Beyond the fear of Information Literacy and the Digital Native
Information Literacy lies at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walk
of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal,
social, occupational and educational goals. It is a basic human right in a digital world
and promotes social inclusion of all nations (Garner, 2006, p. 3).
Overview
Some may take issue with the term “Digital Native” as it can be a kind of stereotypical overgeneralization for an entire generation but, much like how we broadly define the traits of Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers, there’s a thread of truth to the generational moniker. Basically, Digital Natives are people born into a world of immersive digital technologies, have a culture of global connectivity, and a second life accessing information and socializing and interacting through electronic networks (Ng, 2012, p. 1065). This generation has made things quite difficult for educators with feet firmly planted in tradition, lectures, and standardized testing as our Edwardian-styled education seemingly no longer works with this group of youngsters. Educator Ken Robinson notes in his 2006 Ted Talk Do Schools Kill Creativity that our current educational system still revolves around industrialization, placing the subjects deemed most useful at the top (e.g. STEM) and dissuading students from “lesser” skills like music, art, and literature (Robinson & TED, 2006). Robinson argues that the world has changed since industrialization and the education system needs to change the values they place on intelligence. Instead of one-size-fits-all education, we need to focus on an intelligence that is both distinct and dynamic; further, he argues,
Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children (Robinson & Ted, 2006).
Digital natives are the ones pushing educators to re-think the way they teach, forcing the world into a revolution in education. Technology is the axis for this revolution, allowing students to demand a more dynamic role in their own education as well as redefining the roles of teacher and student, allowing learners to become more engaged as co-creators of experiences and resources (Yáñez et. al, 2015). While technology opens so many educational doors, it also brings with it new challenges. Digital Natives are information illiterate, unable to assess or properly manipulate the abundance of information available at their fingertips. Ng (2012) notes that digital natives “need to be taught about these technologies, just like people born into a community needs to be taught how to speak the language or use tools that are available to the community” (Ng, 2012, p. 1066). Just as students need to be taught how to use numbers and letters, they also need to be trained on how to properly use technologies by incorporating information and digital literacy instruction into the curriculum.
Problem
Information and digital literacy are two slightly separate terms often used as synonyms, but both basically encompass the “ability to search, assess, and synthesize . . . resources” (Ng, 2012, p. 1067). The National Forum on Information Literacy defines information literacy as “the ability to know when there is a need for information, to identify, locate, evaluate, and use effectively that information for the issue or problem at hand” (NFIL, 2015; ALA, 1989). The American Library Association’s (ALA) 2013 Digital literacy, libraries, and public policy: Report of the Office for Information Technology Policy’s Digital Literacy Task Force notes that a digitally literate person possesses a variety of skills needed to access and evaluate digital information, can use a variety of technologies to find information, understand appropriate use of technology, and use these skills to communicate information, collaborate with others, and engage with the community (Cordell, 2013, p. 179). ALA argues that information literacy is a necessity in modern life for effective citizenship, for competent business practices, for lifelong learning, and for personal empowerment and, likewise, digital literacy is necessary in modern life for people to thrive in the digital age (ALA, 1989; ALA, 2013, p. 2).
Information and digital literacy allow people to easily adapt to new technologies and to critically evaluate the usefulness of both technologies and information (Ng, 2012, p. 1066). The problem? Students knowledge of information literacy is lacking and teachers, having time constraints, being uneducated themselves on information and digital literacies, and under the assumption that students who are so constantly plugged into the internet pretty much already know how to find information, fail to incorporate information literacy in their curriculum. Pickard, Shenton, and Johnson (2014) note that students make the assumption that the information they find is true and accurate as long as the site looks okay (p. 3). There is a strong a tendency among digital native to create website evaluation criteria that relies “heavily on design and presentation features rather than content’ (Pickard, Shenton, & Johnson, 2014, p. 4).
While students have really never been good at evaluating information (even in the 70s, researchers reported students accepting information on trust rather than on critical evaluation (Pickard, Shenton, & Johnson, 2014, p. 4)), digital natives are bombarded with so much more information than previous generations and most of this information is not inspected by a knowledgeable adult whereas previously students had access mainly to materials provided by teachers or the library (Pickard, Shenton, & Johnson, 2014, p. 4). Today, when students do a search they immediately go to Google and are often “steered towards infotainment sites such as Buzzfeed and Huffington Post”, which in turn make it a challenge to not only redirect students to proper websites or databases, but also explain to them why these sites are not appropriate especially if they have no prior information literacy knowledge (Stephens, 2016).
Review of Literature
Scholarly literature related to information and digital literacy is ever-growing. Researchers in various fields agree on the necessity of both information and digital literacy (Ng, 2012, p. 1068; Pickard, Shenton, & Johnson, 2014, p. 16). The internet, researchers note, is wonderful for teaching and learning opportunities, but “encourages uncritical acceptance of the information provided, thus emphasizing information’s availability rather than its quality” (Proserpio & Gioia, 2007, p. 73). Students are not interested in how we traditionally evaluate sites; rather, they prioritize “currency and topicality, lack of mechanical errors, and verifiability” (Stephens, 2016). It is obvious that new ways of instruction must be incorporated into curriculums. Sieberhagen, & Cloete (2012) found that digital literacy instruction worked well for Digital Natives, who preference non-linear teaching methods, interaction with technology, audio and visual entertainment, group work, and peer-lead learning (p. 30-31). In their book, Hobbs and Moore (2013), utilized popular culture to undertake a series of summer learning programs, staff development, in-school mentoring, parent outreach, and multimedia curriculum development all to teach information and digital literacy (p. 3). Beheshti (2012) understands that digital natives encounter many problems when they search for information and their lack of information and digital literacy skills hinder their search, their speed, their understanding of materials, and their judgement of research and suggests using virtual environments to appeal to the digital native (p. 55-57). In their book, Parker and Goodwin (2012) analyze contributing authors’ ways of making information and digital instruction work: through games, social media, utilizing open source library tutorials, and using mobile technology filled with podcasts, videos and interactivities (p. xvii-xviii).
Solutions & Issues
So, how do we teach information and digital literacy to today’s digital natives? Engaging, relevant, interactive, collaborative, visual, and dynamic are all words authors use to describe how information and digital literacy instruction needs to be in order to reach digital natives. There are a variety of resources available for educators to incorporate into their current curriculum. For example, Common Sense Media's K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum is available free for any teacher to utilize and incorporate within their classroom; further, Common Sense Media also has a free Digital Passport, which includes videos, games, and activities to teach digital literacy to students in grades 3-5. Big6, which is a set of skills specifically aimed to help people solve problems with information, also has free lesson plans, activities, tools, and handouts. A common, though seemingly underutilized, training method is to “genuinely engaging with youngsters when teaching IL instead of didactically imposing a set of principles on them” (Pickard, Shenton, & Johnson, 2014, p. 16). Having brief information and digital literacy sessions where students can work together to find and evaluate websites on a subject they are actually interested in or need for class use using the CARP method – judging a resource based on currency, authority, reliability, and purpose – is a simple way to familiarize students with the basics of information and digital literacy.
The most important step any school can take is to offer professional development to their teachers. The hurdle is always finding the time, the resources, and the interest, but with many schools eliminating an MLIS degreed librarian trained in information and digital literacy, it is imperative that teachers work to fill the knowledge gap for their students. Hew & Brush (2006) note, “The lack of specific technology knowledge and skills, technology-supported pedagogical knowledge and skills, and technology-related-classroom management knowledge and skills has been identified as a major barrier to technology integration” (p. 227). Further, Hew & Brush (2006) explain “teachers need to have a technology-supported-pedagogy knowledge and skills base, which they can draw upon when planning to integrate technology into their teaching” (p. 227). Educators are the ones responsible for making teaching and learning compatible with modern technology and students and it is so important to train our digital students in information and digital literacy as today’s truths may not be the same truths tomorrow (Proserpio & Gioia, 2007, p. 70).
Future Direction
First, educators need to educate themselves on digital and information literacy. It is as important for us to understand the importance of analyzing information both digitally and in print. It is essential that teachers are given professional development time to familiarize themselves with the necessary literacies to make their students successful in their research pursuits; further, a plan must be put into action to incorporate a digital and information literacy curriculum into the day-to-day teaching schedules of all teachers. As educators, we need to embrace the changing landscape of education and push our Digital Natives to their fullest potential in all subject areas and prepare students for lifelong learning, critical thinking, and the evaluation of information.
References
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