Tag Archives: Information Literacy

Academic, General

ACRL’s new Information Literacy framework

Raining

2/18/2015 Update: the framework has been approved! View it here.

Recently it was announced that the final draft of the new Information Literacy framework was submitted to the ACRL Board. This framework will be updating the existing Information Literacy standards which were approved in January of 2000. Following the 10 year review cycle, ACRL took up the task and determined that they should be significantly revised.

Starting on page 7, the final draft framework can be found here.

The updated Information Literacy framework is a radical shift from the existing IL standards. In it, ACRL has abandoned learning outcomes instead choosing threshold concepts as their main focus. “Threshold concepts are core tenets in a particular discipline that are transformative, irreversible, integrative, bounded, and potentially troublesome” (Meyer and Land, 2006, 7-8).

A lot has been written about threshold concepts but an excellent primer is the Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy article by Townsend et al. Also, for those that have the means, check out the Information Literacy Summit at Moraine Valley Community College in Illinois on April 10th.

These changes are applicable to academic librarians, but school librarians and media specialists should be aware of these changes too. As always, high school seniors who are going off to college will need to be familiar with Information Literacy!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

The data behind trends in information literacy

google_studentsInformation literacy is extremely important to students of all levels. Recently Easybib collected data from more than 1,200 librarians and over 10,000 students regarding information literacy. In their succinct infographic, they compare 2012 responses to 2014. There are some surprises but also some glimmers of hope that changes are happening.

Take a look at the whole PDF and see what’s happening with information literacy.

Academic, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

A Guide to Digital Scavenger Hunts

Image by Anna-Stina. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by Anna-Stina. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

According to the folks at Edudemic, “a high quality hunt should have the goal of inspiring learning, creative thinking, reasoning, and qualitative assessment.” Student engagement and active learning are the big goals too.  Sounds very much like information literacy to me and lots of fun too. In an effort to get your scavenger hunt jump-started, this guide offers  a few useful tech tools that might be of use. They range from devices to apps to other blog posts on the subject. Read the Edudemic blog post to link to lesson plans and simple ideas to further explore this fascinating idea. If you develop a digital scavenger hunt, we’d love to hear about it and share with our readers…..let us know at cmle@stcloudstate.edu and thanks for sharing!

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Information Literacy Webinars

ELM

How do students approach research in a digital world? 
Attend these FREE webinars offered through the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) to learn more.

Primary Sources in ELM: Learn tips on how to navigate the ELM library in search of primary sources for comprehensive research assignments. This session is offered on Tuesday, March 12th or Friday, March 29th from 8:30 AM – 9:15 AM (Central Time). Click here for more information.

Online Information Literacy and ELM: Take 45 minutes and join Minitex staff to discuss best practices to identify what information is appropriate and credible for research. Also, learn how to teach effective search strategies and see ways ELM allows students to manage their research.  This webinar is being offered on Tuesday, March 26th from 2:30 PM – 3:15 PM (Central Time). Click here for more information.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

A Snapshot of Illiteracy Rates in the U.S.

Blog post suggestion submitted by CMLE Member Representative                                                                        –  Wanda Erickson, Media Specialist, Upsala Area Schools

In February, Online Courses posted a blog regarding literacy rates (rather illiteracy rates) in the United States. You may be surprised to see which city has the lowest and/or highest literacy? Click here for a snapshot of these findings.

Illiterate-America-8002