How can academic libraries best help students sort through the growing thicket of online information? By Stanley Wilder
The premise of information literacy is that the supply of information has become overwhelming, and that students need a rigorous program of instruction in research or library-use skills, provided wholly or in part by librarians.
The idea behind information literacy is that our typical freshman is drowning in information, when in fact Google provides her with material she finds good enough, and does so instantaneously. Information literacy assumes that she accepts unquestioningly the information she finds on the Internet, when we know from research that she is a skeptic who filters her results to the best of her ability. Information literacy tells us that she cannot recognize when she needs information, nor can she find, analyze, or use it, when she demonstrably does all of those things perfectly well, albeit at a relatively unsophisticated level.
Simply put, information literacy perceives a problem that does not exist. Furthermore, it misses the real threat of the Internet altogether—which is that it is now sufficiently simple and powerful that students can graduate without ever using the library. That is unfortunate because, for all its strengths, the Internet cannot give students the high-quality scholarly information that is available only through subscription, license, or purchase.
As Roy Tennant noted in the January 1, 2001, Library Journal, “only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find.” Any educational philosophy is doomed to failure if it views students as information seekers in need of information-seeking training.
Information literacy is also harmful because it encourages librarians to teach ways to deal with the complexity of information retrieval, rather than to try to reduce that complexity.
“The library is a place where readers come to write, and writers come to read.” Dow casts students not as information seekers, but as apprentices engaged in a continuous cycle of reading and writing.
Librarians should use their expertise to deepen students’ understanding of the disciplines they study. My note: ant that’s why LRS needs area specialists, not traditional librarians.
The library must also do a better job of reaching more students, more often. Librarians need to use their expertise to make the library’s online presence approach the simplicity and power of the Internet.
The underlying assumption of an education system that relies so heavily on test-based assessment is that content is what matters.
For those who prioritize learning that can be measured using only quantitative assessments, game-based learning probably just looks like a way to increase student engagement and content retention. It might seem like a complex workbook, or an entertaining quiz. Perhaps game-based learning looks like a great tool for practice and drilling, like a super sophisticated flash-card system that makes memorization more fun. But this kind of thinking doesn’t take into account the broader understanding of what matters. Game-based learning is a great classroom tool because it allows for interdisciplinary learning through contextualized critical thinking and problem solving.
Games in the classroom can encourage students to understand subject matter in context — as part of a system. In contrast to memorization, drilling, and quizzing, which is often criticized because it focuses on facts in isolation, games force players to interact with problems in ways that take relationships into account. The content becomes useful insofar as it plays a part in a larger multi-modal system.
Definition Game-based learning is an instructional method that allows students to experience, understand, and solve problems in the world of a particular subject, or system, from the inside.
One promise of game-based learning is that it has the potential of building comprehension and literacy rather than retention. It does this by combining instruction, practice, and assessment. Teachers become the facilitators of a process where instruction is experiential. Practice is project based, requiring students to solve new problems and address new challenges using the new ideas to which they’ve been introduced. And assessment no longer measures a student’s ability to regurgitate information, or to choose among multiple answers, but rather, to use the content, or subject matter, in context. Even more impressive is that in order to successfully manipulate one piece within a comprehensive and complex system, the students must understand every piece of the system. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/games/
Social media is the unifying term for these ‘new digital media phenomena […] in which ordinary users (i.e. not only media professionals) can com- municate with each other and create and share content with others online through their personal networked computers and digital mobile devices’ (Bechmann and Lomborg, 2013: 767).
First, social media communication is de-institutionalized, which means that media companies alone do not control the flow and distribution of information. Second, social media users are also information and content producers. We refer here to the collapse of production and consump- tion roles, labelled ‘prosumer’ (Jenkins, 2006) or ‘produs- age’ (Bruns, 2008). Third, social media communication is interactive and networked in nature.
public libraries must reconsider their positions as public knowledge providers (Anttiroiko and Savolainen, 2007). As a modern librarian’s task is to be able to use and distribute information in many formats other than print, he or she must be able to use all media, including digital media and social media.
social media literacy’ (SML), which is understood as ‘not only the practical and cognitive competencies pos- sessed by users of social media but also the motivation to employ these media effectively and appropriately for social interaction and communication on the web’ (Vanwynsberghe and Verdegem, 2013).
Zurkowski (1974: 6) defines ‘information literacy’ as the ability to utilize ‘the wide range of information tools as well as primary sources in modelling information solutions to their prob- lems’. With the rise of the Internet as a seemingly infinite source of information, the concept of information literacy gains more urgency (Sharpio and Hughes, 1996). In this respect, information literacy now includes having skills to identify an information problem (e.g. an unanswered ques- tion), accessing the location where information can be found, evaluating the information and using this informa- tion in problem-solving activities (Livingstone et al., 2005
The concept of information literacy was developed in the context of print media, while the concept of media literacy originated in the context of audio-visual media. media literacy was framed as the ability to critically under- stand media messages. Information literacy instead focuses on the basic competence of locating information since infor- mation is often difficult to find or use.
In con- trast to information literacy research, media literacy research has also paid attention to questions related to the creation of content (Livingstone et al., 2008).
The second cluster consists of respondents who have the lowest score for SML factors and consequently are labelled social media laggards. corresponds to people who have a rather negative attitude towards social media and do not (often) use social media at work or at home. Furthermore, social media laggards also have a very low level of social media knowledge and com- petencies. Of the respondents, 23.91% belong to this clus- ter; they have a high probability of being female and predominantly belong to older age groups.
The third cluster is the most social media literate group; therefore, we label respondents who fit within this cluster, social media literate users. Though its members are usually female, this social media literate cluster contains the most men in comparison to the other clusters. The members of this cluster are situated in the younger age groups. Hence, social media literates and social media workers include librarians who can serve as facili- tators or agents to guide and support other librarians dur- ing social media implementation.
four SML profiles: social media workers, social media laggards, social media literates and social media spare-time users. Social media workers are librarians who use social media mostly in the library and have a relatively high level of SML. Social media laggards do not use social media frequently either at home or at work and have a low level of SML. The social media literates are librarians who frequently use social media at home and at work and have a high level of SML. Finally, social media spare-time users are librarians who frequently use social media at home but not in the library and have an average level of SML.
p. 4. digital literacies (including teaching new technologies and rights issues, and the emergence of
multiple types of non-textual content);
p. 7. every librarian has a role in teaching, whether formally or informally, about scholarly
communication issues.
p. 11. Librarians play a unique role in teaching faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students about
the complete life cycle of information through educational programs geared to different disciplines and
levels of student learning. Undergraduates are now likely to be required to work collaboratively on a
wiki or to write a blog for a class as the first steps in a writing or research assignment or even as the final
product.
p. 12. ALA OITP Digital Literacy Task Force defined digital literacy as, “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills” (2012, p. 1). In its statement of recommendations to governments and organizations, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions noted that, “media and information literacy includes all types of information resources: oral, print, and digital” (IFLA 2011). Comprehending all kinds of content, including data, statistical, financial, and visual, as well as text, is a critical outcome intended by media and information literacy programs.
p. 13. Data literacy is an area where the impact of external forces, ranging from the increasing demand on students to find and use data to funder mandates to have data management plans, point to a critical area of intersection between scholarly communication and information literacy.
p. 14. Transliteracy is an emerging concept that challenges the current structures of information literacy and scholarly communication programs alike. The definition indicates that this is a key area where scholarly communication and information literacy intersect:
The essential idea here is that transliteracy is concerned with mapping meaning across different media and not with developing particular literacies about various media. It is not about learning text literacy and visual literacy and digital literacy in isolation from one another but about the interaction among all these literacies. (Ipri, 2010, p. 532)
Metaliteracy promotes critical thinking and collaboration in a digital age, providing a comprehensive framework to effectively participate in social media and online communities.
Metaliteracy challenges traditional skills-based approaches to information literacy by recognizing related literacy types and incorporating emerging technologies. Standard definitions of information literacy are insufficient for the revolutionary social technologies currently prevalent online.
Information literacy was the term used most frequently in the United States from the late 1980s through most of the 1990s and is still used regularly. (Craig Gibson, “Information Literacy and IT Fluency: Convergences and Divergences,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 46, no. 3 (2007): 24.) p. 64. Social media and online collaborative communities are not specifically addressed in the standard definitions, but many of the highlighted skills are pertinent to today’s information environment.
…these institutional frameworks are not on the cutting edge of emerging trends; they lag behind the innovations of Web 2.0 and social media. Metaliteracy expands the scope of information literacy as more
than a set of discrete skills, challenging us to rethink information literacy as active knowledge production and distribution in collaborative online communities.
Media Literacy,
Digital Literacy,
Visual Literacy,
Cyberliteracy,
Information Fluency,
Metaliteracy
p. 69. While new literacy movements have similar foundation elements to information literacy, specifically
related to critical reading and critical thinking, as well as proficiencies in finding, synthesizing, and creating information, differences are often emphasized based on the specificity of technology or media
formats. As each new form of literacy is introduced, the shared literacy goals related to critical thinking and information skills are often overlooked, creating an unnecessary divide between information literacy
and other literacy types. The information literacy literature has also contributed to this separation in an effort to clarify important distinctions between information and computer skills, or between traditional
bibliographic instruction and new media literacy. Metaliteracy reinforces stronger
connections between information literacy and other literacy frameworks. This approach looks at the foundation principles that unite information and technology, rather than focusing on differences based
on discrete skills, distinct technologies, or media formats.
x-literacies
Jon Dron’s blog
https://landing.athabascau.ca/blog/view/708453/x-literacies
Computer literacy
Internet literacy
Digital literacy
Information literacy
Network literacy
Technology literacy
Critical literacy
Health literacy
Ecological literacy
Systems literacy
Statistical literacy
New literacies
Multimedia literacy
Media literacy
Visual literacy
Music literacy
Spatial literacy
Physical literacy
Legal literacy
Scientific literacy
Transliteracy
Multiliteracy
Metamedia literacy
In their January 2013 Digital Literacy Task Force Report, the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy (ALA OITP) defines digital literacy as the following:
“Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information, an ability that requires both cognitive and technical skills.”1
p. 5
Key findings from the press kit, executive summary, and full report state that from a national perspective:
• 62% of libraries report that they are the only source of free Internet access in their communities.
• More than 90% of public libraries offer formal or informal technology training.
• 91% of public libraries provide free Wi-Fi, and 74% of libraries report use of Wi-Fi increased in 2011.
• Over 60% of libraries report increased use of public access workstations.
• 65% of libraries report having an insufficient number of public computers to meet demand.
• 57% of libraries report flat or decreased operating budgets in FY2011.
• For the third year in a row, 40% of state libraries report decreased state funding for public libraries.1
What if LRS offers technology training at the SC Public Library?