Teaching Information Literacy

With the rise of the internet as the main source of information for research, it is important that we foster students skills and understandings around information literacy. As Bettina Fabos points out, this includes the critical literacies that have been taught around traditional print media, such as making informed judgments concerning authorship, audiences, currency and so forth. If anything, these skills become even more important given the vast variability in quality of information online and the apparent ease of access through search engines. Information literacy also involves negotiating the inherent bias of search engines and the commercial nature of the internet. For example, Google's algorithms which are based on the number of links to a site means that the sites which top the search lists are the most popular, but not necessarily the most relevant. Typically many of the sites which top search lists are of a commercial nature and, therefore, the information contained in them is imbued with the values of the dominant ideology. Part of developing critical literacy will therefore involve understanding the commercial nature of the web.

Fabos suggests that in order to develop these information literacies, as educators we should move away from fact based assignments to ones which work with opinions. This, she believes, involves understanding the basis of ideas presented in terms of where they might sit on an ideological continuum. In principal, I agree with this - particularly at secondary and university levels. However, it raised some questions, particularly in a primary school context. Conservative commentators regularly criticise the shift in emphasis in education away from teaching facts to what they label post-modern or culturally relativist approaches which deny the existence of objective truth. I think these criticisms are overstated, but they are worth considering. I wonder that if at the primary school level, students are at a developmental stage whereby they can negotiate the sophisticated notions of truth and objectivity that Fabos' approach would seem to require. I think if we place too much emphasis on critical analysis of information and negotiation of truth there is a real danger of confusing children. Also, as was mentioned in today's tutorial, there is a need to provide students with a level of baseline knowledge in order to be able to assess the reliability of information they encounter. Ultimately this will require some passive acceptance by the students that what the teacher is saying, or the text that the teacher has selected is basically true or accurate. In the end, I guess, it is a question of balance.

I think one area where we can improve information literacy is by teaching students different methods for searching for information online. Having has a bit of play with a few different search engines today, I noticed that I got quite different results from different engines - and, therefore, it has opened up more of the web to me since I have relied almost entirely on Google up until now. Like with most things we teach, I'd imagine there is a developmental continuum with online searching. I would guess that search engines like Google which can be used to do simple key word searches would probably need to be understood before moving on to more sophisticated sites which allow a greater level of control. In the end, though, I think the more exposure children have to these the better.

Microblogging and Education

According to Graine Creole, you don't really understand the power of Web 2.0 tools until engage with them. Having not engaged with Twitter or any form of microblogging at all, I am probably not qualified to discuss them. But here goes.

As with all Web 2.0 tools, microblogging could be utilised to encourage collaboration and social learning. As far as I can tell, the most important differences between micro-blogging and other Web 2.0 forms is that it is brief (although quite long compared to nano-blogging ) and, therefore, possibly more suited to being used with smart phones, or iphones, or whatever the kids are calling them these days. Unlike say a blog or discussion board where you might wait for hours or days for a response, microblogging guarantees almost instant feedback from one's peers, or at least those peers who's parents can afford to buy them fancy phones. It, therefore, may allow for a greater intensity of social interaction than say blogs. On the surface, this would seem to have some advantages for education. In, particular, I'd imagine microblogging would be quite useful and time effective way of collaborating on written work – it could be a powerful tool for bouncing ideas of others – and may be beneficial for those less confident with their writing.

As a 'digital immigrant' however, I am a little sceptical of some of the utopian visions for microblogging in education that I have come across on the Web. Given the greater scope for social interaction, there is inevitably more scope for misuse. I'd imagine that as a teacher, it would be difficult to keep track of everyone's tweets – and, therefore, cyber-bullying and off task tweeting may become a problem. Also, while as teachers we should be looking at ways to encourage meaningful collaboration, I get the impression that with the prevalence of social networking on the Web, children are finding it more difficult to form their own unique identities. (Go to your local shopping mall and you'll see what I mean). We should also be encouraging students to think for themselves and not feel the need to be validated by their peers every 10 seconds.