Learning Modalities and Online Instructional Tools

I recently attended a Brown Bag session hosted by the Information Literacy Committee at my university on learning modalities delivered by Brenda Spotton Visano, a Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration and the Department of Economics.   The idea of learning modalities, the varying ways in which our minds are stimulated to learn, isn’t new to me.  I was a teacher before becoming a librarian.  However, what was new to me was the idea of learning modalities in connection to online information literacy tools.

Online information literacy tools have gone through some very promising changes.  Online tools began simply as pathfinders, guides to resources that remained relatively static due to the nature of the technology used (i.e. websites).  Now, in an age of interactive tutorials, such as those created using Captivate, the possibility of reaching the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner becomes much more feasible in an online environment.  In addition to this, students who are notoriously under-served, such as those with special needs, have the opportunity to utilize tools that incorporate their particular accomodation (e.g. audio over textual).  By elevating the importance of multiple formats of instruct to the same level as content, librarians can reach learners with multiple learning styles.