A great friend and colleague shared this TED with me a bit ago and I only just got a chance to watch it and really think about it.
Watching this happened to coincide with my writing with a proposal my director and Champlain's Instructional Designer to LILAC 2009 (in Wales, cross your fingers for me!). The focus of our proposal, and the work I've been doing at Champlain, is asking students to think differently, creatively--if you will, about the information that they already use and will eventually need. As I read through the comment cards from this semester's teaching load (taught my last session at 8 am this morning), I am struck by how many students appreciate that opportunity. They really do seem to LIKE thinking about information in a way that is less defined and less prescribed. I don't think my job is to tell them what information or resources to use. Rather, I think our job is to help them ask them to think about or question which sources they want to use and why.
This is the thought that pounds on my mind when I read posts on ili-l about which texts to use for Info Lit course. Invariably, titles that are about Information Literacy are listed. Why would a college student want to learn about information seeking like this? Our students know a great deal about looking stuff up: it’s figuring out what to do with that “stuff” that they struggle with. Why not encourage discussion around truth, fact, reliability, trust, authority? Couldn’t we consider books like True Enough, the Big Switch, True to Life, Glut, of The Black Swan that ask students to THINK about information and articulate their experience, expectations, and frustrations with it instead of telling them what those experiences and expectations should be? By not asking them to think critically and engage in discussion about that thinking, I don’t know if we are really offering students the chance to become literate.
Which brings me back to Robinson’s lecture for a moment. In it, he asks what public education is really for? (Watch the video: the answer here is brilliantly funny and profound.) I think that’s a key question for information literacy programming as well: what is IL instruction for? If it really is to determine the extent of information needed;
access the needed information effectively and efficiently; evaluate information and its sources critically; incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base;
use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose; and understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally, I think we have to ask ourselves if the way in which we teach is conducive to that goal. What are YOU doing to teach students to think about information in that way? Are there other things we should be asking students to think about and if so, how do you encourage that? How do you encourage your students to THINK about information?
21 November 2008
12 November 2008
This Information Literacy Moment is brought to you by....?
Here is great example of the importance of EVALUATING information, even from the most trusted of sources. This coincides so well with the thinking I've been doing about the disintegration of truth and fact in the Wikipedia world. Perhaps I've just been reading to much Michael Lynch, or it's the questions I've been getting from students about the election, or the Mark Crispin Miller posts I've been reading about voting...no matter. While it might be easy to say that this is a "a gigantic compliment to The Times”, I think it touches on something far larger and deeper. I think it touches on the notion that people will believe whatever they want to believe, assuming they find someone to support it. This is the same premise that "True Enough" proposes: it's not about whether the information we find is factual, it's about whether it's true enough to serve our purposes.
In some respects, I think there is a lot to be said for Wikipedia's role in this shift. NOTE: I am not suggesting that wikipedia is BAD, EVIL, or USELESSS. But I am saying that there are repercussions to using a wiki-based, community constructed encyclopedia and I think we are just starting to see that play out. I cannot speak to what the talk of the town was in New York today as people got this free paper. Did they believe it? Did they question it immediately? Did they seek confirmation immediately? Perhaps Google Trends caught that and can say where the war in Iraq ended? (THAT'S SARCASM, by the way).
I can say what I see happening with students. And it's only somewhat encouraging. There are some students that talk of NOT using wikipedia because they question its validity, bias, or authority. I remind them that there is a lot of useful information in wikipedia and that it can often be a wonderful place to gather information with which to start a project as well as to witness the dialogue that makes up scholarship. Other students, as there always are, just take whatever they find and go with it. It's obviously this last batch that concerns me. And not only for their ability to do well in their classes. It's more for when we do encounter conflicting information in matters that are important everyday. Matters of national importance, as the Times example demonstrates. But also on smaller, more personal scales. Why is information literacy limited to just what you do in the library or school? Isn't SPAM about information literacy? Isn't the mortgage crisis? Am I alone in thinking that much of what troubles us today related to our lack of PURSUING information. It's clearly not a lack of availability but rather our willingness to dig deeper and validate, evaluate, or THINK about it.
And I'm not sure how to teach that. I'm not sure how to develop that in students other than to encourage it and model it. Do you?
In some respects, I think there is a lot to be said for Wikipedia's role in this shift. NOTE: I am not suggesting that wikipedia is BAD, EVIL, or USELESSS. But I am saying that there are repercussions to using a wiki-based, community constructed encyclopedia and I think we are just starting to see that play out. I cannot speak to what the talk of the town was in New York today as people got this free paper. Did they believe it? Did they question it immediately? Did they seek confirmation immediately? Perhaps Google Trends caught that and can say where the war in Iraq ended? (THAT'S SARCASM, by the way).
I can say what I see happening with students. And it's only somewhat encouraging. There are some students that talk of NOT using wikipedia because they question its validity, bias, or authority. I remind them that there is a lot of useful information in wikipedia and that it can often be a wonderful place to gather information with which to start a project as well as to witness the dialogue that makes up scholarship. Other students, as there always are, just take whatever they find and go with it. It's obviously this last batch that concerns me. And not only for their ability to do well in their classes. It's more for when we do encounter conflicting information in matters that are important everyday. Matters of national importance, as the Times example demonstrates. But also on smaller, more personal scales. Why is information literacy limited to just what you do in the library or school? Isn't SPAM about information literacy? Isn't the mortgage crisis? Am I alone in thinking that much of what troubles us today related to our lack of PURSUING information. It's clearly not a lack of availability but rather our willingness to dig deeper and validate, evaluate, or THINK about it.
And I'm not sure how to teach that. I'm not sure how to develop that in students other than to encourage it and model it. Do you?
05 November 2008
Where does that election info come from?
Needless to say, I am
THRILLED
PUMPED
INVIGORATED
RELIEVED
Our little city in Vermont busted at the seams last night. As my husband put it in an email, "Burlington erupted - literally thousands of people in the streets running and shouting." He also added, "SFC spent most of the night with tears in her eyes."
It is an exciting time.
We watched the election results at True Majority's offices, which happen to be in the same office as my husband. We had three TVs and six online streams going, all of different channels. The one thing we couldn't get was Jon Stewart (but if you did, I'd love to hear about it!)
One of the things we were discussing was how the different stations report different numbers and different times. There was also a lot of discussion about how they can report with so few precincts reporting. At one point, they were reporting on states with as few as 3%! That just sounds like an awesome example of evaluating information if I ever heard one. With so many "trusted" sources giving out instantaneous information, is it a majority rules scenario? Or is there a way to know, really know, if what we are getting off of the news "true"? And does it even matter?
One of my students in my HIS415 Seminar on Contemporary World Issues is talking about how she felt like the reporting was more interested in "drama" than in reporting. For example, as soon as the polls closed on the West Coast, not only did they immediately report California, Oregon, and Washington, but they also reported Florida and Colorado within minutes. Again, a great point that emphasizes the struggles we face in finding information we can trust, especially in a world overwhelming us with information.
Here is a blog post from the NYT discussing "covering the coverage". I am on the hunt for some additional anaylsis. If you find it, share it.
THRILLED
PUMPED
INVIGORATED
RELIEVED
Our little city in Vermont busted at the seams last night. As my husband put it in an email, "Burlington erupted - literally thousands of people in the streets running and shouting." He also added, "SFC spent most of the night with tears in her eyes."
It is an exciting time.
We watched the election results at True Majority's offices, which happen to be in the same office as my husband. We had three TVs and six online streams going, all of different channels. The one thing we couldn't get was Jon Stewart (but if you did, I'd love to hear about it!)
One of the things we were discussing was how the different stations report different numbers and different times. There was also a lot of discussion about how they can report with so few precincts reporting. At one point, they were reporting on states with as few as 3%! That just sounds like an awesome example of evaluating information if I ever heard one. With so many "trusted" sources giving out instantaneous information, is it a majority rules scenario? Or is there a way to know, really know, if what we are getting off of the news "true"? And does it even matter?
One of my students in my HIS415 Seminar on Contemporary World Issues is talking about how she felt like the reporting was more interested in "drama" than in reporting. For example, as soon as the polls closed on the West Coast, not only did they immediately report California, Oregon, and Washington, but they also reported Florida and Colorado within minutes. Again, a great point that emphasizes the struggles we face in finding information we can trust, especially in a world overwhelming us with information.
Here is a blog post from the NYT discussing "covering the coverage". I am on the hunt for some additional anaylsis. If you find it, share it.
03 November 2008
28 October 2008
Teaching Students
I had a paper accepted at ACRL Seattle a few weeks ago. = Very cool. I will be bringing two students from Champlain's Emergent Media Center with me to talk about the process we have gone through in developing our new information literacy game. I have learned so much from these students about our approach to info lit and pedagogy. And I don't mean it in terms of just what's fun. They are tremendously creative and evaluative so they really push me to give session design my full attention. Talking with them often leads to long writing sessions afterwards where I try to put together my thoughts with the ideas we generate.
It's interesting to me how often we use the words "teach our students". For me, I have been fortunate to watch and learn from educators who view working with students as a two way street: we teach and they teach. Perhaps we are more intentional in our teaching but students teach me things all the time. And not just while I answer their reference questions. Just listening to them sort through a problem or respond to questions teaching me a great deal about the ways they use, understand, and relate to information and the library. But more so, they teach me about the world in which we live and how they participate in it. How do they interpret what is taught them at school? Are they learning? How does what they are learning relate to what we are seeing, doing, thinking, wanting? Especially when it comes to info lit, my goal continues to be to create skills that are applicable and injected into students' everyday lives. It's hard to know how to do that without really learning from students what they value, what they do, what they are interested in, what they are learning and wanting to learn.
Sometimes it is hard to create space for that kind of dual learning. Working on this project with Tim and Lauren has created a project dedicated to that kind of learning. We are collaborating, teaching one another, bringing our own strengths and vision to the table.
But what about when I'm not working on the proposal? When do I create spaces for that kind of teaching and learning? Where do I do it? Where do you?
It's interesting to me how often we use the words "teach our students". For me, I have been fortunate to watch and learn from educators who view working with students as a two way street: we teach and they teach. Perhaps we are more intentional in our teaching but students teach me things all the time. And not just while I answer their reference questions. Just listening to them sort through a problem or respond to questions teaching me a great deal about the ways they use, understand, and relate to information and the library. But more so, they teach me about the world in which we live and how they participate in it. How do they interpret what is taught them at school? Are they learning? How does what they are learning relate to what we are seeing, doing, thinking, wanting? Especially when it comes to info lit, my goal continues to be to create skills that are applicable and injected into students' everyday lives. It's hard to know how to do that without really learning from students what they value, what they do, what they are interested in, what they are learning and wanting to learn.
Sometimes it is hard to create space for that kind of dual learning. Working on this project with Tim and Lauren has created a project dedicated to that kind of learning. We are collaborating, teaching one another, bringing our own strengths and vision to the table.
But what about when I'm not working on the proposal? When do I create spaces for that kind of teaching and learning? Where do I do it? Where do you?
20 October 2008
The Part We Have to Play
Perhaps you are wondering where the Sheck has been as of late? And I don't mean the Sheck Spot, because I have been posting tidbits, but where is THE SHECK? The thoughtful posts, that get me to flesh out a question or an experience?
I've been wondering that myself. And two things come to mind:
1. Teaching. I've just finished the IL sessions for the 2nd Year Core courses, Champlain's nascent Gen Ed curriculum, and I am meeting with the other librarians tomorrow to rehearse for the 1st year courses, which start next week. I've been putting a lot into the design of these sessions and to collaborating with the ever energetic and amazing Andy Burkhardt to make these suckers work. And not just work but interest the students. Invigorate them. Engage them. Did it work...I think so. I hope so. I think so.
2. The Election. No one should be that surprised to know I am an Obama supporter. But I also am passionately interested in the way in which the digital, media entrenched world shapes the election. Even more interesting is how the digital world shapes our understanding and participation in elections, in democracy. And without question, it has. Sarah Silverman, Don't Vote, Yes We Can, We Are the Ones...full of famous folks, yes. But also aimed at informing and empowering voters, young voters, to participate and think about the world we live in and the opportunities that are before us.
So when I read this post by Ryan Deschamps, the wheels really started turning. Perhaps it was the wikipedia analogy that got me thinking:
Ryan, that's an idea worth running with. I mean, Forrest Gump style running.
But here's the part that I am stuck on. Ryan's analogy puts a hefty burden on everyday people: to educate themselves enough to make a quality decision. I am in no way suggesting that Joe the Plumber couldn't do that. My question is about WHERE they do that? HOW do they do that? Are we assuming that every one knows the difference between "good" information and "bad" information? Truth and lies? Facts and fiction?
If so, I'll be out of job.
If not...then we have a lot of work to do. And we is not just librarians. We is those of us that do know the difference. Those of us that have the skills and experience to discern between the shades of gray, at least as best as we are able. So videos that bring good looking people out to those of us in our pjs perusing YouTube is great. But we need more than just a Get Out the Vote campaign. We need everyone to have the tools and skills to make quality decisions. We need to find creative ways to educate more people about the issues in ways that they can understand and engage in, much like Andy and I have been trying to do with our students. We need to push our media, our politicians, our schools, but most importantly ourselves. Learning More Is Doing Something!
Which is why I am voting for Obama. Because in the end, the real message, the first message, and the one that still puts butterflies in my stomach is Yes WE Can. Not just him...Us. We. The People. We have a part to play, and it's time that we played it. Game on.
I've been wondering that myself. And two things come to mind:
1. Teaching. I've just finished the IL sessions for the 2nd Year Core courses, Champlain's nascent Gen Ed curriculum, and I am meeting with the other librarians tomorrow to rehearse for the 1st year courses, which start next week. I've been putting a lot into the design of these sessions and to collaborating with the ever energetic and amazing Andy Burkhardt to make these suckers work. And not just work but interest the students. Invigorate them. Engage them. Did it work...I think so. I hope so. I think so.
2. The Election. No one should be that surprised to know I am an Obama supporter. But I also am passionately interested in the way in which the digital, media entrenched world shapes the election. Even more interesting is how the digital world shapes our understanding and participation in elections, in democracy. And without question, it has. Sarah Silverman, Don't Vote, Yes We Can, We Are the Ones...full of famous folks, yes. But also aimed at informing and empowering voters, young voters, to participate and think about the world we live in and the opportunities that are before us.
So when I read this post by Ryan Deschamps, the wheels really started turning. Perhaps it was the wikipedia analogy that got me thinking:
To me, voting is the Wikipedia of our government. If alot of people participate, putting in quality thought and decision, then a wiki will provide excellent content. If people let the system be taken over by folks who just happen to show up, our system crumbles and can even be used for serious wrong-doing.
Ryan, that's an idea worth running with. I mean, Forrest Gump style running.
But here's the part that I am stuck on. Ryan's analogy puts a hefty burden on everyday people: to educate themselves enough to make a quality decision. I am in no way suggesting that Joe the Plumber couldn't do that. My question is about WHERE they do that? HOW do they do that? Are we assuming that every one knows the difference between "good" information and "bad" information? Truth and lies? Facts and fiction?
If so, I'll be out of job.
If not...then we have a lot of work to do. And we is not just librarians. We is those of us that do know the difference. Those of us that have the skills and experience to discern between the shades of gray, at least as best as we are able. So videos that bring good looking people out to those of us in our pjs perusing YouTube is great. But we need more than just a Get Out the Vote campaign. We need everyone to have the tools and skills to make quality decisions. We need to find creative ways to educate more people about the issues in ways that they can understand and engage in, much like Andy and I have been trying to do with our students. We need to push our media, our politicians, our schools, but most importantly ourselves. Learning More Is Doing Something!
Which is why I am voting for Obama. Because in the end, the real message, the first message, and the one that still puts butterflies in my stomach is Yes WE Can. Not just him...Us. We. The People. We have a part to play, and it's time that we played it. Game on.
17 October 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)