What is the Role of Information Literacy for Teachers and Students?
Flickr: Photo Credit to Rosipaw (Active Classroom)
Today we live in a world of information and much of it at our fingertips. There are those who try to consider the best way in collecting and sharing that information. Then, there are others who do not consider the information that they are collecting. With so many media outlets out there to access information, there must be measures to take when looking for and gathering information, especially for students and educators. Just as a grapevine produces a bunch of grapes, not all of the grapes come out good. The owner of the vineyard has to pick through the grapes to find the good and ripe ones ready for harvest. The same is to be said of information in the present world. There is good information in our media outlets, but there is also bad information. Teachers and students alike have a great responsibility when it comes to accessing information online. As a matter of fact, we all have to exercise precaution in regards to visiting online websites to gather information.
Students are so apt to grab there iphones, ipads, and laptops whenever they had questions or need information. The knowledge of the teacher is sometimes shunned simply because students can get information quicker from their digital devices, and their digital devices have a way of giving them information without any challenges. However, students must be warned that not everyone on that's putting information on the web are teachers and professionals. They must be taught to check their sources. Find out if the author of the information has credibility or credentials. Not everyone has good knowledge, but everyone has a "good opinion". The internet does not have a librarian, so we must carry the knowledge that allows us to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate information. (Edwards, Maloy, O'Loughlin, Woolf, pg. 98) Children must be shown how to navigate through the web without compromising their's and the teacher's educational goals. So then, it becomes the responsibility of the teachers to aid in this manner. "Teachers play a key role in providing students with diverse opportunities to learn how to use information wisely." (American Library Association)
As many as are lacking digital citizenship today, students and teachers must continue to develop skills, knowledge, and techniques for exploring and using the web. Information literacy, which is being able to use data on the internet accurately, is needed to solve many of the problems and issues that we are facing today in the classroom and in the digital world at large.
Tech Tool 5.2:
iGoogle (www.google.com/ig) allows you to personalize your Google search page with information such as the news, weather, sports, teaching resources, etc.
Resources:
Edwards, S., Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., & Woolf, B. Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2014
American Library Association. "College & Research Libraries". Web. 11 May. 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2014
Great resources to support your post, including the CC-licensed image (though you do remember to hyperlink the Flickr page so readers can go directly to the posted image source). I like the way you tend to explore other resources to bring in to your writings.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, did you know that iGoogle is no longer? Yes, it was retired at the end of last year. Another reason to move to digital textbooks where the information can be updated often to make the content more relevant! :)