Are we fighting a losing battle?

To begin, I love real live paper books. They are nice to hold and to flip through, easy on the eyes, easy to share and manage. All of this is important.

However, I also think it is a bit closed minded to consider the question of print or electronic resources to be a battle. At the moment, there is a key distinction between anything print and anything digital, namely around access. Until access to digital versions of all out print texts becomes as easy, as pleasant, and as available to everyone in all circumstances, print will always differ completely from digital. However, once we get there, an ebook and a print book will be exactly the same resource, just like hard cover and paperback. They will need librarians to manage them, too, remember, and libraries to hold them, even if they look a little different.

The difference to consider, then, is between:

Static resources - print and ebooks; peer-edited, (usually) reliable, purposefully structured but not quite current and not interactive

Fluid resources - websites, databases, wikipedia; constantly updated, interactive, cross-linked, but not necessarily subject to academic rigour (although not impossible), and with a differently designed, less controlled structure.

Each of these types have different purposes and uses in research and question answering, but whether the words are printed on a screen or a piece of paper is not the issue.

Until our user interfaces become as intuitive and print books, and everyone has as easy access to digital versions as print versions, the dynamic between print and digital is an issue. Right now, print resources can come back to a student’s desk, be carried home, and be browsed intuitively. By contrast, digital resources stay where the computer is, and students rarely can access them as easily as print. Also, each print resource can be used by a different student at once, can be shared and traded easily. Meanwhile, only the number of students as have workstations can get at digital materials. Print resources can automatically be given a certain amount of authority, as being checked and reviewed is inherent in the way they are produced. All these are important considerations, but it is very possible that technology will catch up with all of these.

I’m not saying that I think digital resources are better and we should abandon print books, but I do think that before too terribly long, there won’t be any difference.

Biases regarding reference formats

I think we all have a bias when it comes to the electronic vs print question. For myself, I think that I equally value both electronic and print. They both have a place, and should both be used. When I’m teaching, I don’t mind which they use. This, however, doesn’t mean I don’t have biases about it. I come from the generation of internet research, and of Wikipedia, and my bias is very strong there.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that I think Wikipedia is great. Is it always reliable? No, but neither are many other online sources (for the same reason), and neither are many print sources (because knowledge changes and they don’t). If evaluating information is a key part of information literacy, then surely teachers’ and librarians’ insistence on No Wikipedia! is poor information literacy? We should be reading everything critically, not automatically trusting or distrusting sources. Also, I’ve never come across a crass error. Missing or unclear technical details do occur, but at the elementary level, how much technical detail do we need? The writing is sometimes unclear, but again, let’s assess on a case by case basis. In terms of question-answering reference sources, it is fast, usually accurate, well laid-out, extensively cross-referenced, and easy to navigate. It is a great place to look up definitions, or to gather basic information about a topic. We of course need to check with other sources as well if it is formal research and not just a casual query, but shouldn’t that always be true? Surely the requirement for a permitted reference source isn’t “perfect”.

I am a teacher, and I like Wikipedia. No embarrassed reservations, explanations, or excuses.

Research Models

I found the discussion regarding research models to be very interesting. It seems that in order to select an appropriate model, and to rewrite it in child-friendly language, one needs to carefully consider the terminology used. The only way to really know what is going to be effective is to take a step back and look at the goals of teaching research from a pedagogical standpoint. The various stage of the model in use and the terminology used to express this model need to fulfill the goals and learning objectives at hand.

According to Riedling, the information literacy process has five basic steps (p. 6):

1. A need for information
2. a question
3. the search for information
4. an answer or response
5. an evaluation

These steps allow students to fulfill the goals of information literacy: “the abilities to access, comprehend, use, and evaluate information.” (p.6)

As a teacher on call, I have no classroom currently and only have a year’s experience teaching full time, so I am currently less engrossed with the practical and feasibility of these issues. When I have worked as a new teacher, however, my focus quickly becomes what will they do for the next 45 min? rather than how will I achieve and evaluate the learning outcomes? Certainly, this is an imperative consideration as well, seeing as the model has to work or no nobly considered goals will be achieved. Nonetheless, I found I could not agree with the common opinion criticising the terminology of Big6 model that Jennifer explained succinctly on May 17: “Like Brooke, I prefer the easily understood term "communicate" to the more abstract "synthesis." I also prefer "reflect" to "assessment" or "evaluation" because it is a broader term less likely to restrict students to a statement of success or failure.” While these are important issues, I found that in order to reflect the pedagogical goals at hand, the terminology used in the Big6 is more appropriate, as I explained in my post on May 21:

I think that the focus on synthesis of information over the presentation or product is a key concept for students. The goal here is not to produce a report, but for learning to occur. As to reflection versus evaluation, I think that evaluation is far more relevant. This should be a critical thinking process, in which the evaluation of method and results should be emphasized. … The research process should be focused, rather, on problem solving and critical thinking, as these are foundational to information literacy.

Synthesis and evaluation are both common key terms when referring to information literacy, and thus need to be in place in the research model. Synthesis may be a difficult term to use with young children, but “communication” does not adequately fulfill the pedagogical goals. As well, students should be able to evaluate and assess their own work and the quality of their answer as well as the sources they are using. The idea that students may have that evaluation is about failure or success is a misunderstanding of an important word that should be addressed rather than ignored.

Definitions

Not having any real experience working in a library, I was expecting there to be words in the glossary that I was unfamiliar with. I came into the course with little specific knowledge and little experience teaching information literacy, with only a love of books and other materials to bolster my knowledge of reference materials. Reading the index, I found that there were a good number of acronyms that are used primarily in the United States, something to be expected. What I did not expect was the intersection of school library and public library concepts.

What struck me the most, and what I commented on in the discussion is the relation between:

Bibliographic Instruction: Any activity designed to teach students how to locate and use information
Information Literacy:The ability to access, comprehend, use, and evaluate information

Reading this, bibliographic instruction initially struck me as an outdated version of information literacy, or at least a concept of a limited scope that should be a small piece of what makes up information literacy. However, while I know a bit about information literacy as it was certainly an important topic when I did my B.Ed, I had come across this term. I wondered what its practical application was, and if it is commonly used currently and in Canada.

I explained these wonderings in my comment on the discussion on May 14:

Is the key difference regarding the "location of the information" in bibliographic instruction, as opposed the the comprehension cited for information literacy? Surely, though, the "access" in information literacy includes finding it? Location is certainly included in my understanding of information literacy.
Could bibliographic instruction simply be used to refer to the teaching of information literacy? Are they parallel terms from different schools of thought, one of which is not used here?

Anne confirmed my suspicions, when she explained that “Bibliographic instruction predated "info literacy" and actually refers to teaching patrons how to use a library, and more specifically in academic settings teaching undergrads the joys of the Library of Congress classification system.”

By contrast, however, Riedling describes it as “an expression widely used and accepted in the modern library world. It is defined as any activity that is designed to teach students how to locate and use information…teaching lifelong learning skills” (p. 5)

All this leaves me wondering still. Possible, bibliographic instruction could be the action of teaching the skill we can information literacy, although this more common term isn’t mentioned in the textbook’s explanation. Additionally, the glossary definition doesn’t line up with the in-text explanation, which closely parallels the glossary definition of information literacy. I concluded, in the end, that the ambiguity presented by Riedling is likely a product of the intersection worlds of school and public libraries, of the difference in terms in the US, and of the fact that the book is 6 years old and may not quite align with the current quickly changing world of information literacy.