowledge, technology is not what is holding you back.
 

Constructivism and Instructivism are points on a continuum.
 

To acquire knowledge in the classroom via lecture, students have to be

• prepared with the right kind and amount of background knowledge
• able to connect to new information in the sequence selected by the teacher
• motivated to learn
• using the teacher's learning style
• able to pay attention and electing to do so
• able to process and record information at the speed in which it is delivered

Maybe, without realizing it, faculty prefer face-to-face instruction over distance learning because they can somehow hold students' attention longer while they finish telling them all they know on a subject.  For students, the reverse is probably true.
 

Librarians can be vital contributors to multidisciplinary web teams (i.e., instructional designer, technology specialist, graphic designer) if they are skilled information architects experienced in knowledge management and collaborative skills such as facilitation and team building.
 

It is not cost-effective for each and every library to create web pages for library instruction.  We will exhaust our resources and we will never recoup the time and expense required to do this.
 

The information we put on web pages now is not in small enough "chunks" to make sharing, modifying, and customizing feasible.
 

We have no metadata by which to classify web page contents, so an index to "what's out there" is not possible.
 

It's not about us, it's about the learners. Learners are seeking tools for information finding, knowledge-making, and skill-building while librarians are still identifying the "problems" we must overcome.
 

Librarians need to collaborate with other professionals, both within and outside our field, because we cannot afford to duplicate the skills they have.
 

Other professions can afford to duplicate librarians' skills.
 

Librarians know a lot about learners' skills, behaviors, and information needs, but other professionals do not know that we know.
 

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift.  Academic librarians (as we know them today) will become extinct within 10 years—when the elementary school students, who are avidly using the web for constructing their own learning—reach college age.
 

My new ideas about web-based library instruction:

My goal is to help students discover, and learn how to use, the tools they need to find information for their college education and beyond.  These tools are: reference books and online databases, the library's online catalog, and the web.

I will experiment with new ways of presenting information on my web pages so that I can connect with different learning styles, abilities, and interests.  I will model ways in which a creative information literate person can present ideas.

I will work with faculty to spread information about constructivist, learner-centered, reality-based assignments that build skills and increase the opportunities for knowledge-making by students.
 
 

Web-Based Learning: A Librarian's Guide:  Home By Carolyn Johnson email:carolyn.johnson@asu.edu