Beyond Information Literacy?

 

The differences between illiteracy, literacy and fluency are fuzzy, at best, when it comes to digital information competencies.

The Spring 2022 Feature article in the Full Circle Kit examines the lines between incompetence and fluency using the results of a study conducted by 21cif at Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development. 

The data suggests that a minimum competency for someone to be identified as 'literate' is a 60% success rate on search and retrieval tasks. The point at which fluency starts is less clear.

Read the whole article here

Online Security Guide for Parents

We regularly receive resources to share on our links site. The most recent is an article on Digital Safety for Children authored and published by WikiHow.

Online Security Guide for Parents
 

WikiHow's Guide features a concise glossary of terms and guidance on digital safety with links to external resources for the following topics:

cyberbullying (how to recognize and mitigate it)

online predators, grooming and private message etiquette

online privacy, content exposure and boundaries

monitoring Internet exposure and filtering media

managing screen time and fostering healthy relationship

If you are looking for helpful tips to share with parents or students, give it a read.

Winter 2022 Full Circle Kit Release

 

In the new Full Circle Kit for Winter 2022 we feature two guest authors.

Patrick Dennis, an Adobe associate, contacted us with a resource he helped develop on the topic of Plagiarism. It's an excellent overview of the subject, including these sub-sections:

What is plagiarism?

Types of plagiarism

Consequences and results of plagiarism

How to identify plagiarism

Using plagiarism detection tools

Recognizing common detection-avoidance tactics

How to prevent plagiarism

Prioritizing proper citation

Focus on time management

Understanding the gray areas

Resources for students and educators to avoid plagiarism

Read the full article here 

Also in this issue: The Importance of Information Fluency by Anna Medina

The Importance of Information Fluency

Today we feature a guest post from freelance author Anna Medina. She contacted us recently with this article about Information Fluency and its importance in writing and researching.

Why Information Fluency is Necessary to Be Efficient Today

By Anna Medina

Information fluency is a skill that not many people know of. And yet, it is by far one of the most important things you should know to be able to succeed today professionally and even more so as a researcher.

Information fluent individuals are able to consume information in a more critical and efficient way which allows them to become better learners, researchers, and professionals in their respective fields. Hence, here’s everything you should know about information fluency and how you can develop it in yourself.

What is information fluency?

To put it simply, information fluency (or information literacy) is a skill that allows you to evaluate and filter digital information before consuming it. In a way, information fluency is actually a set of skills. Once you have developed all of them, you become information fluent and can be more efficient when working with all kinds of information.

When it comes to the process itself, information fluency is applied at every stage of your research. It helps you locate and identify useful information, then retrieve and assess it, and finally use it to solve problems. Moreover, information fluent individuals are better learners are able to be more independent and critical while consuming information.

In some cases, information fluency is separated from information literacy. In this sense, information fluency is seen as a symbiosis of critical thinking, information literacy, and computer skills. Nevertheless, the essence of information fluency stays the same as it helps you achieve a particular set of goals.

What are the biggest benefits of information fluency?

Natasha Rooney, an expert in paper writing, says, “I do a lot of research on a daily basis. Every review of essay writing services I proofread has to be accurate and reliable. This is why I consider information fluency one of the most important skills in my arsenal. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to do my job right and to consume information while actually filtering it rather than doing so absent-mindedly.”

Indeed, information fluency is extremely useful for doing research. But besides that, there are some other benefits to having this skill, namely:

• Learning in class and training to increase qualifications
• Better decision-making and problem-solving capabilities
• More productivity and efficiency at work

What are the most important information fluency skills?

George McConaughey, an expert from an essay editing service reviews site, explains, “Information fluency can’t really be simplified to a single skill. It’s a set of different skills you need to develop to truly understand how to work with information effectively. It’s valuable both for researchers and for professionals in all kinds of fields.”

The most common information fluency skills include:

• Digital citizenship (safety and ethics when using information)
• Researching and locating information (offline and online)
• Critical thinking (at every stage of research)
• Navigating digital information online
• Evaluating sources (relevant, reliable, and credible)
• Summarizing, paraphrasing, and note-taking
• Creating and presenting information products
• Avoiding plagiarism, referencing, and citing
• Reflecting on the learning process

If you build and develop these skills enough, you will be able to determine your information needs and set appropriate goals. Then, you will be able to find and evaluate information. Once you have the information, you will be able to use it to solve problems. Lastly, you will be able to analyze your learning process and correctly reference the information you used.

How can I develop information fluency?

Whether you work for an essay writing service as a writer or you are currently doing research as part of your Ph.D., there are several main ways for you to develop your information fluency skills:

• Higher Education: Your first option is higher education of almost any kind. In most higher education institutions such as universities and institutes, you will be developing critical thinking skills, referencing and citing skills, researching skills, and others. All of these will help you eventually become more information fluent.
• Online Courses: Another option for you is to enroll in online courses. In this case, you will probably need to choose several different courses to help you develop different skills relevant to information fluency. For example, you can look for courses that focus on cybersecurity to learn more about digital citizenship. At the same time, if your courses require you to complete assignments (such as essays or presentations), you will naturally develop skills relevant to information fluency.
• Self-Learning: If you are on a tight budget or prefer to self-study, then self-learning might be the best choice for you. In this case, you will need to look for relevant offline and online resources to learn more about information fluency. These resources can be anything from books to articles to videos.
• Practice: Practicing your information fluency skills is crucial for you to perfect them. No matter which of the three routes you choose (higher education, online courses, self-learning), you will definitely need to practice as much as possible. Always consume information with a critical approach rather than doing so passively.

Some sources you can use to get started with information fluency include:

• 21CIF: One of the best websites to start from when learning about information fluency. This is your definitive starting point to find out as much about the topic as possible.
• Google Scholar: Throughout your research, you will need a reliable tool to find as many relevant sources as possible. Google Scholar is one of the most popular choices when it comes to such tools.
• Encyclopedia Britannica: While Wikipedia might have a lot of information on all kinds of topics, it’s better to rely on more academic-based websites such as Encyclopedia Britannica.

General tips to follow when developing your information fluency skill set:

• Use the 5As Strategy: The 5As of information fluency are Ask, Acquire, Analyze, Apply, and Assess. Ask meaningful questions that are relevant to the information you want to find. Acquire relevant, reliable, and credible information from offline and online sources. Analyze the information you have acquired to filter and organize it. Apply the knowledge you have from your information to answer the questions you had or to solve the problem you were working on. Assess your research process and decide what could have been done more efficiently.
• Read Relevant Literature: Practicing your information fluency skills is important, but you can’t do it right unless you have seen previous examples of it. This is why reading relevant literature will be so useful. The academic texts you find will have reference lists that you can check to better understand how citing and referencing works. Likewise, the wording the authors use can be a great example for you to understand how summarizing and paraphrasing can be done right.
• Never Stop Learning: Just like with any other skill, improving your information fluency requires you to engage in a continuous learning process. Once you have mastered the basics of information fluency, you will need to move on to more advanced skills while working to improve the level of your current skills.

Final Thoughts

All in all, information fluency is definitely a much-needed skill set for many researchers and professionals. By developing the skills associated with information fluency, you will be able to consume information more critically and efficiently. Use the tips in this article to help you get started and begin working on your own information fluency.

About the Author

Anna Medina has enjoyed writing ever since her university years. Upon graduating from the Interpreters Department, she realized that translation was not as interesting as freelance writing. She practices her skills writing on a variety of topics.

 

Source: https://21cif.com/fullcircle/winter2022/feature2

Sixth Bad Apple Case

 

Just added: a new Bad Apple evaluation challenge: Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

For years, we've used the endangered Pacific Tree Octopus as a test case to teach investigative searching skills:

• URL truncation
• Site browsing
  
• Fact Checking
• Ownership
• Purpose

Now you can test your investigative savvy using six criteria: Author, Publisher, Bias, Freshness, Backlinks and Fact Checking.

Give it a try. If you've never read about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus before, you really owe it to yourself. 

Start here

A Fourth BAD APPLE Challenge

Just added, another BAD APPLE Challenge:

• Challenge 4: North Shore Whale Watching
  

 

Here's a trustworthy tourism site with a section on whales in Lake Superior.

All four challenges are available without a subscription. Try them out today!

https://21cif.com///tutorials

Do you have a page or site you'd like to nominate for this evaluation tutorial? We're going to add a fifth challenge soon. Let us know if you have one to recommend.

Bad Apples

 

Introducing the (re)release of Bad Apples, a series of do-it-yourself evaluation tutorials.

With the demise of Adobe Flash, a lot of interactive games and tutorials on the 21st Century Information Fluency site were forced into early retirement. Over time, many of these resources were rewritten so they work on current Internet browsers. 

We're pleased to announce the return of BAD APPLES, a series of challenges to strengthen investigative searching.

Presently, one challenge is available and it doesn't require an annual membership.  Challenge #1 features New Zealand Golf Cross, a site that's been around since 1998. To play, individuals research six apples (elements that determine credibility):

1. Authorship
2. Publisher
3. Freshness
4. Bias
5. Backlinks
6. Fact checking

A player then drags each apple to either the GOOD APPLE or BAD APPLE basket, depending on their assessment. One point is earned for each correct assessment. A comprehensive analysis of the site provides insights into what makes the site trustworthy or not as well as these strategies for conducting an effective investigation:

1. How to find valuable information on a site
2. How to determine site ownership
3. How to determine the 'last modified' date
4. How to detect types of bias
5. How to find external reviews of site content
6. How to fact check and where to look, including Google Scholar 

Once learned, these skills apply to all Internet content.

Ready to play?  Start Here: https://21cif.com/tutorials/evaluation/badapple/

Watch for more Challenges to come!

Information Fluency in a Nutshell

Most sites that provide resources to help individuals improve their ability to locate, evaluate and use information from online sources describe those competencies as "information literacy." A few, like 21cif.com prefer the term "information fluency."

What is information fluency in a nutshell?

 Briefly stated, we believe fluency depends on knowing how to:

ask searchable questions

create optimal queries

choose an appropriate Database for searching

query unfamiliar Databases

browse unfamiliar Webpages and Databases

interpret a URL

truncate a URL

skim and scan

use the Find Command

locate information about an author, a publisher, date of publication and secondary references

fact check

detect bias

read to evaluate the relevance and credibility of information sources and content

format a citation

The resources on our site all address these competencies. Here's a sampling:

Asking searchable questions: Keyword Challenges

Creating Optimal queries: Search Challenges

Browsing: Browsing Challenges

Locate the author: Author Tutorials

Locate the date: Date Detective

And many more... For complete access to all materials, consider an affordable annual membership. Membership has its benefits!

Twitter fooled by Fake Candidate

A few election cycles ago, there was the story of Susie Flynn running for President. It was a hoax published by a media company to attract attention. It made for a pretty good fact checking evaluation challenge. Here's an archived reminder of the story.

In today's news is a story about a 17-year old who fabricated a Senate candidate named Andrew Walz and managed to get Twitter to verify the fake as legitimate.  Here's some of the story from CNN:

"Earlier this month, Walz's account received a coveted blue check mark from Twitter as part of the company's broader push to verify the authenticity of many Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates currently running for office. Twitter has framed this effort as key to helping Americans find reliable information about politicians in the lead up to the 2020 election."

Not until the 17-year old's parents came forward with the story did anyone notice the problem.

One takeaway is that if a bored teen can exploit Twitter's election integrity efforts, what else is that publisher missing?

We are foolish if we allow others to think for us, assuring us what to believe, what to trust. There is really no substitute for honing our skills and taking time to do our own vetting.

The story of Andrew Walz is another wake up call to practice fact checking.  What details in Andrew Walz's campaign can't be verified? Post your answers below.

More on fact checking here.

Elementary Workshop Refreshed

Especially for those who teach younger students, the Elementary Workshop is a user-guided resource that may be used to introduce and reinforce concepts and skills in information fluency in the elementary grades.

An assortment of hands-on learning activities and games, with and without computers, is included in the workshop:

Speculative Searching

• ways to search
• queries
• homing in
• search challenges

Investigative Searching

• find the author
• find the date
• fact checking

Citing the Source

There's enough material to insert into mini-lessons throughout the school year. Check it out here: https://21cif.com/rkitp/course/elementaryworkshop/index.php

Information Researcher is up and running

 

A refresh of Information Researcher is now available. This assessment and tutorial package identifies weaknesses and strengthens skills in information fluency.

The subscription package consists of a six item Pretest, followed by a 9 unit set of interactive tutorials on all information fluency skills. A ten item Certification Exam concludes the learning experience. This was originally developed for the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University and has been revised based on user feedback.

A free preview of the Tutorials is available here.

To test your information fluency skills, try the Three Free Search Challenges, adapted from the Pretest.

US students fall short in 'fake news' digital literacy tasks

Finnish sources recently shared the results of a study at an international school in which students "significantly outperformed U.S. students on tasks which measure digital literacy in social media and online news." source

The study suggests the differences are due to the way the Finnish curricula facilitates students' critical thinking skills, compared to the US.  In the Finnish International Baccalaureate school, critical thinking skills are taught explicitly in dedicated courses as well as the more traditional core subjects. In the US, critical thinking instruction occurs implicitly into subject coursework. For example, a course called Theory of Knowledge is aimed at developing critical thinking skills. Other courses extend this development in subject matter areas.

One takeaway from this study is the benefits to students who receive explicit instruction in critical thinking throughout the curriculum. Stanford University researchers, upon whose work this research is based, has labeled US students' abilities to discern fake news 'dismaying' and 'bleak.' 

Programs for facilitating critical thinking, when it comes to fake news, are available on sites such as Information Fluency. What is needed is the will of educational leaders to dedicate space in curriculum and instruction to their application.

Here are just a few of the resources that are available around which to design a course or embed in traditional subject matter:

15 Challenges (includes 8 Challenges on Investigative Searching/Thinking)
WSI (Website Investigator)
Author Tutorial (Investigative Searching/Thinking)
Publisher Tutorial
Bias Tutorial
Freshness Tutorial

The results of the study may be found in the April 2019 Journal of Research in International Education.

Introducing the 15 Challenges

Confused by where or how to get started on the path to Information Fluency?

Introducing the 15 Challenges, a new portal to Information Fluency. By completing these fifteen challenges, users are introduced to essential digital searching and evaluation tasks that include:

• browsing
• truncation
• effective keyword queries
• basic operators
• finding better keywords in snippets
• database selection
• evaluating an author
• evaluating a publisher
• detecting bias
• checking online reputation
• fact checking
• freshness checking
• creating proper citations

Try it for yourself here: https://21cif.com/INTERNETSEARCHCHALLENGE/

Read more about the 15 Challenges in the Spring 2019 Full Circle Resource Kit

Advanced Searching

As part of developing curriculum strands to make it easier to use our site, we're pleased to announce a new MicroModule on Advanced Searching. Several of the search challenges we've authored involve using an unfamiliar database/search engine. In all these cases, the sites have their own advanced search filters, specifically, proprietary drop-down menu guides.

Since valuable information is found only in dedicated databases (there's one for almost any topic or subject), knowing how to use an unfamiliar search engine is part of information fluency that should not be overlooked.

You can find the new MicroModule here.

98% Gullibility?

"Only 2 per cent of children and young people can tell if a news story is real or fake, according to a survey published today."

The survey is from the  All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy and the National Literacy Trust.

Read more here: https://www.tes.com/news/pupils-lack-literacy-skills-spot-fake-news 

For resources to help students identify Fake News, visit https://21cif.com/fullcircle/fall2017/index.php (requires an annual membership). Free resources, start here: https://21cif.com/tutorials/micro/index.php

Summer Full Circle Resource Kit

Bias Detection is the newest Kit in the Full Circle series.

One of the most popular MicroModules on the Information Fluency site is Bias. Becoming sensitive to bias and knowing that not everything in print or images is neutral or objective is one way to prevent unguarded consumption of fake or distorted news. Bias can be hard to detect, especially when a reader finds it agreeable.

The Feature article examines a front page case where bias was overlooked, resulting in shooting up a pizzeria thought to be a front for pedophile sex abuse in Washington DC.

Curricular Connections provides a helpful checklist for identifying and discussing incidents of bias in non-fiction and images.

Six interactive examples of biased and unbiased articles and one image are packaged in the Assessment section to help students evaluate bias. A score of 80% accuracy indicates fluency in detecting bias.

The Kit requires a subscription, but for a limited time, the feature article is free.

https://21cif.com//fullcircle/summer2018/index.php

A New Framework for Fluency?

This article caught my eye today:

Reimagining Information Literacy Competencies 
by Barbie E. Keiser
Posted On July 29, 2014





'The task force was charged with updating the information literacy competency standards for higher education “so that they reflect the current thinking on such things as the creation and dissemination of knowledge, the changing global higher education and learning environment, the shift from information literacy to information fluency, and the expanding definition of information literacy to include multiple literacies, e.g., transliteracy, media literacy, digital literacy, etc.”'

Full article

The higher education community has always been at the forefront of the information "literacy" movement. This new thinking represents new challenges for high schools, middle schools and elementary schools to redefine how they prepare students for college and personally motivated research.

One wonders if it will renew interest in information preparedness in primary and secondary schools, and how.

 

Information Students Care About

Motivation, no doubt, is a factor in how well students search, evaluate and use digital information. If you really care about the information you seek and find, you'll probably do some things differently.

If the motivation is extrinsic or intrinsic may matter less than if the information is deemed important or not. For many, it may boil down to 'do I really care about this information?'

Please understand, I'm a huge fan of intrinsic motivation. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was my dissertation chair. I aim for flow in most of what I do. Learning (in the long run) is better when intrinsically motivated. But extrinsic motivation is also effective at getting results (think: grades, money, respect, etc.). School assignments are typically structured with extrinsic incentives--or punishments--because students won't do them voluntarily. Things like grades and privileges are effective short-term motivators.

Searching, evaluating and using information are generally short-term tasks. Of these three, thorough evaluation may involve considerable time and effort, but as presented in most assignments, these three are seen as stepping stones--sub-tasks--to a larger task of learning subject-matter. If students really care about the subject matter--if they think it is important--they may perform better at these sub-tasks.

Most of the challenges I offer through this blog try to be relevant to students, but they may not be important. I'd have to know the interests of specific students to do a better job at choosing challenges based on importance. What I have to opt for is a range of topics that involve searching (and evaluation) competencies.

Librarians and teachers who work with specific students, on the other hand, can offer 'important' search challenges. To that end, the examples you find here are representative searches. They may or may not work well because students care or don't care about them. The challenge for educators is to find--or create--challenges students really do care about. That, I believe, will help achieve more lasting results and greater information fluency.

Resolutions for Information Fluency

If becoming more fluent in digital information is one of your goals for 2012, I have a few suggestions. Readers are welcome to add to the list!

1. Think before you search. What exactly am I looking for?  You may have only a vague idea what you need, but be as clear about what you know as you can be. Choose the clearest keywords for your queries.  Two to five keywords is a good rule of thumb.
2. Think before you search. Who would know the answer I am looking for? Where would that person or organization keep its information? If your goal is to find trustworthy information, seek out recognized experts.
3. Look carefully at your search results. Better keywords are often hidden in the results. There's a good chance you will strengthen your vocabulary in the process.
4. Fact check your findings. It takes only seconds to pull strong keywords out of posts or articles to see if facts hold up.
5. Don't take the first answer you find. Taking the fastest route possible should not be confused with characteristics of fluency. Fast answers may also be wrong answers.

That's a reasonable start.

Yes, There's a Need - Part 3

When people aren't sure what else to do, they resort to browsing.

While using a query or truncating a url might be a faster solution to a search problem, if a person isn't sure what else to do, he or she will browse. Even the best searchers do this. (And almost every search ends by browsing.)

Browsing is typically the least efficient of the three main search methods. Using a search engine is the quickest and using a subject directory (0r menu) can get one closer to the target in fewer clicks. But there's something fundamentally satisfying or comforting about browsing that makes it a preferred method.

In terms of satisfaction, browsing provides immediate feedback. You still have to scan the surroundings to determine what the feedback says about getting closer or not to your objective, but it's a bit like low stakes gambling and pretty addictive.

Nonetheless, browsing is not a good substitute technique much of the time. For example, I got an email recently about a link being changed on one of the pages associated with a particular search challenge. The page to be investigated really didn't call for browsing, but that's what this individual was doing when he or she discovered the changed link (it wasn't dead, it now pointed to something unrelated). The optimal technique is a string search of a statement to see if it is considered truthful by external sources. Following page links will not achieve this. In fact, browsing tends to confirm the truthfulness of the statement because the links provided on the page reflect the bias, not the objectivity, of the author.

Here's my advice: think before you browse. Ask yourself, is there another technique I know that might be more efficient or suited to the task? If not, ask yourself, what keywords am I looking for that will tell me I'm getting closer? You don't need to compile such a list first. Just being sensitive to the question will help you evaluate the keywords in the links you come across. Some will bear a closer relationship to your target than others.

I ended up removing the page with the (misleading) links from the tutorial challenge. It hadn't occurred to me that anyone would try to follow them, so I hadn't vetted them. Some led to objectionable content. Now the page has no links. The only way to answer the question is to use the preferred technique. Of course, if you don't know what that technique is, you're sunk.

Here's the challenge: http://untaughtgeneration.com/obama-quote.html