[LM_NET] GEN: Information Literacy Makes All the Wrong Assumptions ??

[Deborah Stafford <Deborah_Stafford@COMPUSERVE.COM>]

I had time to read the article today and find that I am in agreement with
much of what the author said. I felt that it corraborated much of what I do
with high schoo lstudents.

 I do disagree with the statement that  "Information literacy assumes that
she accepts unquestioningly the information she finds on the Internet, when
we know from research that she is a skeptic who filters her results to the
best of her ability." What we want is for students to expand their
filtering capability so that what Google or any other one information
source isn't just "good enough" but the best it can be.

 But part of this comes down to what we define as "Information Literacy". 
If Information LIteracy is in teaching information retrieval, then I
totally agree with the author. Spending too much time on surveys of our
different databases without connecting that to what the students need to do
doesn't lead to our desired goal.

 I believe "Information Literacy" to be fits withing Mr. Wilder's
statements;
"Librarians should use thier expertise to deepen students' understanding of
the disciplines they study."
"Students are apprentices in the reading and writing of their chosen
disciplines, and librarians are experts who can help them master those
tasks."

To support this, we show students databases, print materials, even Google
searches but in the context of what they are "writing" about. We work with
teachers so that we know the curriculum. We keep current with what
information is out there so we can suggest materials.

Kind of reminds me of an earlier discussion we had, do we give students
Pathfinders or do we make them find all the information themselves. I think
that doing "Information Literacy" is both.

Deborah J. Stafford
Gen. H.H. Arnold High School
Wiesbaden Germany
now proudly on the web at http://www.wies-hs.eu.dodea.edu
Deborah_Stafford@compuserve.com

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