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18 May 09

SpeEdChange: Information Literacy

A fascinating look at the effect of changing technologies and the need for information literacy and critical thinking.

speedchange.blogspot.com/...information-literacy.html - Preview

information_literacy literacies digital_literacy criticalthinking

Yes. Print can be wrong, despite John Calvin's firm belief in the societal value of fixed text. We all know that information on the "internet" can be wrong, and we warn our students about this. If we are good, we tell them to check authorship, credentials, the source of the website, the motivations, and we ask them to find corroboration and/or dissent. But do we do this as actively when a student pulls a book or newspaper off our school library shelf? What about when a student reads a textbook? What about when a student listens to a teacher?
an emerging communication form creates a demand for a new medium or method of publication. The new medium or method of publication, in turn, creates an opportunity for new communication forms. When Samuel Morse introduced the telegraph with "What hath God wrought?" he was using new technology to send an old phrase. But his technology, and the way in which it was paid for, quickly created, "Meet in Phila Tue Noon at Sta Stop" - and how far away are we then from "C U 2nite"
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- All these technologies give and take. Gutenberg's destroyed many European languages, and enforced all sort of evils. But it also spread knowledge and literacy and allowed thought to flow in remarkable ways. We can imagine that post-Gutenberg technologies will do the same.
- So what do students need to know? They need to know that cognitive authority does not come with a job title, or a publisher's mark. Just as they need to know that the actor wearing the white coat in a TV commercial may not be a medical authority. They need to be able to discover, in the non-linear form of real life (and the web) how to assess information - no matter the source. You can start in your classroom. If you aren't lying to your students, give them laptops or mobiles and let them look up what you tell them. True? Sometimes true? Debatable? Biased? Help them make the arguments.