Block 6 Information Literacy Thoughts(Mind Boggles)

Well, I went through block 6 assingment #1 and I have to say that for me anyway, it is truely "Mind Boggleling". I started with the first optional assignment (the Infro Literacy Qiz). Unfortunately, right off the bat there was so much stuff that I didn't know. I am familiar with blogs and wikis from our classes, but the rest of the survey kind of went down hill fast for me. What's a boolean search term?? Man!!!! Even the different ends on address sites were new to me. I recognized them, but had no idea what they implied. I think that this would be a good quiz to take my students through at the start of the year. I'm pretty sure that they would know it, but if they didn't they might feel to "stupid" to actually say anything. This is a familiar feeling with me and the internet, so hopefully I'd recognize the "deer in the headlight look". Ie it takes one to know one. I know that I take my student's knowledge of technology for granted and perhaps I should reaccess this thought, plus as I have mentioned, it was a HUGH learning curve for me and some of my students (maybe the older ones??) might not be so sauve?? With the internet being for many, the major information source, the ability to authenticate it is major. I like the MAP acrinom becuase it's simple and I like simple for obvious reasons. I printed off the MAP slides and will keep those for future use too.

Next, I read the article "Developing critical Literacy Skills for the Internet". Just as fyi:

http://www.pwc.k12.nf.ca/internetliteracy

What I really liked in this article was the bit about not relying on filtering software but on teaching students ( and me obviously) critical literacy skills to empower them. This really hit home because 21st century skills of which literacy is one, is what my final project is about and this whole idea of evaluating the internet sources is new to me. I guess you really do learn something new everyday - if you're lucky. I guess that I can see now that it is really encumbant on my part to introduce this to my instruction so that my students can develop this skill's confidence so that they can take it with them to their practicums and jobs. I just never really thought about it.... Not much of an excuse, but it is the truth. For all the reading, etc that I've done, man I sure have alot left to go. Like I've mentioned before, I guess that a good starting place is recognizing this and being willing/able to move forward.

I also liked the part on intelectual property. This is kind of familiar to me in terms of plagerism, but I never thought about downloading mp3 players in this frame of reference. I guess too that I also appreciate the U of R's online library becuase I can now see with hindsight that it sure did alot of work for me.