Teaching Information
Literacy Skills
While there has been much
been written and publicized about information literacy and the need
for students to gain valuable "21st century skills", many
students have not been given any guidance in becoming information
literate. For many teachers the added burden of teaching these new
skills on top of all the other curriculum and standards they must
educate their students on, have relegated information literacy to
the curriculum sidelines.
The big question all of
us in education need to ask ourselves, is how important in the scheme
of all learning are these information literacy skills? If we look
at the current way in which our students are accessing and using information
inside school and outside of school we can come with up two conclusions.
In schools which still tend to be textbook driven, the information
is often limited to what was written into the book and can only be
accessed through turning pages. Locating information from a textbook
can be done through a table of contents and through a index at the
end. In this light, using and accessing information is relatively
easy and straightforward, though it is limited to what was published
in the textbook. Compare this with how students are accessing information
outside of school and one will see a remarkable difference. The Internet
has become the first choice of most students for accessing information
outside of school, both for academic and personal use. In 2002 the
PEW Internet and American Life Project released findings from The
Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet-savvy Students
and Their Schools, a study that looked out how high school and
middle school students are using the Internet both in and out of the
schools. The findings clearly document that there is a large gap in
the use of the Internet inside and outside of school. The students
ultimately felt frustrated at the minimal opportunities for using
the Internet in school and that their teachers did not have the skills
or knowledge to employ the use of the Internet into the curriculum.
The good news from the study was that many of the students who are
not getting information literacy skills from their teachers or schools
are developing them on their own by their self-directed use of the
Internet for academic purposes. Embedded in the study though was the
conclusion that the skills they are developing on their own still
need some sharpening.
Information literacy is
not a new idea that was born from the computer age, but dates back
to the time when people first had access to many different forms of
information, most notably in libraries. The Internet though has revolutionized
way people access information. In 1998 the American Library Association
published Information Power as a prescription to this new opportunity
for gathering information. In Information Power, the ALA identify
nine
information literacy standards for students. The first three standards
were labeled "information literacy" standards and follow
along with the themes of locate, evaluate, and use.
Being able to locate relevant
information is the first step in the information retrieval process.
Searching the Internet or any information database is a crucial information
literacy skill because it can enable students to more quickly and
effectively locate the information they need. When someone uses a
search engine like Yahoo or Google they are using skills that are
relatively new. Searching a database is not something that many people
had skills in prior to the advent of the World Wide Web. The primitive
ways in which many students and adults search the web is cause enough
to take seriously the need to teach these skills. When searching a
database like Google's it is very critical that one knows how to put
together the best terms to find what one is looking for. Google currently
indexes over 3 billion web pages and that numbers grows daily. With
that huge mass of pages, locating exactly what one wants can be either
successful or unsuccessful based on what one types into the search
field.
After searching, one needs
to evaluate the information found to determine what is relevant and
what is irrelevant, as well as what is valid information. The Internet
is a gateway to the largest clearinghouse of information that the
world has ever seen. Because of the relative ease of publishing on
the Internet, anyone can publish their own opinions on any topic that
can be found alongside the same topics that can be found in university
and professional web sites. A web site that is flashy and well designed
might not be the best source of information either. Our students absolutely
need these critical skills to become effective consumers of information.
The final skill an information
literate person needs is to decide how to best use the information
that have deemed relevant and valid without plagerizing it. These
are skills that students will have to possess as they produce research
orientated assignments and are the ones that probably need the most
guidance.
Imagine a high school student
that must do research and find comparisons and contrasts between the
1991 Gulf War with our current conflict in Iraq. Certainly they might
be able to locate in book form some information on the 1991 conflict
in the school library, but for the current conflict they are best
suited to finding current information on the Internet. Problem one
is that they are going to be overwhelmed by all the information they
are going to encounter when they begin trying to locate relevant information.
Understanding both how to search effectively, as well how to choose
web sites that might be a good starting point for research will go
a long way in starting the research process. They must next critically
evaluate all the information that they are going to come across, much
that will be based more on opinion than on fact. Without the skills
to competently and critically evaluate the information in front of
them, they are going to be spending a lot more time on this part of
the research process than is necessary. Finally the student must be
able how to best use the information they found. With some basic teaching
from a teacher or school library media specialist, a student will
be more prepared as they meet the nearly endless amount of information.
So these skills are important,
but you might be saying I do not have the time or the knowledge to
structure these type of lessons into my current curriculum. There
are some easy steps and strategies you can use to make sure that your
students are getting these necessary skills. The first is to meet
with your school library media teacher to see if they are willing
to offer some instruction and guidance to your students in gaining
information literacy skills. Often times the school library media
teacher can be your best source of support for this. They might also
be able to help you structure some of the skills into your existing
curriculum. A second resource is the 21st
Century Learning web site. The site is chock full of lessons and
activities that have already been developed and tested for teachers
to use with their class. It is a free resource that can also serve
to get a teacher up to speed on the information literacy skills that
they will need to develop as well.
In the end there is no
denying that information literacy skills are absolutely critical.
Since students are actively engaging in using new forms of information
location they are ripe for some instruction or guidance. The efforts
of organizations like Big6,
the ALA and the
more recent Partnership
for 21st Century Skills means that there is more help and emphasis
on teaching the skills for teachers who need it. The acquisition of
information skills can no longer be overlooked or ignored if we want
to prepare are students for both their present and their future.
References and Resources
21st
Century Learning Site
ALA
- Information Power
California
School Library Association: Standards for California School Libraries
(Draft #12)
Partnership
for 21st Century Skills
The
Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students
and their schools
Big
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