We have an Information Fluency group on Joyce Valenza’s Teacher Librarian Ning where we are asking for feedback on our new elementary age games.

Please join the Ning and our group so you can participate in our beta test?

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

Search Help, Evaluation and Digital Ethics for School, Business and Home

Courses Starting Soon…

Need to create a back to school training?

Use our modular content to snap together your own unique training course.

Power Searching in a Web 2.0 World

Next session starts Aug 4 (4 Weeks $99)

Login as guest: Moodle Classroom| Course Description

Website Investigator: An Introduction to Information Forensics

Next session starts Aug 11 (2 Weeks $68) Login as guest: Moodle Classroom | Course Description

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]]> http://doconnor.edublogs.org/online-courses-in-information-fluency/2008/07/23/feed/ 1 http://doconnor.edublogs.org/links-for-2008-02-17/2008/02/17/ http://doconnor.edublogs.org/links-for-2008-02-17/2008/02/17/#comments Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:20:31 +0000 wiredinstructor http://doconnor.edublogs.org/links-for-2008-02-17/2008/02/17/

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

OpenSocial distributed social networking will be integrated into VastPark.com – Grow your own virtual world

The ning of virtual worlds?

Right now we’re focusing on helping developers understand our tools through a private beta community. During 2008, we’ll be opening it up so that anyone can download the tools. If you have your own IP and a large online community then talk to us about the benefits of using VastPark as your virtual worlds platform. Own your own virtual worlds and re-brand the software for your community!

• Quintura for Kids

  A visual search engine for kids?  This feels like a ‘closed search engine’ developed for kids that uses an advanced tag cloud to make searching along pre-established paths easy to do.  Great way to introduce search to the little guys.

• From their site: ” Quintura proudly presents the first VISUAL search engine for the youngest web users. Quintura helps to find kids-related information on the Web easily and interactively.”

  (tags: Search)

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