School Libraries Cultivate Digital Literacy

At David C. Barrow Elementary School in Athens, Ga., media specialist Andy Plemmons works with two students to learn how to use the technology they need for the Barrow Oral History Project.

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries

This converge article features a number of TL practitioners in the state of Georgia and explores how school library staff can work with teachers to integrate digital literacy into the  curriculum.

The article presents 5 digital literacy challenges:

1. Access to technology
2. Filtering
3. Sharing the importance of digital literacy
4. Instructional time
5. Teaching young children

with advice from TL practitioners on how to overcome them.

The article concludes:

“At these three libraries in Georgia — and in libraries across the country — library staff overcome challenges to teach students the digital literacy skills they need”,

with a final quote from one of our fave TL ambassadors in the US, Buffy Hamilton who sums up the work of the TL:

“At the end of the day, our emphasis is on learning and providing learning experiences and access to information in as many formats as possible.”

This article provides evidence of a range of ways that teacher librarians support students’ development as digital citizens who are content creators as well as critical users of information.

Note this article also features in Converge Magazine’s Top 10 K-12 Stories of 2011. If you are interested in technology integration, introduction of iPads in schools, bring your own device (BYOD) programs and flipped classrooms, these stories are well worth checking out.

Via www.convergemag.com

Teacher librarians as ‘information dietitians’

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book, The Information Diet when it is released in early January 2012.

Love the subtitle ‘A Case for Conscious Consumption’. The book blurb states: “Healthy information consumption habits are about more than productivity and efficiency. They’re about your personal health, and the health of society. Just as junk food can lead to obesity, junk information can lead to new forms of ignorance. The Information Diet provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy way, by showing you what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective.

With this book, you’ll learn:

• The relationship between power, authority, and information since the dawn of the first major information-technology boom
• How people react to information consumption, according to cognitive science and neuroscience findings
• How the new, information-abundant society is suffering consequences from poor information consumption habits
• What constitutes a healthy information diet and how you can get started”

I really like the way ‘information’ is being explored here as part of a person’s healthy lifestyle, and people being empowered by the ‘information choices’ they make to inform their lives.

Should we be presenting teacher librarians as information dietitians in 2012?

Twitter goes mainstream

TODAY on Twitter

Anyone who woke up to Channel 9’s The Today Show on Monday morning would have seen Karl and Charlie’s segment introducing viewers to Today’s new presence on Twitter. Interesting to see this was about one month after Seven’s Sunrise program started tweeting. Sinclair’s recent article in The Australian provides an overview of how Australia’s media companies have ’embraced’ Twitter as another way to connect with their audience. What’s interesting (and not surprising?) is that a number of ABC TV & radio shows have been early adopters of Twitter, tweeting their news feeds to a growing number of fans over the past few months. Check out this A-Z listing of Australian media using Twitter – it gives you an idea of the breadth of media users to date.

So has Twitter gone mainstream? Only yesterday, a Twitter tag was added to YouTube’s suite of share tags. Methinx, it’s here to stay, for now. What I’d love to find out, is how many of our CSU TL students have Twitter accounts yet. If you are a Twitter user, please share with us the reasons why you have added this to your personal Web 2.0 toolkit.