Information literacy: not just for students

Good Internet research skills are important for teachers, too. This article provides an introduction to "information literacy" concepts and a list of references for teachers and media specialists.

By Diane Kester

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• Finding, not searching: You can work smarter, not harder, by determining your searching style, learning more about what your searches return and why, and learning to look in the right place first.
• Tools of the trade for information seekers: A guide to understanding and using search engines, directories, and the invisible web.
• Jump start your creativity: question yourself!: A short webliography of tools to help you ask good questions.

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While visiting an after-school Community Technology Center this spring, I watched over the shoulder of several young people as they typed in their impressions of using the Internet and why it was important to them. One young lady was expounding on all the wonderful information she could find to help her in her school reports by using the Internet. She had completely forgotten about the resources available on the school server and through the books and other materials in the school media center. She just knew there was lots of information out there in cyberspace.

I made another observation from an e-mail message from a graduate student telling me she never went to the library any more. She just used the Internet now. She had not even checked out the web pages for her library to discover all the electronic resources available.

In both situations, the users were dramatically aware of the millions of pages of information that are available today via the Internet. In fact, there are so many hosts and pages that no one dares to give a number since it will change by the minute. The count is over 190 million at this time. So, how do we go about mining this information-intense resource to collect the rich ore within?

Media coordinators have taught information skills since school libraries began. The format of the resource did not matter and content was the emphasis. Library skills evolved into Information Skills, Visual Literacy, and Information Literacy, and now the latest term is Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy.

But what about the professionals — the teachers, administrators, and media coordinators? Have they adjusted their information seeking skills as information resources have evolved? We teach students how to plan their strategies for searching CD-ROM and online databases, but are the strategies applied by teachers when they do Internet searching?

What strategies should teachers, media coordinators, technology facilitators, and administrators be using as they mine the Internet to address informational needs? It is important to know how knowledge is organized in order to learn how to find information. Additionally, it is important to know how the searching tools on the Internet work — the difference between a search engine and a searching directory and how words are located.

Many schools have developed starting pages or portals for student use of the Internet. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) has published "Educational Web Portals: Guidelines for Selection and Use."

But where does the adult go for guidance? Where are the portals for graduate students? There is a slogan on a bookmark and poster, “The ultimate search engine @ your library.” But how have librarians and media coordinators learned about Internet searching? Locating relevant information is a part of the education for librarianship. Librarians have been searching paper indexes, reference books, and online databases long before the Internet became readily available to the population. Although there are many strategies that can be used, here is one that has worked through the years.

1. Determine if the information might be in print format or on local database resources before going to the Internet.
2. Determine if you are looking for scholarly articles, in which case you would use tools such as found on NCLive, available through public and academic libraries; or NCWiseOwl, available through your public school libraries.
3. Identify the search tool that would most likely include your topic. (See Major Search Engines.)
4. Before beginning the search, identify a key word. Then list one or more synonyms. If you are searching for a phrase, list the second word and then identify one or synonyms of that word.
5. Combine the topics using Boolean operators, AND, OR, NOT. Use the Advanced Features of the searching tool.
6. Advanced searching can utilize proximity operators (NEAR, WITH), truncation, and wildcards.
7. Learn to watch how the searching tool ranks the hits. Is there an indication by stars, percentage, or other ranking?
8. Be familiar with evaluation of web pages — the address, the author, the date, the viewpoint.

Some excellent resources are listed below. Readers may not have an opportunity to read and study each one, but they are worth bookmarking for a return visit. Become a savvy Internet user and you will find that teaching your students will become an extension of your own experiences.

References

• "The Big 6: Information Literacy for the Information Age." (25 May 2002).
• Burke, Jennifer. "Educational Web Portals: Guidelines for Selection and Use." (25 May 2002).
• Canning, Ann B. ; Symons, Anne/; Jansen, Barbara A.; and Serim, Ferdi. "The Importance of Contemporary Literacy in the Digital Age: A Response to Digital Transformation: A Framework for ICT Literacy." Big6 Associates, LLC, 2001, 2002.
• "Criteria For Evaluating Web Sites." Educational Resources Evaluation Services. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (25 May 2002).
• Directory of Online Resources for Information Literacy (27 May 2002).
• Dodge, Bernie. "Four NETS for Better Searching." (25 May 2002).
• "Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial." (25 May 2002).
• Habib, David P. and Balliot, Robert L. "How to Search the World Wide Web: A Tutorial for Beginners and Non-Experts." September 19, 1999, updated August 1, 2000. (25 May 2002).
• "Internet & Electronic Research Skills" (Modern Library and Research Skills Series). 1 videocassette with teacher’s guide 24 min. $79.95. SVE, 1999. SearchEngine Watch.
• "The Major Search Engines" (27 May 2002).
• "Searching For Information On the World Wide Web." , c2000 (25 May 2002).
• Student.gov. "Student Gateway to the U.S. Government." (27 May 2002).
• Sullivan, Danny. "How Search Engines Work." (27 May 2002).