The outer limits of information literacy.
Everybody knows that just being able to type a search term into Google and click
on Enter doesn't mean that someone is information literate. After
all, you also have to know how to click on one or two of the links that show up
on the results page. Being able to distinguish between the advertisements and
the actual results can't hurt either. Teachers who've actually had courses in
this sort of thing will also instruct their pupils not to rely on only one search
engine, and to use Advanced Search in order to more clearly whittle down the possible
results to items that might actually be what they're looking for.
My experience usually shows me that that's about the extent of what's understood
as information literacy. Actually, I often don't get as far as advanced search,
and have even been known to claim that 95% of the time it's unnecessary. If a
few minutes of my day are wasted as a result of my not having defined my search
terms well enough, causing me to rifle through too many results, or to try my
luck at some new terms, I can live with the loss. Information literacy isn't knowing
how to run a search on something (though that's a good start). Among numerous
other skills, it's being able to view the results of a particular search and make
worthwhile decisions as to what's useful and worthwhile and might actually be connected
to what we were looking for. It's being able to find different approaches to a
problem that show up via our search, and being able to distinguish between them,
perhaps even taking sides as a result. It's finding information that leads us off
on unexpected tangents that help us redefine what it is we wanted to learn in
the first place. But I'm well aware that I'm getting myself into a circular argument
here. After all, the "needs" of most pupils and students is material
they can quote in order to show that they've done at least a minimum of "research".
And that being the case, more often than not it doesn't matter, neither to them,
nor to the teacher, what they find.
Go to: Just who do you think you are?