Sunday, September 5, 2010

Information Literacy/ Literate School Communities

Ok so the temptation to just copy and paste paragraphs of my assignment into this post was high but I shall resist. Mostly.

To me literacy itself seems to be a complicated topic. It's gone from basic reading and writing to just about anything. I did my TRP (newcastle students will know) on Visual Arts and literacy and ended up having paragraphs on multiliteracies. So I don't actually think that there can be just one definition for literacy and certainly not for information literacy.

What I did find interesting was reading Credaro (2006) who listed some available literacies (visual, scientific, mathematical) and then stated that information literacy was the umbrella term for these. I found that it began to make more sense when looked at like that.

Someone else in the forum commented on the difficulties faced by teachers who can't implement information literacy strategies in the schools because they are unsure of what it is. Supporting this view is Snavely and Cooper who discuss how the many definitions have caused “ambiguity” and that it is “a phrase in quest of a meaning” (1997).

For information literate school communities I am going to do a copy/ paste thing. ILSC - It is a school community which is dedicated to work together to achieve the goal “of becoming informed” (Boyd, Eyre & Henri, 2002, p 2). This means instead of information literacy being the responsibility of the individual, it is the responsibility of the school as a whole, the teachers, principals, librarians, supporting staff and students, and should been seen within all aspects of the school. Jamie McKenzie provides an extensive list of characteristics that are found in information literate school communties including: problem solving, decision making, exploration and creation of new ideas, teachers using an array of instructional roles and strategies, support for learners, ability to select reliable sources, ability to interpret information and a commitment which shows in curriculum documents and policies (McKenzie, 1998, p 1, 2).

After doing this assignment I find the idea of ILSC interesting if a bit tricky. Most of the problem would be in first being able to define it for other teachers and then convincing them that its a good thing to be. It goes back to teacher librarians needing to be leaders within the school. It involves teacher librarians expanding their role and looking at it as being fluid and able to change when needed.

Any other thoughts on this?

Lizz

Resource Based Learning

I have always found the concept of Resource Based Learning interesting, especially from an early childhood perspective. Going right back in preschools there has always been resource based learning and little teacher directed, whole group activities. Yet schools seem to be the complete opposite. In some ways I can understand that as schools often have less time and more concepts to teach. There is also the need for explicit teaching of subjects (e.g reading) that are difficult to learn through RBL. To be honest I think there should be a mixture of teacher directed and resource based learning. We are often told that students learning differently so we cannot say that one teaching approach/ style is better then the other when we should be using a variety.
I also think that the constraints of time and access to good resources can be difficult to manoeuvre around and when faced with opposition some people will go back to what has worked before. Not all teachers btw just some. There are days when going back to things that have worked before can be the best for the class as a whole.

Any other ideas?

Lizz