Urban Libraries Council resources available to EPFL staff

 EPFL is a member of the Urban Library Council, so all staff members can participate in ULC's programming.

Anyone who wants to take a course or participate in a webinar can request an account by clicking this link:   https://tools.urbanlibraries.org/library/selfadd.php .  Select Enoch Pratt as your library and you can create an account.  It takes a few moments to verify your information, but you'll receive an email when your account is active, which will provide you with login information.

Once you have an account, you can start getting involved through the ULC Member Hub.  Here you can explore events and the Knowledge Exchange, and find member communities that might interest you.  

Percipio course recommendations

 

According to the MSL end of year statistics, the following classes in Percipio were recommended by participants.  There are many good options here, and more in the program. 

Making the Most of an Organizational Change.
Embedding Inclusion into Everyday Experiences
Essential Customer Service Skills
Any of the Excel courses
Overcoming Unconscious Bias channel, particularly Understanding Unconscious Bias Overcoming Your Own Unconscious Biases, Overcoming Unconscious Bias in the Workplace, Recognizing and Addressing Micro-behaviors in the Workplace
Business writing, and all the related courses 
Any Cisco class is highly recommended.
Using Communication Strategies to Bridge Cultural Divides
Confronting Workplace Conflict
Taking Effective and Professional Notes
Great Leaders must be inclusive

If you would like access to the Percipio classes, you can create an account using your EPFL email on the website:

https://marylandlibraries.percipio.com/login?state=%2F#/

Register for the Percipio online training

 

Here is a quick link to the Percipio login.  You can create your own account and get started.  You must use your Pratt email to register for the site.

https://marylandlibraries.percipio.com/

SkillSoft retires on June 30, 2022 and no information will be available after that date.

Google Workspace Learning Center

 This site provides free training on Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, and Drive:

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9389764?hl=en

Gmail       Calendars    Chat    Groups       Contacts       Docs    Sheets    and more

Welcome to the Learning Center

Here you'll find everything you need to start using Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, and Drive. You'll also find business-focused end-user training, tips, and more.

ALA’s eLearning Catalog

The ALA eLearning website offers courses, webinars, and eLearning content for "library and information workers in all types of libraries and related organizations."  This site brings together learning content from all divisions of ALA  and new content is added on a regular basis.  The site offers free training opportunities as well as those requiring payment.

https://elearning.ala.org/

Funding is available for those programs with a cost.  Just submit a "Request for Authorization for Leave and-or Expenses to Attend Conference, Seminar, Workshop, Etc." form #354 to SD&T.

Browse by Event Format

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Goodbye SkillSoft, Hello Percepio!

SkillSoft has a new learning platform named Percepio.  Maryland libraries will be migrating to it when they add the features we need so probably early 2022.   

Maryland State Library will continue to make SkillSoft available for all Maryland public library staff until June 30, 2022.  Please complete all courses in Skillsoft and print your certificates prior to this cutoff date.  We will not have access to any of the completion data or certificates after June 30.

The new Percepio site will continue to provide completion certificates for new completed courses, and staff will be able to self-register so once the program is available you can sign up at your convenience and don't have to go through SD&T.  The SkillSoft logins will not transfer to the new site, so you will have to reregister once the site is available.

More details will be shared about the new site soon.  

New email for program announcements -- epfl.classes@prattlibrary.org

 As SD&T continues to expand our online/webinar/virtual training options, it seems our email output is becoming an issue.  To help mitigate this problem, SD&T collaborated with the Systems department to create a new email for offering these non-Pratt training opportunities.

The new email is epfl.classes@prattlibrary.org, and you now receive program and webinar announcements from this email.  This is also the place to send program announcements for us to share with the staff.  Registration requests, funding paperwork, and any other questions still go to me or to the training email as usual.

We are also trying to put the announcements in a digest form, so that you receive one email sent once a week rather than one email for each announcement.  This should make it easier to differentiate important SD&T announcements and internal programs from general course announcements and find the program information that is of interest to you.  

SD&T will continue to send individual emails for time-sensitive events, conference deadlines, and for programs suitable to age-specialists and other groups.  

I hope this makes it easier for you to find interesting and helpful programs and webinars.

Lisa

MLA/DLA Conference 2021 registration now open

Registration is now open for the 2021 combined Maryland and Delaware annual conference. The conference will be held the first week in May, and will be virtual again this year.

If you wish to receive funding to attend the conference you must complete the "Request for Authorization for Leave and/or Expenses" (Form 354), and submit that to your supervisor along with your goals and intentions statement and a copy of your completed registration form.  The forms may be sent by email to the required supervisors.

Your goals and intentions statement must include at least 6 sessions that you will attend at the conference, along with a strong rationale for each.  What do you hope to learn at/bring back from each session and what do you hope to do with the knowledge you gain?   You may substitute other programs during the actual event, as long as you attend at least 6.

You must also include a justification for any pre-conferences you wish to attend, with the same information.  Please include your MLA membership number on the form if you are a member.

Applications must be received by March 19, 2021 to be eligible for funding.

If you have any questions, contact SD&T.

 

MLA/DLA Annual Conference 2021

May 3-7, 2021

Here is a link to the brochure:

https://www.mdlib.org/files/docs/conference/MLAProgram2021.pdf 

Here is a link to the registration form:

https://www.mdlib.org/ev_calendar_day.asp?date=5%2F3%2F21&eventid=115

Continuing education credits for recordings and webinars

 Many staff members are currently participating in webinars, SkillSoft training, and other online programs including recorded conference sessions.

If you are attending a session that provides a completion certificate or confirmation email, then you should attach this to your CEU form and submit a copy to your supervisor.  If you are using the program for continuing education credit then you should also submit a copy to SD&T.  

If you are watching a pre-recorded webinar or a recorded conference session, or any program that does not provide proof of completion, you should follow the "Recorded Webinars" procedure.  This information can be found on the Forms page of the SD&T blog  http://learning.prattlibrary.org/p/forms.html

If you are not certain that a program meets the criteria for continuing education credit, please send a link to the program to SD&T.

Renewals for the upcoming year - SkillSoft etc.

Maryland State Library has renewed the licenses for the following programs for the upcoming year, so we will continue to have free access to these programs for all EPFL staff.  

If you need to register for SkillSoft just let me know and I'll create an account for you.  The others have self-registration.  Just click on the link below to access.

Lisa

SkillSoft

Web Junction

Ryan Dowd, Librarian's Guide to Homelessness

Links for Problem Behaviors Webinar and Quiz

 As we prepare for the next steps in our reopening plans, SD&T has identified a webinar to help prepare everyone for the eventual re-entry of our customers.  This webinar  “How To Deal With Problem Behaviors Related to COVID-19” will be required viewing by all employees.  The presenter, Ryan Dowd, is the author of The Librarian’s Guide to Homelessness and a trainer who focuses on how to compassionately manage problem behaviors.  

This one hour program is designed to help you with difficult situations related to COVID-19 including patrons who refuse to wear a mask (or refuse to wear it correctly), methods to ensure social distancing with customers, and ways to manage someone who is showing possible symptoms.  The program will also review reasons why people might not be complying with policy and suggest some strategies for handling these situations.

 

The recorded webinar is available on the NicheAcademy website:

 https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3015832712254/WN_igsAhx1sRzaUnae6BTAdQQ

 

If you’ve never used NicheAcademy before you will need to register which will include sharing your name, email, and library system.  Once you register for this program, you will also have access to other NicheAcademy programs as provided through the Maryland State Library.

  

Once you complete the program, you will need to pass a short quiz to show that you understood the material.  You can find the quiz here: 

 

Quiz link:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9F36P9D

PCI webinar archives for the Maryland public library staff

 We now have statewide access to the PCI webinar archives for the Maryland public library staff. All content should be available without needing to be assigned. These webinars are approved for CEU hours using the recorded webinars format.

To register you will need to create an account using your public library employee email, as access will authenticate using the email domain just as the Ryan Dowd Homelessness Training Academy currently does. 

So if you already have an account with Niche (that uses your work email), you should be fine.  Otherwise you will need to register but it just takes a minute.

To access Maryland Libraries PCI Academy please click on the following link: Click To Access Maryland Libraries PCI Academy

Here are a few of the available programs:

 

Registration for webinars and programs that have fees - what to do while we are out of the office

We've been sending out training opportunities for staff, and some of you have questions about those that charge a fee.  We will continue to pay these fees for staff, and the process to request funding is similar to the usual process. 

1. The staff member identifies a program they wish to attend.  There is a fee involved.

2.  The staff member creates a 354 request with a goals statement (and any registration information needed) and sends these by email to their supervisor.

3.  If the supervisor approves, they forward the email (with the form and statement) to their division chief with a statement like "I approve this."  If not approved, supervisor notifies staff member.

4.  If the division chief approves the request, they forward the email and attachments to SD&T, also stating "I approve this," or similar.  If not approved, chief notifies supervisor.

5.  SD&T will register the staff member for the program and pay the fee.  Staff member will get confirmation of registration from SD&T.

6.  When the program is complete, the staff member forwards confirmation of completion to SD&T.

Once we return to the library, the forms will be printed and appropriate signatures will be required.

No requests without the appropriate paper/email trail can be considered, so please follow the directions carefully.  

If you have any questions, please let us know.

NicheAcademy webinars

Looking for ways to develop your skills while working from home?  There are a lot of interesting recorded webinars on NicheAcademy that can be accessed from their website without having to create an account.  

These range from Diversity/Inclusive topics like "Cultivating Strong Girls" and "Serving Individuals with Autism,"  to general library topics like "Practicing Intellectual Freedom," and even some topics for managers like "Best Practices for Developing Employees' Soft Skills."

Not everything is CEU worthy, so be sure you are selecting topics that are appropriate to your work at the library, and that you are accessing webinars and not just informative articles.  Remember, the webinar has to be at least 60 minutes long to count for credit.

These are recorded webinars, so you'll need to include a review/discussion of the program with your CEU form when you submit it.  I'll attach the information about recorded webinars, which can also be found on the blog.

https://www.nicheacademy.com/blog  

Spice Up a Program with a Dash of Literacy

Spice Up a Program with a Dash of Literacy

YALSA Webinar presented by Kelly Czarnecki of Charlotte, NC
 Sep 6, 2016

Ms. Czarnecki presented 5 specific forms of literacy that can be relatively easily incorporated into programming for tweens and teens: 

·         Critical—critical thinking skills

·         Cultural—multicultural, multiethnic, etc.

·         Digital—the use of digital devices as well as social media, the internet, etc.),

·         Information—identify, locate, evaluate and effectively use information

·         Print literacy—following print instructions such as a recipe

and

·         Multiple literacies—incorporation of more than one literacy into a program.

She clarified that there certainly more literacies than she enumerated but did not list them.  These 5 are certainly wide-ranging and allow for a great deal of innovation and interaction.

Many of her examples were quite involved in time, planning and execution (Turn It Up  Teen Radio, SCRATCH (a game-maker tool from MIT at https://scratch.mit.edu/ ), QR Code Scavenger Hunt, Kitchen Chemistry, Cotton Club-esque talent show, etc.

However, we at RLN have some experience with interactive bulletin boards and scavenger hunts – both part of her “self-directed” programming.  Below is a photo of the bulletin board we put up at RLN for Black History Month that shows the influence of this webinar.  Jay pulled articles and headlines from the online database for The Baltimore Afro-American and created an appealing bulletin board that includes instructions on how to access the databases. 

After discussing the ideas with Stefanie Thomas, the children’s librarian, we think we may be able to incorporate some of the literacies into activity sheets (scavenger hunts, bulletin board displays, maker space programs, etc.) that we hope to tie into this summer’s SRP themes and use during the SRP.  

Julie Johnson
Roland Park Branch

You can view the webinar at :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceGcnPWhbTo

Core 4 -- A Conference in the Crescent City

Beignets, beads, Bourbon Street debauchery, and...breakthrough learning.  Ok, so I didn’t actually feel the need to hit up Bourbon St., having done that in my more tender undergraduate years, and sadly, I didn’t make it to Cafe du Monde to partake of their famous flaky french doughnuts, but I did learn about breakthrough learning techniques and other concepts related to instructional design and training facilitation during the 2 1/2 days I spent at the ATD Core 4 Conference in New Orleans, LA.   

    

The conference is designed for HR professionals, curriculum designers, corporate trainers, nonprofit facilitators, teachers -- really anyone who has anything to do with professional development in any type of organization.  As a SLRC Librarian I deliver a variety of face-to-face and virtual trainings, and I attended ATD with the goal of absorbing new ideas.

So, what did I learn?

• It takes A LOT of time simply to design effective training.  According to research by Brian Chapman,  it takes anywhere between 22 and 82 hours to create 1 hour of instructor-led classroom learning.  Developing 1 hour of basic e-learning from scratch takes an average of 49 hours.    

• Avoiding “death by powerpoint” is a must, and visual design play a huge role.    Playing with font styles, shapes, and types of imagery creates appealing slides, and as Connie Malamed pointed out in her session on “Crash Course on Visual Design,” aesthetic appeal actually leads to greater learning.

• Learning styles are a big lie.  Ok, not totally but several presenters referred to recent research that suggests it’s less important to focus on individual learning styles and more meaningful to provide variety in your training because most people learn best by using a combination of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic techniques.  While we’re on the topic of theory, having a grasp of adult learning theory is super important.  When designing training,  adults often want to know WIIFM (What’s In It For Me), or how this is going to immediately and practically impact them.  Also, they often appreciate opportunities to share their life experiences during learning events as well as relate newly acquired knowledge and skills to previous knowledge.    

• Action mapping is a useful instructional design strategy that helps  trainers avoid the all too common “information dump” presentation.  The 4 step method involves 1.) identifying the goal, 2.) identifying what actions (not necessarily knowledge) people need to do to accomplish the goal,  3.) designing practice activities, and 4.) identifying the minimum information people need to complete each activity.   Maybe it’s not totally practical in all library learning contexts but if you’re like me, you’ll try anything to keep your participants from snapchatting and playing Angry Birds during your trainings.   

• Games are a great learning tool to integrate into training and instruction.  No, wait games are distracting and bad. Ok, so both things can be true.   Games are ok if they facilitate successful learning outcomes (I played a friendly competitive game of Jeopardy to find out how much technical lingo I already knew about e-learning), but don’t throw them in with no strategy and call it “engagement.”  Then it just becomes what presenter termed “clicky clicky bling bling,” just for looks.      

• The New World Kirkpatrick Model  used for training evaluation is super useful and super hard to implement.   Measuring level 1 (learners’ reaction to training) and level 2 (if and how much learners’ actually learn during training) is totally doable, but it becomes much harder when we try and measure how training changes behavior (Level 3) and how it influences outcomes (Level 4). Oh,  the ever present challenge of assessment.   No magic answers here, but some good food for thought.  

Speaking of food,  I did sneak out of the hotel one day between sessions to enjoy a classic muffaletta from the world-famous Central Grocery and a view of the muddy Mississippi.   It was yet another breakthrough learning experience, I promise.  

Emily Sachs

Information Services

“When Bad Things Happen to Good Librarians”

This library training has been developed to help front-line library workers better serve patrons with mental illness and/or developmental disabilities. The training was created using input from focus groups consisting of public library staff members, mental health consumers and mental health professionals. The content of the program reflects many hours of collaboration and interaction between Department of Mental Health (DMH) librarians and the "in-the-trenches" front-line workers of many Missouri libraries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zACEc4f-Cxc

23 Mobile Things Group Completes Their 23 Things . . . and then some

The first group of participants in the 23 Mobile Things program have completed their tasks.  While not all of the group managed to finish the program, we did have about half who did, despite the holidays and the renovation preparations.

The participants were very active, tweeting and sharing documents, posting photos and even watching some movies.  We discussed social media and online safety, shared images from our workplaces, and created some QR codes for our favorite websites.  The group also found some interesting apps for their 24th thing, and we found some things that just didn't work for us.

All in all a great learning experience for these intrepid explorers, some valuable lessons learned and some great resources shared.  Thanks to all who participated and especially those who made it to the end.

Webjunction Available for EPFL Staff

Webjunction Available for EPFL Staff

Access to WebJunction’s library-specific courses is now available for free to all library workers and volunteers.   Explore the catalog of library-focused self-paced courses and webinars, and earn continuing education hours toward your re-certification.

 Here is a list of what you can find on the site and throughout the year:

·        A catalog of free online learning on library topics is now available to all library staff (including students and volunteers). These self-paced courses and webinars have been developed by WebJunction and other organizations such as LibraryU and Infopeople. 

·        Certificates of completion will be provided to you for each and every course you finish or webinar you view through the WebJunction catalog.

·        All attendees of WebJunction’s live webinar programs are eligible to receive a certificate of attendance. These will be emailed to the address provided at registration, within one week of the live event. 

·        Dozens of new articles on hot library topics will be published on a regular basis, so stay tuned to the WebJunction.org homepage.

·        Crossroads newsletter is broadcast each month, to alert you to upcoming learning opportunities and keep you updated on what is happening in the library world. Make sure you are subscribed!

·        WebJunction will host more than 20 live webinar sessions throughout the year--free events that allow you to meet and learn from library leaders and fellow library practitioners.

To access this content, simply create your free account on the website and get started.

www.webjunction.org

Select the Training button and then "go to courses" to get the login screen.  As with SkillSoft, you will need to create CEU forms for classes that you complete.  Send these and copies of your certificates to SD&T.