Teaching for Information Literacy

Once a student has selected a topic and done substantial background reading they should be able to focus on one specific issue related to the topic. It should be a manageable aspect that is not too big nor too small.

If the focus is too specific than they may not find sufficient resources and if it is too large they may find themselves overwhelmed with information and not able to deal with the topic effectively.

It should be an important problem or a controversy within the topic itself. This does not mean that student should only choose major societal controversies to research but they should reflect on the issues within the field in which they are interested. For example, snow boarding… any type of musical genre… horse care and maintenance…

Controversial issues produce provocative essays, videos, blog postings, and podcasts because they are usually widely written about and they provide an opportunity to test conflicting interpretations, perspectives and values.

Obtaining an Overview: Using an Encyclopedia and the Textbook
Encyclopedia are excellent tools for gaining a general understanding about a topic. They provide a broader context of the research and in general terms explain what is known about the topic. Classroom textbooks are also very good sources for general information. Especially useful in many textbooks are the bibliographies that can be used to obtain further information.

Three Useful Encyclopedias:

1. The Encyclopedia Britannica is freely available to Saskatchewan schools and libraries and offers access to 3 encyclopedias:
   
   1. Encyclopedia Britannica for high school students
   2. Compton's Encyclopedia for middle years Students
   3. Britannica Elementary for elementary students
      *these encyclopedia can only be accessed from within the school building.

1. The Canadian Encyclopedia: great Canadian information
2. Wikipedia: excellent source for current information especially with regards to technology and pop culture.

For more information on the differences and some of the issues with these encyclopedia read the post from Classroom Tech Tips

And... be sure to check out the student made video, What about Wikipedia, from Springfield High School in Philadelphia.

Social Bookmarking is a web-based service to share Internet bookmarks. The Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links through the practice of tagging techniques on the Internet. (Wikipedia) When you save a bookmark on a Social Bookmarking site you can access the bookmarks anywhere and at anytime. You are not restricted to the favourites or bookmarks on a specific machine.

7 Things you should know about Social Bookmarking from Educause
"7 Things You Should Know About... Social Bookmarking" addresses a community—or social—approach to identifying and organizing information on the Web.

This video from Common Craft illustrates the major concepts involved with Social Bookmarking:

Examples:

• Donna's full set of delicious bookmarks
• Links tagged informationliteracy

There are several Social Bookmarking Services:

• Delicious
• Diigo

Tutorials, videos and step-by-step instructions:

This 2 1/2 minut screencast will show you how to get started using the social bookmarking tool delicious.

David Warlick has prepared two handouts which provide step-by-step instructions on how to create and use delicious bookmarks.

Get started using Delicious with the 'cheat sheet'.

Use Delicious for Social Bookmarking - an excellent set of tips to help you use delicious effectively. 

Using Social Bookmarking in the Classroom

All Together Now: Social bookmarking offers a new way to store and share Web sites By Donna DesRoches -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2007

This article illustrates some ways that Social Bookmarking can be used with students.

Assessment

Bookmarking and Social Bookmarking Rubric - this rubric is based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.

Reading, Listening, Talking, Viewing: Getting the Big Picture

Obtaining background information is a stage that is often neglected in the research process. Students have a great deal of difficulty formulating a solid research question without sufficient knowledge about a topic. This stage of the inquiry process encourages students to become experts on their topic by reading, viewing, listening and talking to people about their topic. Allowing and encouraging sufficient time in this stage of the research process will enable students to narrow and focus on one particular aspect of their topic.

The activities in this stage of the process include collecting resources, examining bibliographies, creating working bibliographies that can be referred to later and reading, viewing, listening and talking to obtain a general overview of the topic. At this time the researcher is looking for key words, dates, people and events that will allow for other connections within the research. Student should read, look for major features and aspects of their topic and write them down.

Students can begin to get an overview of their topic by using general sources such as their textbooks and encyclopedias.

As students become more knowledgeable about their topics they will find it is easier to be focused and to generate good questions that will allow them to delve into further, meaningful research.

Documenting, Organizing and categorizing information:

During this time students should be keeping track of the resources that they have found. There are excellent online citation tools that allow them to document all bibliographic data as they go along and social bookmarking tools are an excellent way to collect, organize, evaluate and share web sites as they are found.

Students can use a social bookmarking tool such as delicious to collect, annotate and save resources that they find on the web on even on the online databases. These bookmarks can be accessed from any computer, from home or school.

Students’ prior knowledge is activated when they are asked

• What they already Know

Students set goals specifying

• What they Want to Learn

After reading and research students discuss and comment on

• What they have Learned

Students use a KWL chart to note their thinking in each of the categories.

Example  KWL Chart

The ability to effectively find, use and share information necessitates taking the time to determine what is known about a topic, acquire background knowledge, ask good questions and process information using graphic organizers and mind mapping programs.

This section of the problem-solving or research process covers the following:

• Activating prior knowledge
• Obtaining background information and knowledge by reading, viewing, listening and talking
• Collecting and documenting a wide variety of sources by using print and online tools
• Getting a general overview of topic
• Narrowing and finding focus