I had so much fun doing workshops with the people in my group. The workshops covered a large selection of topics, including: Google’s privacy policy, library’s as maker-spaces, libraries and the Patriot Act, libraries as “third places,” and bring the eBook publisher conversation to library users. Ashley and I were odd women out by doing a thesis statement-writing workshop in which we asked our participants to act like undergraduate freshmen. It went over reasonably well except for the final thesis-writing activity… Oh, well!
All the workshops were great, and I have to give a shout out to all the delicious food and the poster-making activity designed by Laura A. and Esti! I haven’t been that crafty in FOREVER, and I seriously almost took you guys up on that construction paper offer.
I definitely learned a lot about what is good and bad in a one-shot workshop. Picking a topic is crucial; it’s got to be something engaging but still something you can cover in 20 minutes or so, depending on where you’re giving the workshop.
Mary's talking about libraries 
I had a lot of fun with your workshop–maybe because I have a dorky love for producing thesis statements–and I think that once people caught on to the role-playing aspect it went really well! The way you taught thesis-creation was definitely the way I’ve been taught it in the past, so while I understand some people had different methods and styles of writing, that was more a function of their experience with crafting a thesis than a problem with the method itself. I had a thought during the presentation that some sort of icebreaker to get people back in 18-year-old mode would set up the game from the beginning–after all, icebreakers are pretty much the foundation of freshman orientation.
Also, as far as I know, the construction paper is still in the lounge…………..