internet library instruction

[Judith Murray Griffiths]

Nathalie,

I have been training librarians and media specialists in SW Colorado for
several years on how to use the Internet.  Needless to say, the training
has gone through many revisions since the days of Pine, Lynx, Gopher, etc.

Hands on training is essential. I have given up using an LCD panel to do
training demos and prefer using online tutorials in a lab setting. Since I
prefer lab settings, my site dictates the size of the class.  I have had 1
person to a computer and 2 people to a computer and both methods have
advantages and disadvantages.  

I skip all the Internet history since it seems to bore them to death and
just takes away from hands on time.  However, I do give them an overview of
what the Web is and how the addressing works.

I concentrate on training them to navigate with Netscape to access Web
resources.  Teaching Netscape basics usually goes quickly except when an
individual has no previous experience with Windows or with a mouse. With
the tutorial exercises, I try to send them to diverse Web pages that will
give them some idea of the extent of Web resources.  I also try to use
sites they will find exciting professionally or personally.  For example,
when I am training groups of librarians, I have them practice entering URLs
to Web sites that are useful reference tools for libraries. When I am
tutoring individual librarians, I focus on their personal interests as
well.  One women wouldn't even touch the keyboard until I showed her a
quilting site.   

Exposure to search engines is essential. I used to recommend that they
learn 3 engines well and always use all 3 when searching, but I may start
recommending meta search engines for initial searches unless the topic is
very complex.  I also cover how to make hard copies (printing, cutting &
pasting to a wordprocessor, and saving to disk) as well as how to organize
bookmarks (I use Dewey Decimal catagories for bookmark folders).  

In my experience, it is very easy to overload an introductory class, so I
don't mention ftp, file types, newsgroups and other aspects of the Internet
in the introductory class.  If individuals ask those kinds of questions as
they work through their tutorials, I take them as far as they want to go in
the time allowed.




At 03:35 PM 9/21/97 -0700, Nathalie Parent wrote:
>
>Hi all!
>
>This is my first message to the list, I've been lurking for awhile and=20
>find the list interesting.
>
>Now, Why am I sending this message, I've been given the task to set up an=
>=20
>internet instruction class, for the library, I don't know where to start,=
>=20
>how long should the class be, how many student should there be, what=20
>should I teach, only web searching, or everything about the net.
>
>Could you give me some pointers, if those questions are inappropriate for=
>=20
>this list, please tell me.
>
>Nathalie Parent
>Universit=E9 de Moncton
>parentn at umoncton.ca
>
>
>
>

_________________________________
Judith Murrray Griffiths
Southwest Regional Library System
Durango, CO 
_________________________________
"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to 
 combine marriage and a career." --- Gloria Steinem