Reading Review: Part A
This course gives me a unique opportunity to explore topics of personal interest to me in education. My main passion is literacy- early literacy, esl, information and digital literacy. This is pretty broad, so in an effort to rein it in a bit, I think I’ll focus on information literacy. The American Library Association, (ALA), defines this as follows, “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.”
This is still a fairly large topic because information literacy encompasses multiple areas since information comes in so many forms. There’s print, digital, media, to name a few. Then there’s the competencies needed, like reading, research, and critical thinking skills. With all of these factors, it’s no wonder that students struggle with information literacy.
As a prospective teacher librarian, I anticipate this being an area where there will be many opportunities in the future in my teaching. This topic relates to the curriculum at all age levels, although I will focus on elementary where my heart lies. There will be some digital overlap here because a large portion of information that students find is from the internet. The problem with this is information overload. How to find the specific information that is needed, and distinguish reliable sources from misinformation, will be the obstacle for students. This issue is called the “recall/precision problem”, (Riedling, 2019), and given that the internet is always developing and anyone can put anything out there, the skills needed to deal with this will be important for students.
Some of the areas and keywords I would like to explore around this topic are:
-balancing print and electronic reference material
-online databases/search engines
-critical thinking skills
-recall/precision problem
-research skills
As I delve into these areas, I’m interested to learn more about how to encourage students to use all the resources at their fingertips, not just digital, and how to effectively assess and apply the information they find.
Works cited:
ALA. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. (2022). Retrieved from https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential
Riedling, A. M., & Houston, C. (2019). Reference skills for the school librarian: Tools and tips. Libraries Unlimited.
Bryant & Stratton College Libguides. English 102 Information Literacy Cycle-Image. (2022). https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ronp6lue9w/maxresdefault.jpg
This is a good first post. You have built a solid foundation for further reading and research. The links and the image you have included complement your discussion. I look forward to seeing where your learning takes you.
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