Module 3 Post
In your second post, reflect on how the concepts of information literacy, technology, and digital/media intersect. How did this week's readings, resources, and podcast inform your understanding of these concepts? Specifically address your own information diet and what you believe the information diet of a school librarian should look like.
Information literacy, credible sources, and "fake news" are hot topics in the world of 9-12 English teaching, and I have been working with these concepts a lot with my own students. In my experience, my students' understanding of credibility is generally very limited -- they like to stick to the familiar tropes of "use a .org instead of a .com!" or "NEVER use Wikipedia!" and other tips and tricks that are pretty outdated now. Really determining if a source is reliable takes SO much extra work that many students don't want to bother -- for example, they are overwhelmed by the idea of Googling the person who wrote an article and digging up their background to determine if they have any authority on the topic they're writing about. It's one of the early skills I try to get students to practice, and interestingly it is also the first tip mentioned in "Truth, Truthiness, Triangulation" for students to check 'About Me' pages on an author.
When reading the ACRL framework, one knowledge practice from "Authority is Constructed and Contextual" really stood out to me: learners should be able to "understand the increasingly social nature of the information ecosystem where authorities actively connect with one another and sources develop over time" (ACRL, 2016). This is where I want my high school students to get in terms of their understanding of information! Information is not static. When they research and write, they are entering an ongoing and evolving conversation between other researchers and authorities on that subject.
In contrast with the ACRL framework, the P21 framework seems less focused specifically on scholarship/research and more focused on the WHOLE learner as a human being on our planet who participates in society, which I found really interesting. Sometimes we can get caught up in teaching students about information and research, but it is also important to consider how they interact with others and what kinds of more "real-world" information they also need to be able to find, such as health literacy, financial literacy, and civic literacy. I feel like our current school system really isn't structured in a way to hit these goals with students... in English, I try to hit these kinds of things, but they really aren't in my curriculum, which means that I have to cut English skills to fit in more of these other types of literacies.
Let me now specifically address my information diet and what I think a school librarian's info diet should look like! A lot of the articles I read about news and other current-event -type issues come from my Facebook news feed, where I follow pages like NPR, the New York Times, and other media outlets. (I actually forget sometimes that other people's Facebook home pages don't contain these kinds of articles!) I find it less overwhelming than checking multiple websites each day. However, I know that my Facebook news feed is already curated after those media outlet pages decide which articles to share, so I am more limited than it feels like I am. I have been considering various short "daily news" type podcasts to listen to before or after school each day, but honestly, I have been procrastinating on that because I currently listen to library audiobooks on my commute, and I don't want to "give that up."
I think a school librarian's info diet should be maybe more broad than deep, just so that he or she can better help a wider range of students locate information or work on researching things that are happening. For example, if I only dove into news about the environment, I might be clueless on other current issues, making it more of a challenge for me to help a student determine which sources are credible, generate key words, etc.
I think people in today's world need a LOT of time available in their days to locate information, verify it, digest it, and discuss it with others. That's a kind of "privilege" I have never considered before... if you work three jobs, have small children, have limited internet access, etc., you don't have the same kind of TIME to be well-informed as people who have down time on a work computer, have a short commute, have flexible work hours, etc.
Sources:
Association of College and Research Libraries (2016, January 11). Framework for information literacy for higher education. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
Partnership for 21st Century Learning (2015, May). P21 framework definitions. https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/5dd6acf5e22a7/11824564?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27P21_Framework_Definitions_New_Logo_2015.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200129T131733Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PLTYPZRQMY%2F20200129%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=c5303551294ee939f45fc325a99a4f64b8649c2f14cb27eaaf837a32d46b4c1d
Valenza, J. (2016, November 26). Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world. http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/
Information literacy, credible sources, and "fake news" are hot topics in the world of 9-12 English teaching, and I have been working with these concepts a lot with my own students. In my experience, my students' understanding of credibility is generally very limited -- they like to stick to the familiar tropes of "use a .org instead of a .com!" or "NEVER use Wikipedia!" and other tips and tricks that are pretty outdated now. Really determining if a source is reliable takes SO much extra work that many students don't want to bother -- for example, they are overwhelmed by the idea of Googling the person who wrote an article and digging up their background to determine if they have any authority on the topic they're writing about. It's one of the early skills I try to get students to practice, and interestingly it is also the first tip mentioned in "Truth, Truthiness, Triangulation" for students to check 'About Me' pages on an author.
When reading the ACRL framework, one knowledge practice from "Authority is Constructed and Contextual" really stood out to me: learners should be able to "understand the increasingly social nature of the information ecosystem where authorities actively connect with one another and sources develop over time" (ACRL, 2016). This is where I want my high school students to get in terms of their understanding of information! Information is not static. When they research and write, they are entering an ongoing and evolving conversation between other researchers and authorities on that subject.
In contrast with the ACRL framework, the P21 framework seems less focused specifically on scholarship/research and more focused on the WHOLE learner as a human being on our planet who participates in society, which I found really interesting. Sometimes we can get caught up in teaching students about information and research, but it is also important to consider how they interact with others and what kinds of more "real-world" information they also need to be able to find, such as health literacy, financial literacy, and civic literacy. I feel like our current school system really isn't structured in a way to hit these goals with students... in English, I try to hit these kinds of things, but they really aren't in my curriculum, which means that I have to cut English skills to fit in more of these other types of literacies.
Let me now specifically address my information diet and what I think a school librarian's info diet should look like! A lot of the articles I read about news and other current-event -type issues come from my Facebook news feed, where I follow pages like NPR, the New York Times, and other media outlets. (I actually forget sometimes that other people's Facebook home pages don't contain these kinds of articles!) I find it less overwhelming than checking multiple websites each day. However, I know that my Facebook news feed is already curated after those media outlet pages decide which articles to share, so I am more limited than it feels like I am. I have been considering various short "daily news" type podcasts to listen to before or after school each day, but honestly, I have been procrastinating on that because I currently listen to library audiobooks on my commute, and I don't want to "give that up."
I think a school librarian's info diet should be maybe more broad than deep, just so that he or she can better help a wider range of students locate information or work on researching things that are happening. For example, if I only dove into news about the environment, I might be clueless on other current issues, making it more of a challenge for me to help a student determine which sources are credible, generate key words, etc.
I think people in today's world need a LOT of time available in their days to locate information, verify it, digest it, and discuss it with others. That's a kind of "privilege" I have never considered before... if you work three jobs, have small children, have limited internet access, etc., you don't have the same kind of TIME to be well-informed as people who have down time on a work computer, have a short commute, have flexible work hours, etc.
Sources:
Association of College and Research Libraries (2016, January 11). Framework for information literacy for higher education. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
Partnership for 21st Century Learning (2015, May). P21 framework definitions. https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/5dd6acf5e22a7/11824564?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27P21_Framework_Definitions_New_Logo_2015.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200129T131733Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PLTYPZRQMY%2F20200129%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=c5303551294ee939f45fc325a99a4f64b8649c2f14cb27eaaf837a32d46b4c1d
Valenza, J. (2016, November 26). Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world. http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/
That is interesting that you said a librarian's information diet should be more broad than deep. this makes a great deal of sense to me as lately I have been attempting to read more for volume than content. I am constantly listening to audio books and trying to explore science and social studies databases which are not my favorite subjects, but I want to be knowledgeable in helping kiddos get the resources they need. Also, thanks for acknowledging that this is a "privilege" we have to look into the validity of information. We have to find a way to level the playing field there, and it seems like we will by educating students.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that the current school system is ill-suited to accomplish the goals addressed in our resources this week. I was an English teacher too, and I hardly ever had an opportunity to properly instruct students on evaluating resources other than the platitudes that you mentioned in the introduction. I do hope as more information is being published about the importance of information literacy that administrators will allow for more time in the classroom to address this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that maybe our diet should be more broad than deep. We have different age groups to consider and research is constantly changing. Our district seems to cling to one source they pay for and then the next year it is on to a newer and better program. I agree that we should always be looking for newer resources but sometimes newer is not always better. Websites that are trusted and easy to use for kids should be something we value and hope the site owners will keep up with trends and keep information trusted and accurate.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that with more time, we could allow our diets to become deeper. I think it takes a while to get used to allowing ourselves to have more time to do this, and to actually implement it into our daily lives. I know I lack it myself, but I want to be able to incorporate it into my own life so that my students will see it and learn from it. I liked when you mentioned considering how they interact with each other. I think seeing this can help us plan better, and to take that information and see if what we are doing is actually working toward a better learning experience overall.
ReplyDelete