Topic 4 - Information Literacy

Whilst there appears to be no "universal" definition of Information Literacy many agree that it is a tool which incorporates questioning; defining the type of information which is required and having the ability to locate this information; being selective of the information, being able to relay that information in some form and to reflect.

Eisenberg (2008) states that "information and technology literacy is clearly the "basic skills set of the 21st century".  With the increase of the internet and the amount of different technology tools that are available such as wiki I often wonder whether I am information literate!!!! 

I believe that if we would like the students of today and tomorrow to be Information Literate then we as teachers need to stay on top of the up to date technologies and have the ability to pass this knowledge down to our students.  We need to teach them what to look for in a website, use key words and be selective on what we use.  Certainly gone are the days when I was at school I would receive an assignment, I would go home and get the old Chambers Encyclopedia and copy slabs of words not really understanding what I was copying yet alone know what plagarism was, add a few pictures, hand it up and get an A+!!!! (showing my age now).

This course has certainly opened my eyes on a number of things which I did not learn whilst completing my BachEd and I only finished 3 years ago!!!!!  I did not realise that there were so many different Information Literacy Models on the market.  Now I have heard of the Information Search Process (ISP) but had not heard of the Big 6 model or the Plus model (sorry James).  Whilst they all appear to have similar items such as: defining and locating I am not sure whether they suit all students and their different learning needs or styles.  As said in previous posts I am not in a classroom on a fulltime basis so unaware of whether schools actually adopt a certain model and therefore all teachers use the same model across all year levels which would mean continuity for students as they up in year levels? or is it up to each teacher to use a model if they see fit? or do some teachers just use part of a model?  It appears that in New South Wales many of the schools use the New South Wales model (NSW DET 2007).  Will that still apply when the National Curriculum comes into effect?   

So many questions................