Essential Skills for Students and Teachers

In the 21st Century

Essential Skills for Students and Teachers

In the 21st Century

INFORMATION LITERACY

Overview A weekday edition of the New York Times

contains more information in it than the average 17th century person would have come across in their entire lifetime.

It is estimated that there were 1.3 million web pages in 1995 and over 1 billion at the turn of the century. (1 trillion by 2010?)

Using common technologies today an average person can produce professional looking print quality publications and mass market them on the internet.

Overview The TI-86 calculators used by our

students in their math classes have more than twice the raw computing power than the main-frame computers used to land the first lunar module.

Using fiber optic technology, the entire contents of the Library of Congress could be transmitted from Washington D.C. to San Francisco in a matter of minutes.

So What . . . !?!? So what does that mean to me and my

students?

– In our world of bigger, faster, more is better . . . we need to teach our students how sift through the chaff and find the information they need.

– There are systematic ways to acquire, select and process information.

– We have several resources available to us to help our students learn how to process information

Therefore, Today we are going to . . .

Look at the “Big 6” information literacy model.

Identify resources that are available to help students identify and locate “quality” information.

Spend time investigating these resources.

What is the Big 6? The Big6 is an information literacy

model. Some people call it a metacognitive

scaffold, or an information problem solving strategy.

It is an approach to teaching information processing and technology skills.

When you apply the Big6 steps, you have an essential framework to approach any information-based question.

What is the Big 6 Framework?

1. Task Definition– 1.1 Define the information problem – 1.2 Identify information needed in order to complete the

task (to solve the information problem) 2. Information Seeking Strategies

– 2.1 Determine the range of possible sources (brainstorm) – 2.2 Evaluate the different possible sources to determine

priorities (select the best sources)

3. Location and Access– 3.1 Locate sources3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically) – 3.2 Find information within sources

What is the Big 6 Framework?

4. Use of Information– 4.1 Engage the information in a source

• (e.g., read, hear, view, touch)

– 4.2 Extract relevant information from a source

5. Synthesis– 5.1 Organize information from multiple sources – 5.2 Present the information5.2 Present the information

6. Evaluation– 6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness) – 6.2 Judge the information problem-solving process

(efficiency)