Reflection on Literacy in the Information Age

Information literacy is should be considered as a topic for instruction within the standard curriculum that govern learning in public and private educational institutions. With the continued development of legitimate and valid information on the Web, reference sources are no longer restricted within the confines of library walls. Literacy in an information age allows technologies such as Web pages, Blogs, and Podcast to be referenced as viable sources of information and content. However, using information generated in these forms of technology fuels the argument for adding technology literacy as a mandatory course.      
    If these technologies are to be used within educational environments, proper strategies must be implemented to enhance the effectiveness of learning garnished from the content. Sturgeon (2008) suggested five blogging misconceptions that could impair effective classroom blog implementation:
•    Don’t just dive in.
•    Don’t confuse blogging with social networking.
•    Don’t’ leap at the freebies.
•    Don’t’ force a sequential style.
•    Don’t leave the blogging to the students.
These strategies pertain to using blog technology to enhance learning versus creating a realm for social interaction with little to no educational value.
    Strategies such as those presented by sturgeon can be used to guide teachers with and without experience using technology for educational purposes. I believe these same strategies can be used for all forms of media and technology being introduced and utilized in classrooms.
    Anderson, Grant and Speck (2008) reported that students believed they were more literate of technology after exposure to assignments that involved Internet searches, digital presentation and basic computer skills. However, these students still showed a lack of higher order thinking skills once their search results were analyzed. This indicates a need to explore the possibilities of a course dedicated to teaching the effective use of Web-enhanced resources and technology. The fully developed curriculum should introduce students to the functions of computers as well as the reference sources that can be accessed on the Web. This platform should also focus on the proper analysis of content fond on the web.
    With the unstructured nature of the Web, content can be retrieved that not only reflects expert opinions and research based facts, but can also contain single sided opinions which can track students into solitary beliefs and opinions. For this reason, I believe Web- enhanced instruction, should be structured and open to live or posted discussion.  Flexibility to discover and analyze content should be built into lesson, however, a discussion should be mandatory to expose students to various facts and opinions that are were gathered from their research.     
    To further enhance the effectiveness of a technology literacy course, a module should be developed to expose students to Netiquette and Web-behaviors.  A full discussion of this topic can empower students to distinguish, fact from opinion. This can further assist students in distinguishing educated opinions from simple belief driven views. Shea (1994) suggested that sharing expert knowledge was a core rule of Netiquette. I believe the key to this rule is the term expert. Although the degree of expert knowledge necessary to be credible is objective, facts should still be a core basis for sharing knowledge over the Wed.
    To integrate technology literacy into a lesson, I would recommend incorporating technology activities that utilize interaction with the computer or media. For new learners, simply checking and replying to email messages is a great start to computer literacy. This gives users a chance to interact with the Internet while physically interacting with the computer through typing and mouse maneuvering. After and introduction to email communication, I would introduce the use of a blog. Blogging and email functions are closely related and the asynchronous communication concepts should be easily transferred. Objectives for these activities would include:
The learner will:
open an internet browser
navigate to an email host
compose an email message
send an email message
read and email message
read a blog post
compose a blog post


 
References
Anderson, R.S., Grant, M.M., and Speck, B.W. (2008). Technology to teach literacy: A resource for k-8 teachers. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Sturgeon, J. (2008). Five don’ts of classroom blogging. T H E Journal. 35(2), 26-30.
Shea, V. (1994). Core rules of netiquette. http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/index.html retrieved 6-17-2008