An interesting meeting with 'Z' in our academic skills unit this afternoon. They're the ones that help students with writing essays and the like. (Sorry, that's a gross simplification! Like libraries help students borrow books!)

A long time back they were going to produce some support for 'academic reading' so I blithely made a place for it as the fifth element of our first floor 'information literacy' links in the pre-entry project I've been involved with (and, no doubt, wittered on about endlessly here).

The resource never came to be so rather than have a dead URL, we linked to the excellent work another university had produced which worked well enough although it seemed a little surreal. *That* link has now vanished forcing me to think again.

Thinking again made me wonder why I just didn't create something. After all, I read. I do academic reading. How hard can it be?

Thinking I'd have time last weekend I had nothing by Monday morning when I was due to turn over what I'd done to Z. Not to worry. I used the bus journey to work to knock out a mindmap and the first hour of work to write two sides of notes on the map which would do as a starter.

That seems to have gone down well and although Z's approach is very different - much more rooted in research and a bit beyond the scope of what I wanted for students about to start Uni - we were able to share some ideas. I'm not sure a fruitful collaboration will result, but it was good to get a closer glimpse of the work they do and also to be assured that what I'd done wasn't completely barking up the wrong tree.

Now if I can just turn it into something 'pretty' that students might enjoy engaging with. (I'm reluctant to hand it over to the pre-entry wizzes as it will almost certainly be turned into Flash and sit behind the login which we've been endeavoring to avoid with the info literacy tools.) Surely I can do something in PowerPoint?