Skills for Information Literacy - You Just Need to Know This Stuff

In the library media world it has long been the accepted wisdom that information skills and/or technology skills should not be taught in isolation. In other words, that we should all collaborate and integrate these skills into all curriculum areas. The thought is that when we do this, the skills have context and make sense and students will retain them because the skills have relevance to them completing an assignment or project.

I agree with this concept - but only to a point. In a perfect world it makes sense but I have found that the ideal hardly ever happens. The reality is that students get a hodge-podge of information literacy or technology skills thrown at them at random moments which they use to get through the current assignment ... but they have NO idea how what they've done relates to anything else. The "skill" they were exposed to is quickly forgotten and has absolutely no application to the next assignment or information need. And I'm not talking here about learning 'applications' like Word or PowerPoint - but rather more fundamental information literacy skills that require an understanding of how technology can be used - and must be used - to get to the good stuff ... the information students need.

However, students rarely have any understanding of the underlying concepts that now intertwine technology and information. Technology has dramatically changed how we generate, store, retrieve, and use information but we don't teach students anything about how that all works. It would be like teaching math by allowing students from first grade on to always use a calculator for all calculations and never requiring them to know multiplication tables or even to know that 5 + 7 = 12. To do math well, at some point kids just have to know the facts of math ... those basic concepts than underlie the discipline. It's my contention that there are likewise, basic concepts and skills every students needs in order to be an information and technology literate person and further, that these concepts must be taught before we can effectively integrate technology and information literacy throughout the curriculum.

As educators we have often made the unfortunate assumption that because our students have grown up with computers and the Internet, that they know how to use technology. I hear fellow teachers and parents and administrators say it all the time ... that students know more than we do or that students understand computers while we're afraid of them and so on. In fact students know very little about using technology. Certainly they know almost nothing about using it to locate information. They are very enthusiastic about using technology ... but we have mistaken enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding.

So what do they know?

• Depending on our communities, many of our middle school students do have computers and Internet access at home .... but certainly not all or the access is not consistent. Some parents monitor their child's use of the computer and the Internet but I think a lot more do not.
• A growing number of our students have cell phones and know how to text one another and do that constantly and everywhere ... including in class while you're teaching.
  
• Our students know how to chat in all sorts of messaging applications online.
  
• Many play various web-based games or use other game systems in conjunction with the Internet.
  
• Some of our students have an email account but certainly not all and most of those that do, use it minimally to email and chat with their friends.
  
• A few middle school students participate in social networking sites but, at least for the students in my school, that is not yet common.
  
• Most students know basic Internet safety principles.
  
• Most middle school students have probably accessed an inappropriate site or many sites on the Internet. (When you ask them, they all know what "inappropriate site" means ... this is not a new concept!)
• Students view videos on YouTube, search for images on Flikr and Google Images, and sometimes post to these and other content sharing sites.
  
• They all know they can use Google to search the Internet and Wikipedia is widely used as an information source.
  
• Many have particular interests and know sites associated with those interests - like cars, fantasy teams, music groups, news and weather sites, celebrity information, hobbies, etc.

In short, our middle school students use technology most for personal interest and communication. There's nothing wrong with that but unless your school district operates in a dramatically different way than mine, students come to middle school totally unprepared for doing anything more. For students to become truly literate users of technology and information, we need to start with the basics and teach them how the whole system works. We need to show them the tricks and give them tools to help themselves so they can all ultimately become "computer geniuses" ... and so I use the "Five Rules" to help get them there.