I include information fluency training in all of my online classes. I introduce power searching and website investigation to the graduate students studying in the E-Learning and Online Teaching Certificate Program at UW-Stout ( http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/elearningcertificate.html ) because I believe that Information Fluency is a foundation skill for all online teachers and learners.

What continually surprises me is that most educators (including those with advanced degrees) lack formal training in this field. Unless I’m working with a Library Media Specialist, most have little experience in searching, evaluating, and ethical use of digital materials.

Curiously, most educators think they are competent searchers and evaluators, when they are really just beginners. Their disposition is to ask for help rather than search for answers. With simple instruction many radically improve their ability to search, and evaluate. This is empowering and greatly increases learner satisfaction. Instruction in copyright and fair use is also part of the program.

At the same time I push the idea that it is everyone’s duty to teach website evaluation and ethical use as part of any online curriculum. Too often educators assume someone else should have done the job by the time their students walk through the door. The application of information fluency to all curriculum areas is profound. Students given even rudimentary instruction in Information Fluency immediately benefit.

As online teachers and learners we work in a computer where information is just a few keystrokes away. I hope we can promote the disposition in all online teachers and learners that skilled use of Internet resources is the essential learning skill of our times.

Dennis O’Connor
Program Advisor
E-Learning & Online Teaching
School of Education
Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University
oconnord@uwstout.edu
530-318-1145 (Cell)
Skype: wiredinstructor2

We’ve redesigned our website. Please drop by 21cif.imsa.edu and check out the changes?

You’ll no longer have to login to access our resource kits.

We’ve added a direct link our Information Fluency Group on the Teacher Librarian Ning to our main menu.

We’re developing an integrated blog and wiki.

We’ve added an online store that will streamline Moodle course registration.

The conversion process to our new server has been a long and interesting road. We’ve still got a few bumps to smooth out. If you notice a problem let us know.

In the meantime, take a look and them let us know what you think of the new design?

Dennis & Carl

Evaluation Wizard

Carl Heine is rewriting our Evaluation Wizard; a ten step process for website evaluation. This tool will step you through the evaluation process, offering criteria for 10 different elements of evaluation.

As a student evaluates the site, they are guided to write their evidence for each step of the process. Once three criteria areas have been used, you can choose to print your evaluation. They system gathers all of your writing into a single page that can be copy/pasted to a word document or printed directly from the screen.

No log in required (the system does not store your data)

Please offer us feedback. Are we missing something? Are the criteria clear? Will you use this with your students?

Classes Forming: Register Now!

This popular four-week on-line course empowers participants to search efficiently, evaluate Internet and Web 2.0 information effectively and use it ethically incorporating the full range of 21st Century Information Fluency skills and resources.

This course, developed by the 21st Century Information Fluency Project is open to all adults who desire to become fluent in searching and evaluating on-line resources. Anyone who intends to teach 21st Century Information Skills to students and staff should complete this training.

Details:

• Instructor: Dennis O’Connor
• Time commitment: login at least four times a week
• 2.5 CEUs are available for the 25 online contact hours
• Course delivery: 21CIF Moodle (view the course — log-in as a guest)
• Assignments include readings, interactive learning games, discussion groups and practical projects you can use in your work
• ISTE NETS (for teachers) addressed: I, II, III, IV, V, VI
• ISTE NETS (for students) addressed: 2, 3, 5
• ISTE NETS (Refreshed for students 2007) 1,3,4,5
• $99.00 course fee

Online Registration is Now Open! If you would like to be added to our interest list, send us an email with your name and preferred email address. If you’d like to register, click here!

Objectives:

• Participants will increase skills and efficiency in searching world wide web
• Participants will become reliable evaluators of digital information
• Participants will become successful integrators of digital information

Next Registration Deadline: Nov 12. Please alert us to any special accommodations you may need.

Cancellation Policy: Any registration cancellation must be received 48 hours before the scheduled date for a refund to be issued. Because attendance is limited, persons registering and not in attendance will be charged the full registration fee. 21CIF reserves the right to cancel any session due to insufficient enrollment. Participants will be notified by email or phone if a cancellation occurs.

Barnum would rub his hands and grin at the state of gullibility exhibited by Digital Natives (better described by Carl Heine of the 21st Century Information Fluency Project as the Un-taught Generation).

Too often we (as educators) assume that common sense develops overnight. Anyone who has observed the Un-Taught Generation search will report that the first result is the one they choose and their common belief is that everything on the Internet is true.

Why do they think this way?

The Un-taught Generation don’t know how to search, evaluate, and ethically use digital information. The Self-Taught browse, believe, and share without thinking about intellectual property rights. Why? Because the Un-taught Generation is kept bored and so busy filling and drilling and test prepping that there isn’t time in the curriculum to teach them 21st Century Skills.

20th century knowledge testing runs the show, while educators debate filtering and the evils of social networking and blogging. Time to get real… or at least take the time to teach our students how distinguish reality from deception.

• Virgil Wong : Experiments on Art, Medicine, and Technology Head of Web Design/Development Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Web designs by a master that mixes art, science and speculation. Great for web evaluation studies.(tags: Media-literacy evaluation hoax)
• YouTube – The World’s First Male Pregnancy Is this Virgil Wong’s work? How do you determine who created a YouTube Video. See user comments on this video for a snap shot of web 2.0 generation’s evaluation skills.(tags: Media-literacy evaluation, hoax)
• POP! The First Human Male Pregnancy – Mr. Lee Mingwei Early work from Virgil Wong,(tags: Media-literacy evaluation hoax)
  PaperVeins Museum of Art™ – Our Mission, History, and Honors More of Wong’s early work. Compare Wong’s picture on this page with the Dr. Giving the testimonial in the YouTube video on male pregnancy.(tags: Media-literacy evaluation hoax)
• transgenesis Includes references to Wong’s work on RYT Hospital site. Image of pregnant man, when compared to YouTube Video is the same. “doc en stock” arte france wong (query based on YouTube attribution)(tags: Media-literacy evaluation hoax)
• Male pregnancy video PREGNANCY VIDEO Male Pregnancy Pregnant Man Artificial Womb RYT Hospital Dwayne Medical Center Lee Mingwei Dr. Phineas Liu Virgil Wong (also claims film by: … produced by Doc en Stock/Arte France and directed by Sophie Lepault and Cap(tags: Media-literacy evaluation hoax)
• The future of male pregnancy is drawing near – Pravda.Ru Pravda reports this as a factual story, even sites the RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical clinic as a source. Mentions Mingwell, Wong’s partner. Great content for a critical-thinking unit at HS or College level.(tags: hoax Media-literacy evaluation,)

See You at NECC (Atlanta 2007)

MA309 Power Searching: Information Fluency at Your Fingertips

Click Through to register for a half day workshop!

[Workshop: Hands-on] with Carl Heine & Dennis O’Connor, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 21st Century Information Fluency Project.

Monday, 6/25/2007, 8:30am–11:30am; (location available mid-May)

Search more efficiently and evaluate digital information more effectively. Learn digital research techniques that return better information more quickly using the Internet.

Purpose & Objectives

This session strengthens participant’s skills in using the Internet to find credible information. Since 2004, Power Searching workshops have been presented to over 1,000 Illinois teachers, librarians, technology coordinators and administrators. Participants report that they learn many new search and evaluation techniques and, as a result, are better able to find high-quality information they need for instruction and better equipped to pass these skills along to students.

Digital information fluency is a necessary 21st Century skill for all teachers and learners. A statement issued this year by the American Association of School Librarians underscores the importance of teaching students to “access up-to-date information from around the world, to evaluate its relevance to the questions at hand, to assess its authority and reliability, and to apply it to information problem solving.” (American Library Association, 2006). To fail to do so, the report contends, leaves students at risk, “inadequately prepared for the workplace and adult life.”

This workshop approaches the need by training the trainers, giving them strategies and tactics they can use to enhance their productivity and pass along to those they teach.

As a result of this session, participants will…

1. Become more efficient Internet searchers:

• Knowing when and how to use search engines, subject directories and browsing optimally;

• Building powerful queries with the right keyword and operator strategies;

• Finding the best databases to search for the information they need;

• Searching the Deep Web;

• Analyzing search results for important clues;

• Overcoming common information “dead ends,” such as “page not found” and finding relevant information buried in millions of returns (and raising it to the top).

2. Become more effective digital evaluators:

• Credibility criteria: Authorship, Publication, Date, Accuracy, Links To and From, Bias, Evidence, External Support and Expert Reviews;

• Red flags: domains, un-endorsed pages, links.

3. Practice with tools for teaching these skills to students:

• Instructional tools for advanced searching, evaluating digital information and citing it accurately;

• Interactive tutorial games that provide instruction and feedback in search and evaluation techniques

• Self-paced MicroModules on strategies and techniques;

Outline

Introductions, 21st Century Information Fluency, and identifying the need (15 minutes)

Searching Efficiently: (1.5 hours)

• Five minute search: find today’s workshop materials online*

• Analyzing what went right and wrong in the first search (discussion)

• Digital Information Fluency process (presentation)

• Turning questions into effective queries: The Buffalo Search*

• Keyword selection: Keyword Challenge Tutorial*

• Keyword power: Professional vocabulary, synonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms*

• Search Engine Strategies, understanding literal matching (demonstration)

• Keywords, operators and special operators (demonstration)

• Choosing the best database for searching (demonstration)

• Deep Web searching: Broadway Search, Page not Found Search*

• Recognizing relevance: Find command and scanning: Gold Rush Challenges*

• Finding better keywords: Great Wall Challenge*

• Learning cycle: Live Internet Search Challenges and MicroModules*

Evaluating Effectively: (45 minutes)

• Credibility criteria: What do you use? (discussion)

• Digital Information Fluency process and the Revision decision (presentation)

• Analyzing author, publisher, and links To: Truncation, browsing, searching with special operators (demonstration)

• Encountering red Flags: domain, ~ (unendorsed pages)

• Three Live Evaluation Challenges*

MySearch and Questions (30 minutes)

Fifteen minute search on an individually selected topic*

* the asterisk represents an online activity for learners

The May 2007 Issue of the 21st Century Information Fluency Project’s Full Circle Resource Kit features a podcast interview with Will Richardson. Login and listen as Will discusses the interplay between online tools, communities of learning and pursuing our passions.