Information Literacy: Crucial Skills in Your Classroom by Stacy Nockowitz

1. Information Literacy
Crucial Skills for Students Right
in Your Classroom
Stacy Nockowitz
Middle School Librarian
Columbus Academy
Gahanna, Ohio
stacy_nockowitz@columbusacademy.org

2. Impetuses for this class
(Yes, impetuses.)

4. Harvard

5. “That’s what Wikipedia is for!”

7. 53,400,000 results

8. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com

9. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com

10. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com
boards.straightdope.com

11. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com
boards.straightdope.com
answers.yahoo.com

12. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com
boards.straightdope.com
answers.yahoo.com
www.geeksaresexy.net

13. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com
boards.straightdope.com
answers.yahoo.com
www.geeksaresexy.net
www.drday.com

14. 53,400,000 results
www.questiontheworldplease.blogspot.com
io9.com
boards.straightdope.com
answers.yahoo.com
www.geeksaresexy.net
www.drday.com

15. Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort:
People will put forth the minimum effort
required to obtain information, even if it means
accepting lower quality or quantity of information.
Source: Human behavior and the principle of least effort, Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press, 1949.

16. In other words, students are willing to
accept information that is
merely sufficient as long as
they obtain it simply and easily.

17. Mooer’s Law:
An information retrieval system will
tend not to be used whenever it is
more painful and troublesome for a
customer to have information than for
him not to have it.
Remarks by Calvin N. Mooers during a panel discussion at the Annual Meeting of the American Documentation Institute, October 24, 1959.

18. “Having information is painful and troublesome. We
have all experienced this. If you have information,
you must first read it, which is not always easy. You
must then try to understand it....Understanding the
information may show that your work was wrong, or
may show that your work was needless....Thus not
having and not using information can often lead to
less trouble and pain than having and using it.”
Remarks by Calvin N. Mooers on October 24, 1959. Reprinted in the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, October/November 1996.

20. Gross and Latham: “Students who
are unable to demonstrate information
literacy competency nevertheless exhibit
a high level of confidence in their ability
to find and use information effectively.”
Source: “Undergraduate Perceptions ofInformation Literacy: Defining, Attaining, and Self-Assessing Skills,” College and Research Libraries, July 2009, p.336-350

21. But are the kids to blame?
Are we good models?
How do we guide them?

22. Have they ever been
taught this stuff?

23. "Information literacy is the
ability to recognize when
information is needed,
to locate, evaluate, and
effectively and ethically use
the needed information."
-American Library Association

24. Your objective: Independent students who
have high level info lit skills that lead to
high quality results!

25. Info Lit as a Metacognitive Process
Awareness of one’s own
learning or thinking process.

26. Make the process as
important as the product.

27. In your classroom:
- Make the process
part of the conversation.

28. In your classroom:
- Make the process
part of the conversation.
- Stop them along the way.

29. In your classroom:
- Make the process
part of the conversation.
- Stop them along the way.
- Model the process.

30. - Model the process.

31. Kids can spot a hypocrite a mile away.

32. Your info lit steps:
1. Define your information need.
2. Locate information.
3. Evaluate what you find.
4.Effectively & ethically use what you find.

33. 1. Define your information need.
What are you actually researching?
Focus your topic.
Generate thoughtful questions.

34. 2. Locate information.
Identify keywords.
Use Boolean operators.
Use quotation marks.
Connect terms in new combinations.

35. Alternatives to Google search:
*SweetSearch: www.sweetsearch.com
and 4me.sweetsearch.com
*Awesome Library: www.awesomelibrary.org
*Internet Public Library: www.ipl.org
*DuckDuckGo: duckduckgo.com

36. Smart search tips:
Cite as you go.
Bookmark best sites.
Scour useful pages for useful links.
Clip good stuff and save it for later.

37. 3. Evaluate what you find.
Don’t teach this in isolation.
Evaluate in context.
Remember the State Farm commercial!
Identify a site’s purpose, bias,
authority, accuracy.

38. 4. Use the information effectively.
Compare information from different sources.
Look for trends and patterns.
Begin to draw conclusions.

39. Don’t forget to talk to students
about the ETHICS of Info Lit:
-Plagiarism
-Fair Use
-Citing sources
-Using images and video

40. Don’t confuse information with knowledge.
Information is acquired by being told.
KNOWLEDGE is acquired by thinking.