Information+Literacy+Wende

WORKING DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION

"The library is the literal information bridge to the future" //Designing for the Future of Learning//

Information literacy is understanding how to access and use information. Students who are information literate access information efficiently and effectively. They know how to critically and competently evaluate the information they find and they use that information creatively and accurately. If we are striving to create independent learners, we must ensure they are information literate but this is a complex task. Teaching students to locate, choose and organize information suitable to the assignment/need is a difficult but important undertaking. Students believe that if information is printed in black and white, it is true, They often lack the skills to evaluate information for accuracy, bias, appropriateness, scope, relevance, validity etc. But without these skills, the internet is useless to them. A case in point: A colleague of mine in Family Studies shared this example with me today: a grade 11 student who was completing an assignment in Family Studies on food. She was "researching" (and I use the term loosely) noodles and their origin. She found a website that said noodles were 'pooped' out by noodle fish and we gather, cook and eat these 'pooped' out noodles. I am not exaggerating - this young woman lacked the insight and skills to evaluate the information. She provided this fascinating fact in her report, properly cited. The problem, of course, was that it was entirely wrong. The website was a hoax obviously. However, she took the first thing she found and didn't investigate further.

Information literacy is not just the responsibility of the library. Moving our students toward information literacy should be a joint effort and an opportunity for greater collaboration between TLs and the rest of the teaching staff. If we want all our students to be information literate we need to decide together that we want to them to master the critical location, evaluation and use of information. And we need to ensure that they learn the effective and efficient application of information literacy in a digital environment. Here's a statement I found as I was doing some research on how to implement information literacy in our schools:

//Students need their own internal navigation system to manage the information-rich world that surrounds them. Incoming students have far more experience with the Internet and far less experience with print than most of their teachers. This results in a mismatch between academic expectations and student behaviour. Academic librarians are the natural in-house experts for teaching both students and faculty colleagues how to find, evaluate and use information effectively.// The Role of Libraries and Librarians in Information Literacy [|www.slideshare.net]

Information literacy means combining computer literacy, IT literacy, library skills and information skills in order to "learn to learn".

IMPLEMENTATION IDEAS AND RESOURCES TO BUILD SCHOOL PROGRAM

I am planning to do an information literacy orientation activity with the grade 11 classes at my school beginning next week. In hindsight, I realize I probably should have done this in September; however I didn't and so I'm telling myself better late than never! I have reserved the time for each class and have sent an invitation to the teachers to have their classes participate. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I offered 3 options: 1. Come for a half period lesson and then return to class. 2. Come for a half period lesson and then use the remaining time in the library to do course-specific research. 3. Come for a half period lesson and then do the tutorials which I have linked to the Library Commons webpage on the school website.

In planning this lesson and activity, I have been looking for something interactive online for students to reinforce what they have learned once my formal lesson part is over. I have a powerpoint presentation called "Everything Every Senior Student Needs to Know About the Net" and have produced a handout with an overview of the lesson. I found some great tutorials on the Acadia University Library site. There are 3 tutorials available: Web Evaluation, Web Searching and Plagiarism. These tutorials are visually attractive, interactive (requiring the students to answer questions, make choices etc.) and informative. Each one takes about 10 minutes and students can link to the other tutorials at the end of each one they complete. The URL is below:

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/webevaluation/

This activity does two things: it fosters collaboration and cooperation between the TLs and other teachers and it brings students into the Library Commons to learn and practice responsible, effective access, evaluation and use of information.

I also want to recommend the following blog "Learning in an Online World" by Judy O'Connell, a TL in Australia: http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/hybrid-synergy-the-future-of-school-libraries/ This particular post is very interesting, but she has a wealth of information on her blog: links to web 2.0 tools, ideas for implementing these, links to other valuable resources. Don't miss her "Toolkit A-Z" - what a wealth of resources!!