Information literacy

From Regional Knowledge Resource Kit

To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use the required information effectively"

Specific aspects of Information literacy include:

• Tool literacy - the ability to understand and use the practical and conceptual tools of current information technology relevant to education and the areas of work and professional life that the individual expects to inhabit.
• Resource literacy - the ability to understand the form, format, location and access methods of information resources, especially daily expanding networked information resources.
• Social-structural literacy - knowing that and how information is socially situated and produced.
• Research literacy - the ability to understand and use the IT-based tools relevant to the work of today's researcher and scholar.
• Publishing literacy - the ability to format and publish research and ideas electronically, in textual and multimedia forms (including via World Wide Web, electronic mail and distribution lists, and CD-ROMs).
• Emerging technology literacy - the ability to adapt to, understand, evaluate and make use of the continually emerging innovations in information technology so as not to be a prisoner of prior tools and resources, and to make intelligent decisions about the adoption of new ones.
• Critical literacy - the ability to evaluate critically the intellectual, human and social strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limits, benefits and costs of information technologies.

Teaching resources in Information Literacy

InfoTeach is an online community resource about teaching and learning, but specifically designed for those involved in teaching information literacy. InfoTeach is an excellent way to share best practice in information literacy teaching. So if you wish to learn something about teaching or to share your experience, visit InfoTeach.

Inspiring Learning for All is an online resource that outlines what an accessible and inclusive museum, archive or library that stimulates and supports learning looks like. The Inspiring for all website invites you to:

• Find out what the people that use your services learn
• Assess how well you are achieving best practice in supporting learning
• Improve what you do

Making your teaching inclusive is also an online resource, that was created by the Open University. The site has practical advice about teaching inclusively and will also help you meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. It will give you an insight into what study is like for disabled students, and what you can do to make a difference.

Teachernet is an educational website for teachers and school managers in the UK. It provides guidance on all aspects of education. Including:

• Teaching and learning including over 2,000 lesson plans
• Teachers TV a digital TV channel for teachers

Teaching Expertise or TEx is an online resource aimed primarily at school teachers there's some useful nuggets here, e.g. interspersing a lesson with 20 minute chunks of either teacher-directed or learner-directed activities.

The Higher Education Academy supporting learning work provides an HE perspective on learning. This site gives guidance and advice on supporting learning including:

• Assessment
• Curriculum
• E-learning
• Employability & enterprise
• Learning & teaching
• Quality
• Student support and
• Widening participation