2. What is Information Literacy?
What does it mean to be information literate?
Activity 2a: Review resources and reflect
Review the following two resources that explain information literacy.
- Click on this link and read the first three sections (What is Information Literacy? Why is Information Literacy Important? Who Needs Information Literacy?): http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/infolit/overview/intro
- Click on this link and listen to the audio file of Fran Prather, Library Media Specialist in the Scottsdale Unified School District, discussing information literacy: http://www.public.asu.edu/~llindsey/Info_Lit/InfoLit_FPrather.mp3
- In what ways are the two views of information literacy similar?
- Do you agree or disagree with this view of literacy?
- Does it influence or change your own thinking? Why or why not?
Activity 2b. Review the standards
1. Review the National Education Technology Standards for Students (ISTE-S) with attention to #3, Research and Information Fluency. http://www.iste.org/standards/ISTE-standards/standards-for-students
2. Then check out the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects. Follow these specific directions for the information you need:
- Go to page 4 of the document and read the paragraph, "Research and media skills blended into the Standards as a whole."
- Then, go to page 7 and read the paragraph, "They use technology and digital media strategically and capably."
- Finally, browse through the document and notice how these skills are integrated into reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Activity 2c: Reflect and write
On your student sheet, locate section 2c and answer the following questions:
- What "information literacy" skills do you think should be taught to K-12 students?
- Why do you think these skills should be taught?
- How do the National Education Technology Standards for Students and the Common Core Standards address information literacy?
Activity 2d: Identify a common definition for this course
Read the following passages to learn how information literacy is defined and what will be covered in this online unit.
Information literacy is the ability to understand and identify information that is needed for a specific purpose, locate appropriate and relevant sources of information, evaluate the sources, and use the information effectively for the intended purpose. These skills are just as critical in an academic setting for research as they are in real life for every day information-seeking purposes.
Information literacy is an enormous topic that is multi-faceted. Just consider all of the various sources of information available to us! To explore information literacy in entirety, we'd need to examine all of these sources and understand how to effectively locate, evaluate, and use each.
In this unit, we'll focus on a sub-set of information literacy by concentrating on information found on the Internet. The intention of this unit is to provide instruction on identifying information that is needed, and locating and evaluating information found on the Internet, while acknowledging that information literacy as a whole includes much more than what we will cover here.
Activity 2e: Read the following
Locating and Evaluating Information on the Internet can be done by using a three-step process.
Step 1: Identify the information you wish to locate and use
Step 2: Conduct a search for the information
Step 3: Evaluate the Web sites/resources that your search returns
These three steps overlap each other. As you identify the information you want to find, you will be preparing for your search. As your search yields results, you'll be evaluating the results. And you will use the results from your search to further refine the information you wish to locate and your search criteria.
This image illustrates this overlap.
