Blog Post #2 - ISCI 761: Information Literacy
This module's readings really stuck with me, especially because I feel like the prevalence of poor information literacy is at an all time high. Many are quick to blame the teenagers, much like the ones I teach on a daily basis. My students don't know how to evaluate, question, or even effectively communicate the information they share, simply because they do not know how. However, my generation is not much better, and I will be the first to own up to this. It is almost scary how much information we can access, and most of it is right at our fingertips. It almost feels like we live in survival mode with the swarms of misinformation and things like "clickbait" flooding our feeds.
The podcast episode "Fake News and Media Literacy" by The Liturgists left a lasting impression on me. This particular episode focuses on how we, as humans, have almost become information gluttons; we are often unable to separate the facts and truth from the intriguing headlines. To me, this directly connects to Joyce Valenza's article, "Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world." Valenza calls for librarians to "update our own skill sets and toolkits to guide students in navigating a growingly nuanced universe of news. We must also examine and recognize our own biases so that we are open to contrary and conflicting ideas" (Valenza, 2016). We will not be guaranteed truth from any source; we must be cautious, and teach students to be that way as well.
Over the past few years, I have been a bit more conscious of my information diet. I fall victim to "doomscrolling" quite often, and I will have to catch myself multiple times when I come across something that may or may not be true. I ask myself questions like, Who wrote this?, Why was this posted?, What point is it trying to get across? If I am not actively trying to better myself for my future profession, then what is the point? I have also noticed it makes me feel less anxious about things I see online, and more like I am in control. Like I said before, there is a lot of information out there. You never know what you will run into.
The information diet of a school librarian should reflect a lot of what Joyce Valenza discussed. To be in a role that cultivates learning in a school, we should be cognizant of what we are absorbing and the sources it is coming from. Reliable news outlets provide a variety of perspectives, educational technology websites help teach about new and developing tools, and media literacy research will help ensure students are on safe and correct paths. Common Sense Media's News & Media Literacy Resource Center as well as their Digital Citizenship curriculum provide school librarians with tools needed to help shape the next generation into digitally literate citizens, and who knows, it may help us too.
Overall, this week's readings really made me sit back and think about who I am as a future school librarian. Going forward, I will be sure to always be aware of the information I am taking in, and whether or not it is true, useful, or valuable.
Patten, B. M. (2014). Is Your Information Diet Well-Balanced? [Image]. Retrieved from https://brianclaessonpatten.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/is-your-information-diet-well-balanced/.
References
Digital citizenship. Common Sense Education. (n.d.). https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship
Gungor, M. (Host). (2017, March 7). Fake news and media literacy [Audio podcast episode]. In The liturgists podcast. The Liturgists. https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/fake-news-media-literacy/id903433534?i=1000382332635
News and Media Literacy Resource Center. Common Sense Education. (n.d.). https://www.commonsense.org/education/news-media-literacy-resource-center
Valenza, J. (2016). Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world. School Library Journal. https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/11/26/truth-truthiness-triangulation-and-the-librarian-way-a-news-literacy-toolkit-for-a-post-truth-world/
I love that you already ask yourself who wrote the information you are reading and for what purpose. So many take the information they read at face value and don't bother to question the source and what biases they may hold. I thought that the podcast was very insightful in its statement that there is no information that comes without bias. Just because something is true from one person's perspective does not make it equally true for someone else. I thought their comments about the way that the media places emphasis on certain topics to either entice readers to keep reading with sensational headings or sway their way of thinking and devalue competing viewpoints was an important observation. Not only must we teach our students to weed out fact from fiction, but we must also ensure that they look at facts critically to ensure that they understand the intention of the source, so they can insure the information adequately meets their needs.
ReplyDeleteIt really is scary how people don't know how to evaluate or question the information they receive. I teach 2nd grade and one of my standards in social studies if for students to evaluate and assess whether a resource is valid or not. One assignment has students watch a video about how spaghetti is grown on trees. Before we watched the video I asked students how spaghetti was made. They said from dough. To prove a point I told them it wasn't and showed them this video. It looked like a valid documentary and after we watched it one of my students said "oh man! my whole life I thought spaghetti came from dough. I've been wrong this whole time". Now... this student qualified for GT in third grade. I was shocked that he believed the video. After watching we had a discussion about how reliable sources can be and it's important to check sources. Upon researching this source the students were shown that this source was created by BBC for an April Fools day joke. I stressed the importance of checking sources. It made me realize this year (I've taught this for about 4 years now) that our students just go with what people say. They are not always given the tools they need to look into whether a source is valid or not. Educators are the people that need to provide these resources because many of the parents now were born during the time when internet was already available and they might also believe everything they read.
ReplyDeletePS. my student was very relieved to know his "Whole life" wasn't a lie.
Your connection between the podcasts description of people becoming information gluttons and the Truth, Truthiness and Triangulation article is so very important, especially the phrase you quoted of librarians need to update their skill sets. When I listened to that podcast episode and heard him describing the scenario of the misrepresentation of numerical data, I am reminded of a course I recently took on data visualization. we discussed how so many numbers and graphs are misrepresented to further a particular narrative. It is definitely a skill to be able to recognize misleading graphics. I am currently a science teacher and whenever we talk about creating and interpreting graphs and charts, I always stress the importance of accurately representing their data and looking at the specifics of a graph like the axis intervals and labels in order to fully read what the graph is telling you. That same concept would be useful for recognizing mininformation presented in graphs and charts.
ReplyDelete