Brain Candy Digital Literacy

Description

BrainCandy is a digital literacy outreach program facilitated by library staff at the College of Lake County. I developed the program in conjunction with faculty librarian input. I subsequently took over coordination of the training series, leading a group of my peers on the project, until I left the College in 2013. Each semester 4-5 topics were identified and training sessions were developed which included slide decks, visual aids, video content, and marketing materials. A raffle was developed to encourage students to attend and also track their attendance.

Objectives

Students attending library information session lacked basic computer and Internet skills to follow along with more complex topics such as using databases. Librarians wanted a way to get students up-to-speed without taking time away from their library information sessions.

Project Details

I was already teaching several of these basic computer skills in a credit course for the Communication Arts department, but not all students were required to take it. The Business division was already holding workshops on Microsoft Office products but did not offer any sessions on searching the web, browser basics, or emerging technologies. I pitched the idea to create a digital literacy workshop series to help bridge the gap for all students, not just library users. I included a few high-interest topics along with the basic core skills to encourage participation and created a raffle with a tracking system to award students who attended multiple sessions within the series.

I created reference files for each topic so other staff members could facilitate the sessions. This helped ensure learning objectives were measurable and cohesive across sessions regardless of facilitator.

I created all of the slide decks, including a series of introductory slides shown at the beginning of each session to promote other sessions in the series. The slides were shared on Google Drive for ease of access. [ see sample here ]

I created marketing materials including a bookmark (the library loved using bookmarks as promo materials) with session dates, and a passport to help track student attendance with a tie in to a raffle drawing.

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