The "skinny" on Information Literacy

     While we are bombarded with information from the media and the world-wide web daily, not all information is created equally. I find it quite disturbing that almost anyone can post a link with random, potentially harmful information that is accessible to anyone who clicks on that link. When I am researching a topic I look for several of the things we discussed in class last week such as looking for sites that end in ".com, .org, .edu, etc. I also look for the words "official site". Another thing I do is to compare information obtained from several different sites for  consistency.
     According to the article provided for our blog, "literacy information is the set of skills need to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information." This definition made a lot of since to me because in my two years of teaching high school students I have observed that the vast majority of students can actually use technology by answering assigned questions but at the end of the assignment they do not necessarily know what they have retrieved, how to analyze it, or how to use the information they obtained; and you can forget about those students being able to explain what they researched! I usually tell my classes things like "you need to know the "who, what, when, where, and why about the assigned topic". However, based on what I have learned in class, I can now assist students in the research process as they retrieve, analyze and use information obtained. This will prepare them to learn to become lifelong, independent learners as some of our Georgia Performance Standards require.
     I will teach my students about information literacy by first using the article provided to us at NTI on IL as well as the links embedded in the article. I found this article to be very informative and easy to read (follow). I could actually teach key concepts from this article to my students along  with referring/ taking them to the links in the article.Since students will require more than a college education to be successful in their field of study, I will continue to give opportunities for them to use technology in the classroom. I will instruct students on the research process and how to locate reputable sources on the web. Using guided practice and feedback, I will help ensure students have opportunities to express creativity without becoming overwhelmed and experiencing "data smog". I already allow students to use technology in my classes frequently, now I will be able to bring much more clarity to the reseach process while providing the guidance needed to for students to feel confident and successful during the task(s) at hand.