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Like it or not, the typical “outreach session” for any GLAM institution is a single, one-shot, sixty minute workshop. I’ll set aside our desires to be better integrated into the semester curriculum, or museum summer series, or after school high school programs, and have more time. Instead, I’d like to focus on how to make the one-shot as meaningful as possible. (I’m taking on faith that we can can make it meaningful.)

I’d like to in particular talk about creating meaningful one-shot sessions focused on digital cultural heritage objects. In academic libraries, this might be a research session on primary sources. In state archives, an outreach session on genealogy databases. In museums, a digital art workshop for high schoolers.

However, the content is less important to me than the format — how do GLAMs create a short but powerful learning experience that will encourage participants to come back and see us again? How can online tools extend connections with our patrons, and create new spaces for public arts and humanities? I have a few thoughts:

• Give participants a task before the session. (Something as simple as saying “Before attending this museum session, pick your favorite painting to re-mix.”)
• Minimize lecture, maximize hands-on creation. (E.g., “Use digital art tools to create a new painting based on your favorite.”)
• What participants create, they take home as a reminder. (E.g. a nice printout of their artwork, plus a permanent online home for their artwork.)
• Give participants a platform for discussion after the session. (E.g. online commenting and easy Twitter/Facebook/other sharing of their artwork.)

However, I have a feeling that public institutions, archives, and museums are far out ahead of me and my fellow academic librarians! So I’d love to hear about what you’re doing and develop a set of recommendations to bring back for my own teaching and outreach efforts.

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The more I teach infolit courses, the more I realize I have to teach little tricks of computer use, like ctl-F for find, or where the address bar is, or that you don’t have to go to Google, you can just type in the web address.  When students use their own laptops or tablets, we have to spend class time getting them on wireless, and then there’s the general troubleshooting that comes up in any technology heavy class.

I hoe this will turn into a skill-sharing/problem solving session.

• What are some of your best Media, Digital, Computer and Information literacy teaching hacks?
• How do you handle students who are computer illiterate?
• BYOD/smartphone/tablet teaching

I’m coming at this from an academic library perspective, but I’d love to hear what public librarians are doing with this, too.

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In case my first proposal is too much like what is already being offered, I’ll put forth an alternate proposal:

With many screencasting programs the basics are easy to learn, but most of us did not attend film school.  The hours spent creating a screencast make updating it a chore.  If we could screencast more effectively, we could keep our videos updated and more useful.

• What are some common mistakes that novice screencasters make, and how can we avoid them?
• How can we create a more polished product in fewer takes?
• What are best practices for those who don’t have a dedicated studio space for screencasting?
• Are there times when a rough screencast is better than a polished one?

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I’d like to have a conversation with like-minded folks who support classroom pedagogy about the library/ed tech role in teaching DH to undergraduates. I suspect there are more of us at smaller liberal arts colleges than at larger institutions, but I welcome and hope for surprise. Some initial question:

• How are DH competencies taught to students at our institutions, and what is (or should be) the library’s role in that?
• How does this role mirror or diverge from our more traditional involvement in teaching and pedagogy? How should it?
•  How best do we teach undergraduate students to think in the terms of DH methodologies? Is embedment a better model than single-sessions? Do we collaborate with faculty beyond (or in lieu of) class sessions? How?
• Where’s the line between library support and educational technology support for DH pedagogy? Where should it be?