Informational Literacy and Our Responsibility

It is evident from our learning module this week that teachers and teacher librarians have an enormous job: assisting young people with the skills necessary to make understanding from all types of sources.  Information literacy is imperative in today’s world as technology and information are at our fingertips and search results can be produced within seconds.  People of all ages, especially young people, need to learn how to find information, read it, check sources, question material, and make judgments.  I think the concept of The Big6 Skills are excellent in providing a foundational education in how to work with information (Big6 Skills Overview).  As I read through the skills, I decided the steps made sense for how I am currently working on a project in another SLIS course.  As librarians, these skills would be wonderful in introducing research to young people just as teachers use the Scientific Method with students to conduct experiments and science projects.  Also, I really appreciated the tip for checking out the Big3 included in our module.  I found the Super3 model online (https://thebig6.org/) and thought this would be simple to create signage and to implement in my library classes.  Plan, Do, and Review seem to be more user-friendly for younger students and I plan to add this model to my resource list for when I begin research in a few weeks with my older classes.

 

I reflected upon my information diet this week, especially after I listened to the Liturgists’ podcast.  I truly think I try to balance my information intake, but sometimes I can become a mindless consumer that scrolls through social media following clickbait as the hosts of the podcast shared.  While my political leanings may align with one news agency more, I actually have several of its opponents within my apps as well.  Each day, when I view the news, I make a point to view each agency to see what they are saying about the same topics.  I have found this to be very informational and it has helped me to recognize how my news outlet may lean a little too much at times or vice versa.  I also really appreciated the hosts of the podcast saying that there is a news outlet that can give you immediate information and you can walk there.  I often look at national and world news reports more than I do with my local news.  I really have no idea why I have never noticed this until this week’s module.  I spend an incredible amount of time keeping up with national news and rarely investigate local reports that potentially affect me more!  I think one of the reasons is that to view my local news online (where I do most of my reading and reflecting), my local news charges an access fee for the news.  I just don’t feel the need to pay for news.  I occasionally click on their free or released articles online, but mostly it’s out of sight and out of mind because of the access fee.  After reflection, I am considering a purchased subscription to stay more connected locally.

An information diet for a librarian should avoid bias.  As a librarian, you are charged with the task of informing your patrons through print sources, media sources, and more.  While a librarian cannot know all answers, a librarian should be able to point patrons to sources that will help them gain the information they are interested in reading.  If a librarian has certain political leanings or personal beliefs, he/she must be careful to share resources with patrons without a personal agenda.  Librarians should share sources that can help patrons gain information in an unbiased way, so they are allowed to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions about the information they are ingesting.  As well, librarians should encourage patrons to view multiple sources for the information they seek.  Librarians should be trained in research methods to help patrons to consider sources for bias, cross-check articles or reports with other reports, and to determine if sources are credible.  In Truth, truthiness, triangulation: a news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world, Joyce Valenza states that “it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions,” (Valenza, 2016).  Librarians should make it a goal to help patrons search in the same manner.  A school librarian, in my opinion, has a greater responsibility with this issue than other librarians because school librarians are definitely influential in the lives of their patrons.  Students are impressionable and many will take a teacher’s word or librarian’s word as fact without questions.  It is important for school librarians to realize the role they play in students’ lives and to be careful when helping students find information.  As models for 21^st Century Learners, librarians are tasked with helping students to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills (P21 Partnership for 21^st Century Learning, 2015).  Teaching students how to examine sources, fact-check, and search for bias is important to these skills and to a librarian’s job.

In a world that is overwhelmed with information, it is our job to help others know how to locate and process information!

 

Resources:

Framework for 21^st century learning. (2015). Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/athompson/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/53C5XBND/P21_Framework_Definitions_New_Logo_2015.pdf 

 

 

Gungor, M., McHargue, M., & Matthews, W. (2017, March 7). Fake news and media literacy. The Liturgists.    Podcast retrieved from https://theliturgists.com/podcast/2017/3/7/fake-news-media-literacy

 

 

Super3 Model and Graphic: https://thebig6.org/

 

 

The Big6 Skills Overview: file:///C:/Users/athompson/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/53C5XBND/Big6+Skills+Overview.pdf

 

 

Valenza, J. (2016, November 26). Truth, truthiness, triangulation: a news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/