Please join us in welcoming Darlene Aguilar to the William H. Hannon Library! Darlene is our new temporary Instructional Design Librarian.
Darlene a California native who completed her undergraduate work at UCLA and earned her Master of Education in learning design and technology from USC. Before coming to Loyola Marymount University, she worked in the Los Angeles Unified School District for seven years providing educational workshops and resources to help remove socio-economic barriers to learning.
In order to get to know Darlene a little better, we asked her a few questions about coming to LMU:
How do you think your prior experience has prepared you for your new role at the William H. Hannon Library?
Most of my experience in developing online tutorials comes from my master’s program. I graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master of Education in learning design and technology where I received a lot of practice opportunities to implement what I learned. For my capstone project, I worked with a security company who wanted to develop an executive protection course. I created flipped instruction for the security course to offload concepts in the online environment and increase practice time in the physical environment. Developing this online instruction required increasing my skills in Articulate Storyline, screen capture software, audio software, and video design. Aside from that, I created and facilitated many face-to-face workshops for adults while working as a Healthy Start Resource Navigator at LAUSD. Most of my teaching experience is informal, but I hope to involve myself in formal college teaching in the future.
What goals do you have for this year as an Instructional Design Librarian?
My main goal is to increase the use of library resources particularly for distance students. Being a distance student myself, I know how difficult it can be to juggle work and home life while trying to get an education. If I can make it easier for these students to find the resources they need and increase their information literary skills, then I have done my job.
What projects are you working on right now?
I am juggling a number for projects at the moment. I am finishing a quick online video on how to use the PrintMe printer in the library, I started storyboarding for the redesign of the First Year Seminar tutorials to gear them more towards transfer and graduate students, and I am developing instruction for the library staff to increase their knowledge on learning design. I am also developing a survey with Jennifer Masunaga, a Reference and Instruction Librarian, for the school of education to see how the library can better meet their students’ needs.
What are you currently reading/watching/listening to?
Listening: Because I have a long commute to work in the mornings, I always listen to the Frosty, Heidi, and Frank radio show. I even download their podcasts so that I can have a good laugh on my drive home. Reading: I usually try to read anything I can about instructional design so I am currently reading The ABCs of How We Learn by Schwartz, Tsang, and Blair because I heard it was a popular book for professors at LMU. Watching: I am currently watching “Younger” on Hulu. This show is a comedy-drama that takes place at a book publishing firm which is why I started watching it.
We are delighted that Darlene has joined our staff at the William H. Hannon Library. Darlene is part of the Reference and Instruction department. You can contact her at darlene.aguilar@lmu.edu.