MizzG Gibson's List: Information Literacy

21st Century Assessment

 

Ken told us that the amount of information is doubling every 24 months and  that by 2020 the amount of information will double in every 72 days. What this  means is content memorization will simply not work anymore. It is currently  impossible; especially at the rate knowledge is changing, to master it all. And  even if you did, the content that you learn in your freshman year of college  would be outdated by the time you graduate. Literacy in the 21st Century is not  based on do you know it- rather, can you find it, analyze it, adapt it, and  synthesize it? John Tao says as we move out of the information age into this new  era of creativity an individual’s value will not be based on what he knows, but  what he can create.

 

What Do We Need to Teach?
We also need to teach students  adaptive expertise. They need to not only be self-directed but have the ability  to embrace ambiguity. In their future, our students will be working with teams  in virtual spaces that they have never met, on goals that are abstract. They  need to understand how to adapt and create. In fact, it is a tough call even  trying to predict what they will need as for the first time in educational  history we are preparing students for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet.  What skills do kids need now? They need the ability to redefine themselves and  the way they do their work. They need critical thinking skills, self defense  tools that will help them redefine the value of the enterprise in which they  find themselves.

<h1>Kids May Be Computer-Savvy, But Not Great Researchers, Study Says</h1><br/><h2>This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping. <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/subscribe.asp?screen=pi8">Sign up now!</a></h2><br/><h3>Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 1/22/2008 2:05:00 PM</h3><br/><br/><div id="articleside"><br/><span class="noindex"><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><div id="articleSideBox"><br/><h1>RELATED ARTICLES</h1><br/><ul><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6515285.html">Digital Resources: Seeing is Believing</a><br></li><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6512444.html">An Internet Safety Bill That Librarians at Last Can Love</a><br></li><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6511424.html">'Meet Me at the Corner' Web Site Offers Virtual Tours</a><br></li><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6509768.html">MIT Launches New Web Site for Educators</a><br></li><li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6505692.html">Neuroscience for Kids&nbsp;</a><br></li></ul><br/></div><br><br/><br/><br/>&lt;script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"><br/>&lt;!--<br/> var tabbox=new Array()<br/> var tabboximgindex = 0;<br/>// --><br/>&lt;/script><br/><br/><div id="tabcontents"><br/> <ul id="tabmenu"><br/> <li hsrc="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/lion" ibid="65" class="lion" id="tab1" tbid="1"><span>Talkback</span></li><br/> <li hsrc="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/lion" ibid="66" class="lioff" id="tab2" tbid="2"><span>Blogs</span></li><br/> <li hsrc="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/lion" ibid="67" class="lioff" id="tab3" tbid="3"><span>Podcasts</span></li><br/> <li hsrc="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/lion" ibid="68" class="lioff" id="tab4" tbid="4"><span>Photos</span></li><br/> </ul><br/> <br clear="left"><br/> <br/> <div style="display: block;" class="tabcontent"><br/><div id="tabtalkback"><div id="blogBlock"><br/><p><br>We would love your feedback!</p><br/><br><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=talkBackPost&amp;articleid=CA6524475&amp;talk_back_header_id=6503185" class="post">Post a comment</a></div><br/><br/><br><br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=talkback" title="View All Talkback Threads">» VIEW ALL TALKBACK THREADS</a><br/><br/></div>&lt;!-- end tabtalkback --><br/> </div>&lt;!-- end tabcontent --><br/> <br/> <div style="display: none;" class="tabcontent"><br/> <div id="tabblog"><div id="blogBlock"><div class="blogheadshot"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blogger/2654.html"><img name="image1760008976" border="0" alt="Brian Kenney" align="left" class="blogImg" src="http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/2540/20070228203445/www.schoollibraryjournal.com/contents/images/B_Kenney_blog.gif"></a></div><br/>&lt;script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"><br/>if (document.image1760008976.width > 100)<br/> document.image1760008976.width = 100;<br/>&lt;/script><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/850000285.html" title="Brian Unbound" class="lgLink1">Brian Unbound</a><br/><br><br/><span class="byline">&lt;!--a href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blogger/2654.html"-->Brian Kenney&lt;!--/a-->, Editor in Chief, </span><br><br/><span class="date">May, 3 2007</span><br><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/850000285.html#1760008976" class="lgLink">Does Print Still Matter?</a><br><br/>Not to spoil the plot, but of course print still matters. 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Most notably, the information literacy of young people hasn’t improved with the growing access to technology.&nbsp;</p><br/><p>In fact, “their apparent facility with computers disguises some worrying problems.” For instance, the speed with which students search the Web means that “little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority,” says the report, commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) [http://www.jisc.ac.uk]. JISC is an oganization that supports education and research by promoting innovative technologies. &nbsp;</p><br/><p>The report goes on to say that young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and, therefore, find it difficult to develop effective search strategies. As a result, when students conduct Web searches, they tend to type in phrases using “natural language rather than analyzing which key words might be more effective.” </p><br/><p>This leads to numerous irrelevant search hits, and kids find it “difficult to assess the relevance of the materials presented and often print off pages with no more than a perfunctory glance at them,” the report adds. </p><br/><p>Since kids are typically unfamiliar with library databases, they prefer to stick to more familiar search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, for their research needs “[So] there is little direct evidence that young people’s information literacy is any better or worse than before,” the report says. &nbsp;</p><br/><p>The main message of the report is for research libraries to realize “that the future is now, not 10 years away, and that they have no option but to understand and design systems around the actual behavior of today’s</p>