Technology Play-Testing Assignment 4

Information Literacy

 

The website Businessdictionary.com defines Information Literacy as the:

 

“Ability to define problems in terms of their information needs, and to apply a systematic approach to search, locate, apply, and synthesize the information and evaluate the entire process in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.”

 

For this week’s blog, I chose to focus on Option 1: Information Literacy over Option 2: Content Objectives because of the growing need of individuals to efficiently and responsibly evaluate information in its various formats (print, digital, audio/visual, personal, etc…), from data sources all around the world, in order to become a conscientious contributor to our global, digital society.  Because of the proliferation of diverse collections of informational sources found throughout the world-wide web, individuals face the daunting task of sifting through enormous volumes of materials to determine the source’s validity, authenticity, and reliability. Information literacy skills play a vital role in these pursuits, in our understanding of the legal and ethical use of this information, as well as impacting many aspects of our daily lives including:

 

Political:  Information Literacy skills are critical if one hopes to participate, as an informed citizen, within our democratic society.

Business:  Information Literacy skills are applied in a professional setting for the purposes of a corporation acquiring, evaluating, presenting, and sharing information with potential customers and to stay ahead of industry competitors.

Education: Information Literacy skills are applied in an academic setting for the purposes of classroom reports, projects, group presentations, and even, especially in higher grade levels, research papers.

Personal:  Information Literacy skills are applied by individuals in the pursuit of making knowledgeable decisions on consumer purchases, services, and rentals.  

 

I also felt that last week’s blog post on Creativity Tools covered, to some extent, option 2 on content objectives.

 

     The Boyer Commission Report entitled Reinventing Undergraduate Education advocates strategies that necessitate the student to be actively engaged in "framing of a significant question or set of questions, the research or creative exploration to find answers, and the communications skills to convey the results..."  Classrooms structured in this way create student-centered learning environments where “inquiry is the norm, problem solving becomes the focus, and thinking critically is part of the process.” These educational settings require the incorporation of information literacy skills to insure that K-12 students are given varying avenues by which to interact with the lesson, to awaken their curiosity, and ultimately inspire them to delve deeper into the given information and make it meaningful.  Students are encouraged to take on an active role in their own learning, to form their own connections within and across the curriculum; to discover the relevance of the presented material as it relates to them in their everyday lives.

*Table from the 1998 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) report entitled Library Skills, Information Skills, and Information Literacy: Implications for Teaching and Learning, Volume 1.

 

Identify 4-5 tools you found to support learning information literacy skills. Describe where they fit into the NFIL infographic and how you found the tool.

 

Big6 Information and Technology Skills: 

The Big6 information literacy process is a six-stage model by which students interact with information in order to form opinions, make decisions, or to solve problems which can be applied across all curricular activities as well as in the student’s personal life or even a work setting.  This process model provides an avenue for instructors to implement highly relevant concepts; through the use of dozens of included figures, templates, and lesson plans; to aid in the implementation of information and literacy skills and also the achievement of local, state, or Common Core educational standards across all grade levels.  There are six main stages in the Big6 program, each consisting of 2 subcategories; a brief outline of this instructional model is included below:

 

1.  Task Definition

1.1 Define the information problem

1.2 Identify information needed

2.  Information Seeking Strategies

2.1 Determine all possible sources

2.2 Select the best sources

3.  Location and Access

3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically)

3.2 Find information within sources

4.  Use of Information

4.1 Engage (e.g., read, hear, view, touch)

4.2 Extract relevant information

5.  Synthesis

5.1 Organize from multiple sources

5.2 Present the information

6.  Evaluation

6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness)

6.2 Judge the process (efficiency)

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Research & Library Skills and I was first introduced to this process by the librarian at my previous school during an in-service on the incorporation of effective information gathering and literacy skills within the secondary school curriculum.

 

Super3 Information and Technology Skills: 

The Super3 information literacy process which incorporates the same ideas as Big6 but this program has been specifically designed for use with young children with three steps which are easy to remember and use, which include:

 

Step 1:  Making a Plan (Beginning)

            Students are encouraged to focus on “What they are going to do?” and “How they are going to do it?” This helps them to learn how to form and implement a plan.

 

Step 2:  Doing (Middle)

            Students use their plan to work on their projects, asking for assistance as needed.

 

Step 3:  Review (End)

            The student is asked to reflect on and evaluates their work by asking, “Did they follow their plan and how did it work?” “Was it a good project with high quality work?”

 

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Research & Library Skills and I was first introduced to this process by my wife who is a kindergarten teacher.  The librarian at her school presented this material during an in-service on the incorporation of effective information gathering and literacy skills within the primary school curriculum.

InfoQuest: A New Twist of Information Literacy 

            The InfoQuest information literacy program is designed to give students repetitive practice in developing their research skills while also serving as a motivational tool, allowing them ample opportunities to practice and apply their information literacy skills.  Each week, a different research topic question is presented and students are given the entire week, as well as access to the school’s media center, to use reference tools and available media to answer the question.  As an incentive, small prizes are awarded to all students who have accurately reported on the week’s topic.  This program comes with ready-made resource sheets, classified by subject area, and also includes an extensive list of available resources intended to aid the instructor in individualizing the materials to meet their particular needs.    

I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Media Literacy incorporating both visual and computer literacy; Research & Library Skills; and also Critical Literacy including aspects of both critical reading and thinking skills.  I stumbled across this program while doing research on the Big6 and Super3 informational literacy programs.  I’ve never used it before but was intrigued by its’ simplicity and ease of use.  The implementation of this program could very easily be accomplished by incorporating the weekly research topics into a classroom blog and while providing a creative way to challenge my students and also fostering their natural curiosity of the world around them. 

 

Palmetto Digital Literacy Program:

            The Department of Education along with the website Learning.com and the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee have all partnered together to create the Palmetto Digital Literacy Program.  This program is intended to help K-8 students and their teachers with digital literacy curriculum and technology skills and is made up of five parts: EasyTech, EasyCode Basic, Inquiry, 21^st Century Skills Assessment, and also WayFind.  

EasyTech is a self paced program, intended for grades K-8, which provides students with interactive lessons to help them develop the necessary Information Literacy and Technology skills to be successful in school and eventually at work.  Some of the basic skills include keyboarding, word processing, responsible digital citizenship, and coding.

EasyCode Basic is a “plug-in” to EasyTech which affords students coding challenges in which they are tasked with using real programming language along with their computational skills to solve problems.

Inquiry is a project-based approach towards integrating core subject instruction with technology skills.  There are six projects per grade level K-8 of varying difficulties spanning the core curriculums of math, science, social studies, and ELA.

21^st Century Skills Assessment is designed to test student’s information literacy, decision making, critical thinking skills, and innovation in grades five and eight.  Digital citizenship and technology operations are also included within these digital assessments.

WayFind is a multiple-choice, performance-based program intended for use by the instructor.  This application is used to measure a teacher’s 21^st century teaching skills with tie-ins to professional development needed to address any personal deficiencies.  This program has also been aligned with the ISTE Standards for Teachers.

*Funding to purchase this program is available to school districts with a poverty index of 80% or greater.

     I believe this program would fit into the NFIL infographic on Information Literacy under the subheading of Media Literacy incorporating both visual and computer literacy; Research & Library Skills; and also Critical Literacy including aspects of both critical reading and thinking skills.  I stumbled across this program while doing research on informational literacy programs.  I have never used this program before but after reading about Arlington ISD’s successful implementation of Learning.com’s EasyTech program in 2012, a district of over 65,000 students – 68% of whom are identified as Hispanic or black, I knew that this was something which I wanted to learn more about.  Arlington ISD uses these applications to help develop and implement a blended learning experience for their students grades K-8.  One class in particular caught my attention; they have recently developed a year-long program for their eighth grade students entitled CTHEI or Career Technology and Higher Education Investigations course whose focus is on developing comprehensive career and college paths through active investigation.  They also chose this program because of its ease of use, intended as a guide for instructors with minimal experience integrating technology within the classroom curriculum.  Students are receiving exposure to learning through technology applications which help to ensure that they are learning the right skills to be successful in the 21^st century as they move forward in their educational and professional careers.

REFERENCES:

Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities. http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/

Carey, James O. (1998). American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Library Skills, Information Skills, and Information Literacy: Implications for Teaching and Learning, Volume 1. http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol1/SLMR_LibrarySkills_V1.pdf

“EasyTech: K-8 Digital Literacy Curriculum | Learning.com.” N.p., n.d. Retrieved December 05, 2016, from  http://www.learning.com/palmetto

Eisenburg, Michael B., & Berkowitz, Robert E. (2000). Teaching information & technology skills: The Big6 in secondary schools. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Eisenburg, Michael B., & Robinson, Laura E. (2007). The Super3: Information skills for young Learners. Columbus, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Information Literacy. BusinessDictionary.com. (n.d.) Retrieved December 05, 2016, from BusinessDictionary.com website: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/information-literacy.html

Milam, Peggy S. (2002). InfoQuest: A new twist of informational literacy.  Worthington, OH: Linworth Publications.