Notebook or My Personal Learning Network

A recent study revealed students at an international school in Finland significantly outperformed U.S. students on tasks which measure digital literacy in social media and online news. The researchers suggest this may be due to the Finnish and International Baccalaureate curricula’s different way of facilitating students’ critical thinking skills compared to the US system and curriculum. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Research in International Education in April.

Information literacy is a concept without geographic boundaries in librarianship. Across the world, academic librarians work toward developing students’ abilities to effectively find, evaluate, use, and create information. The approach to teaching these lifelong, cumulative skills can be designed in myriad ways throughout our global environment. This work seeks to share individual international perspectives that, through a unique voice, provide clarity toward how information literacy is viewed, taught, conceptualized, and, in general, approached internationally. The individual voices of our authors provide perspective on the unique challenges and opportunities presented in each region.

EDUCAUSE have published the results of their annual survey (1,400 members of the Higher Education community - I assume North American members of EDUCAUSE) on key issues in teaching and learning. The issues are: 
1. Faculty Development and Engagement; 2. Online and Blended Learning; 3. Instructional and Learning Experience Design; 4. Digital and Information Literacy (hurrah! this was no. 5 last year); 5. Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL); 6. Competency and New Methods of Learning Assessment; 7. Learning Analytics; 8. Open Education;

Freely available, open education resources provide opportunities for college students to strengthen their critical thinking and quantitative literacy skills using sophisticated active-learning strategies.

In a 2017 Wakefield market research survey, investigators found 85 percent of college students elected not to buy one or more required hard copy course textbooks. Students also are turning more frequently to their mobile devices to complete their coursework. 

Their reasons included the high price of textbooks and the fact that they did not value textbooks as learning tools. Instead, students are enticed by online course content, which can be accessed anywhere on campuses equipped with modern network infrastructures.

The Internet is a swelling ocean of information, and navigating through its steady flow can often be challenging. This is certainly true for a student who is not information fluent, so what are some smart online research strategies? Luckily this question falls within the realm of Information Fluency, which involves the 5As process:

• Asking the right questions
• Acquiring the knowledge
• Analyzing the content for relevancy and credibility
• Applying the knowledge to our use
• Assessing the effectiveness of our message

"In this technology-immersed world, students need to know how to navigate the digital environment safely. From discerning real news from propaganda to managing their reputation online, so much of their future is dependent on possessing digital literacy skills. Teachers have to step up to the plate and integrate digital literacy into the curriculum and model it through their actions. In this article, we will discuss 10 ways that digital age teachers model digital literacy and leadership."

The following case study investigated the efficacy of Information Literacy (IL) pedagogy on undergraduate research in a credit-bearing library instruction class. More specifically, the study analyzed student success and sought to determine whether written reflection and practice strengthen IL skills, including the fundamental ability to develop a research question and thesis statement. Developing research questions and formulating thesis statements are among the most challenging duties of a young researcher. From high school through undergraduate, students often have minimal experience conducting research. They may not know where to begin the research process and what steps are necessary. Student frustration is exacerbated by the fact that typically IL instruction is one-shot guidance, given only once in a semester, making it difficult for a librarian to cover all that is needed. Can a semester long, credit-bearing course aid student success in research and improve IL skills? The instructors introduced several techniques to improve IL skills, and instructors evaluated three class assignments based on their college’s core competencies. Additionally, instructors collected and analyzed students’ written reflections of their progress and an end of semester survey as both qualitative and quantitative data.

Preference for autonomous versus directed learning for the acquisition of information competencies (ICs) was analyzed among undergraduate social science students according to gender, degree program, belief in importance, and self-efficacy. Data were gathered using the IL-HUMASS (Information Literacy Humanities Social Sciences) online survey from students at five public Spanish universities enrolled in audiovisual communication, education, information science, pedagogy, journalism, psychology, social work, and tourism undergraduate programs during the 2013–2014 academic year. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and chi-square tests, as well as discriminant analysis, were performed. The results revealed a higher preference for the directed learning style in the four IL competency categories: searching, evaluation, processing, and communication-dissemination. Audiovisual communication, education, and journalism students showed a predilection for autonomous learning, whereas information science and psychology students preferred directed learning. Higher scores in belief in importance correlated with a greater preference for autonomous learning. In contrast, higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with a greater preference for directed learning.

We love the internet! It's a wealth of information where we can learn about just about anything, but it's also kind of a pit of information that can be false or misleading. So, we're partnering with Mediawise and the Stanford History Education Group to make this series on Navigating Digital Information. Let's learn the facts about facts!