Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

This article was originally published by Canadian School Libraries, a registered non-profit charitable organization dedicated to professional research and development in the field of the school library learning commons in Canada. It is republished here with permission.

Teacher-librarians have the skills and knowledge to help classroom teachers deepen inquiry-based learning projects. You just have to ask.

The librarians feel that student use of this Holmes Ancient Objects Collection to interact with history facilitates outstanding information literacy education, especially when it comes to the relationship with the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which encourages lifelong learning. More than one frame within the Framework concentrates on the experiential relationship between students, objects, and creation. The faculty involved with this project took the guidelines of “Information Creation as a Process” and “Scholarship as Conversation” to create an assignment that gave students the ability to become the authorities, thus establishing a stronger connection to history as a living process.

Librarians make a huge difference in our students lives. They are entrusted with a wide variety of educational tasks. Some of these tasks according to Queen University Library include: 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.

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.

When I first saw the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Future Ready Librarians Framework, I was excited to note the inclusion of “Collaborative Leadership” and “Builds Instructional Partnerships” as descriptors of an excellent school librarian. These are two areas of the job that I enjoy the most, so their inclusion only seemed natural to me. I do recognize, however, that some librarians’ strength may lie in other areas of the Framework, like “Budgets and Resources” or “Community Partnerships,” and that coming alongside teachers in an instructional partner role might feel a little intimidating.