Friday, March 31, 2006

e-literate - a video

Pacific Bell/UCLA Initiative for 21st Century Literacies commissioned the production of e-literate, a 15 minute educational video to be used by teachers, librarians, community leaders and parents to introduce 21st century literacies to young people. Produced by noted writer/director Thom Eberhardt (HONEY, I BLEW UP THE KIDS, CAPTAIN RON), e-literate addresses facts versus opinions, bias, and information reliability in a humorous yet provocative tone that makes it appropriate for multiple age levels, including children, teens, college students and adults. The report E-literate: Promoting 21 Century Literacy Skills is also very interesting in terms of who has used the video and how it plays to various audiences for various purposes.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

How to Read a Newspaper Tutorial

The creators of the How to Read a Newsaper Tutorial say that it focuses on how to read a newspaper, rather than why read a newspaper or how to locate newspaper articles. It is designed to complement the University Libraries’ News Room collections and the Newspaper Readership Program at Pennsylvania State University.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Charting a New Course for Information Literacy at York

Over the course of the summer of 2005, York‘s librarians came together to develop a common vision and plan for library teaching and instructional efforts. Impetus for this exercise came as a result of the increasing demand for library instruction from faculty members and students, and as result of the strong support for our Information Literacy program in the University’s most recent Academic Plan. The UAP notes the critical importance of libraries to the research infrastructure of the university and the importance of access to professional librarians to provide intensified instruction in information literacy competencies to faculty and students alike.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Information LIteracy for All

A new report, sponsored by both UNESCO and IFLA and titled Information Literacy for All, argues that the existence of information holds little to no value to people who do not even know what information they need, much less whether it exists or not, or how to locate, evaluate and effectively use it.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Marketing Instructional Role

Arguing for an increase in collaborative efforts between librarians and teaching faculty to bridge barriers, Caspers and Lenn urge librarians to market instructional roles to the entire campus and greater learning communities. Their recommendation calls for librarians to build a range of "coalitions for information literacy that utilize political skills, including negotiation, persuasion, compromise and strategizing to achieve certain objectives."

Jean Caspers and Katy Lenn, "The Future of Collaboration between Librarians and Teaching Faculty." The Collaborative Imperative: Librarians and Faculty Working Together in the Information Universe (Chicago: ALA, 2000): 151.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y

Have a look at this presentation about Teaching Information Literacy to Generation Y. Under Learning Style Examples, have a look at the one called Ludic (Play) Behavior and the two examples of teaching using the "OLD, non-ludic" reading assignment and an example of a NEW assignment using ludic learning.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

List of Activities for Information Literacy

A page from Dalhousie where the librarians add learning activities. You can see that they put the tendancy of students to like gaming to good use. This might be an indea for us as we all take on information literacy in our subject areas.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Research 101

Research 101 is an interactive online tutorial for students wanting an introduction to research skills. The tutorial covers the basics, including how to select a topic and develop research questions, as well as how to select, search for, find, and evaluate information sources.

Here's the review of this tutorial from CHOICE:

Research 101 is an interactive tutorial about conducting research, developing research questions, and understanding how information is produced and distributed. Its organizing principle is the concept of information cycles. The site is a nondisciplinary perspective on information cycles, presented in a publicly accessible framework that can be licensed free by other academic libraries. Other customizable, discipline-specific treatments are restricted to University of Washington (UW) students and tied to a student's major, created by UW librarians in conjunction with teaching faculty. Content and design contributors are acknowledged, and contact information is provided to UW's sponsoring uWill Web site for information literacy learning. A site map serves as an index to tutorial content, and a link is provided to free plug-ins required for downloading. The tutorial is organized in six units that lead logically from one to the next; users select tabs labeled "The Basics," "Information Cycles," "Topics," "Searching," "Finding," "Evaluating." Each unit contains five to ten components. Most segments conclude with a review quiz, whose questions, exercises, and examples are thought-provoking and appealingly out of the ordinary. A time line illustrating the information cycle begins with invisible colleges and ends with reference works, providing examples and links to some resources. Search strategies and criteria for evaluating results are presented in depth. The site mixes visual interest with intellectual challenge, and its intuitive navigation scheme functions reliably. This standout learning tool will appeal to undergraduates and others who are motivated to improve their information literacy mastery. Summing Up: Highly recommended. College and university libraries. -- P. E. Sandstrom, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne