Resource of the Week
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By Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor

Just because you are an adult doesn’t mean you can’t have fun while learning something. And just because you are an information professional doesn’t mean you know all there is to know about information literacy. Enlighten yourself, challenge yourself and entertain yourself by taking a cruise through this week’s selected site.

Information Literacy
Source: Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
21st Century Information Fluency Project (21CIF)
“Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment. As teachers and librarians develop these skills and teach them to students, students will become better equipped to achieve their information needs.” You’ll get no arguments from us here. As information professionals, we know that locating “answers” is the easy part. Locating the correct answers — and the best answers — is much more challenging in today’s online information overload environment. And the folks who designed this website have come up with some clever tools, tutorials and games designed to hone your information literacy skills.

Just for the heck of it, start by clicking on the “Search Challenge” icon to jump right into the activities here. A Flash-powered activity challenges you with a question — “What is the URL of a page that list all the shows that have opened on Broadway since 1984, year by year?” Click the Google button to crank up the search engine and a timer starts running. See if you can answer the question in less than 10 minutes.

Or if you prefer, start with a set of Keyword Challenge Exercises that show you how to select the best keywords for your online search.

If you’re a classroom teacher, a school media specialist or a librarian who teaches online research, you’ll really like the extensive set of instructional “MicroModules”, covering such topics as Accessibility Awareness: Section 508 & ADA, Bias, Copyright, Evidence, Invisible Web, Plagiarism, Search Box Strategy, Sitemaps, and Vanishing Web. Each of the more than 40 modules is a self-contained, multimedia instructional unit that starts with a pretest and finishes with a posttest. And there are links to the Illinois state and National Educational Technology Standards addressed by each module. And if you’re in need of handouts, each module is downloadable in PDF format. Suggested course sequences are also offered.

Check out the collection of “Wizard Tools”, which are designed “to help you become an effective power searcher.” You’ll learn to:
+ Build an effective search query
+ Perform a comprehensive evaluation of Web resources
+ Format a proper citation (in APA, Chicago, Council of Biology Editors, ISO or MLA format)
There’s also a handy thesaurus and a spelling tool.

But that’s not all ! (I’m beginning to feel like an infomercial here.) You’ll find a load of additional goodies on the Resources page:
+ Search, evaluation and ethical use tips
+ Lesson Plans and Action Research Repository
+ A “core competencies” document
+ Events materials — e.g., syllabi, handouts, etc.
+ A Digital Investigator Training online course
+ Links to related resources

The 21CIF Project is backed by a U.S. Department of Education grant; according to Dennis O’Connor, the project’s Online Curriculum Development Specialist, they’ve been working in Illinois for awhile and are looking to take the project national. We think they’ve got something special here, and you owe it to yourself to have a look.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.