Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

The US Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) posts recordings of its free webinars. Recent recordings include: - ACR

Digital literacy requires competence and confidence. Take the quiz to discover which digital super-power gives YOU the confidence to shine.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the good fortune to work in various capacities as a librarian and with all levels of learners, from kindergarten through doctoral students. Presently, I’m a school librarian at North High School in Downers Grove, Ill., where I have the good fortune to be one of three full-time librarians in a school that serves 2,200 students. Additionally, I teach an online course called “Introduction to Libraries and the Information Age” at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Many library staff are being silently left behind without being noticed.

They stay away from using new digital tools.

They don’t understand the buzzwords spoken by their peers.

And they don’t ask questions as peer pressure makes them think that they are the only ones who are not ‘in the know’1.

They know digital literacy isn't optional.

But they opt out.

In my experience people opt out for 3 reasons - too busy, too hard and don’t care.

I get it. I do.

Trying to get a handle on what library technologies LIS professionals need to know can be a challenge, as both the tasks that librarians are taking on – and the tools they’re using to do them – seem to be changing daily.

Nevertheless, it’s especially important for job hunters to be aware of technology skills and knowledge that are in-demand, because increasingly these tools will be central to successful performance of your career.

TWO WAYS TO FRAME KEY LIBRARIAN WORK TECHNOLOGIES
When understanding what may be relevant to your career, consider two variables:

Where you work, i.e., whether the employer would be a traditional LIS or non-LIS setting.
The responsibilities and type of work you might be doing for that employer.

Librarians do an amazing job at school. They are entrusted with various educational tasks. These include, according to Queen University library, help students with information-related activities, assist students in developing information literacy skills that allows them to navigate and search the web effectively, collaborate with teachers in creating challenging project-based activities, run different literacy clubs, build library collections and many more.

Tips and Trends, written by Instructional Technologies Committee members, introduces and discusses new, emerging, or even familiar technology which can be applied in the library instruction setting. Issues are published 4 times a year.

As a librarian-in-the-making, I have had some experience with setting up different educational websites and training aids—I run the site for my small educational business, for example, but until my recent experience in my Information Literacy Instruction course, I wasn’t comfortable with the tools and speed librarians need to help patrons.