Information Literacy

Identifying, locating and evaluating information, an ever increasing challenge for most of us in a time when society is rapidly expanding in the areas of telecommunication, computer networks, chat rooms, mobile phones and so on. Information is now at the touch of a button, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We now feel a need to gather this information, and be in contact around the clock. But what of the consequences, from things such as misinformation, inappropriate photos and messages, sent without thought of consequence.

Without information literacy education, what relevance or concern is being given to the accuracy or suitability of the information we receive in any area of life. As the information highway continues to expand, is society capable of keeping up or are we starting to demonstrate a lack of these skills and an inability to deal with the pressure of instant transference of information.

I believe the skill to identify, locate and evaluate information now needs to be taught from a very young age, not waiting for secondary or tertiary education just because guidelines need to be taught for referencing and copyright. Not only do we need to instill Information literacy skills early, but, regretfully, we need to instill suspicion regarding the source and accuracy of information that is being sent to us constantly. Genuine, accurate and truthful information makes us stronger and more knowledgeable, but is the volume and accessibility making it harder for us to evaluate accuracy and suitability?

Schools are now beginning to educate students about information literacy and as demonstrated below, young students can and do evaluate search engines. This is a recommendation given by students from grades four and five

‘Many students recommended using KidsClick! or Yahooligans before trying Metacrawler. With Metacrawler, they wrote, too many sites may be listed, and many sites are written at an adult reading level. Some students suggested starting a search with the search engine that is likely to list the fewest number of sites’(Cooper, 2002)

Educators around the world are dealing with this issue not only in academic education but also social.

‘re-envision literacy from alternate and multiple perspectives’(Hamilton, 2010)

Cooper. M (2002, June2). Coping with information overload: Selecting the best search engine [web blog post]. Retrieved June 13, 2010 from
http://www.big6.com/2002/06/03/coping-with-information-overload-selecting-the-best-search-engine/

Hamilton. B (2010, April). Reading and writing the world: Schools libraries as sponsors of transliteracy [web blog post]. Retrieved June 13, 2010 from
http://infolitlib20.blogspot.com/2010/04/reading-and-writing-wotrld-school.html