Getting There

Attending a seminar in Second Life is in itself an engaging experience. But, what made it really memorable was Mike Eisenberg–a visionary, a radical, and someone, who after fourteen years, still makes me think. Of our three main responsibilities: information literacy, information management, and reading advocacy, we should be concentrating our efforts on articulating, implementing, and marketing information skills. Information literacy is our curriculum and teaching it is the most important responsibility we have. Of course! This isn’t new. Mike didn’t just come to this conclusion on his own. But for several decades (no Mike, you are not that old!) he has been trying to convince school library media specialists that they should put less emphasis on the books and the collection–the librariness (my term) if you will, of our jobs, and spend more time teaching kids how to make sense out of information and communicate their results.

While I missed some of Mike’s address due to SL crashing and having to shut down and start up again, these are some additional thinking points we can take away:

1. Collaboration is not a means, but an end.
2. The library program or library media program should be called library & information program (I think I’ll shorten it to library information program–or LIP–I kinda like it!)
3. Databases should be called article search engines.

So, what can we do? Start with articulating our information literacy skills. The State of Texas has new ELA standards/skills that specifically address the steps (exept evaluation) of the information literacy process. This is a good way to start. Choose a process such as the Big6 and plug the standards into their respective steps. Do this with all of the standards–not just ELA. See which steps are lacking in skills and fill those in as appropriate.

I have been wanting to change the Database button on my library web page to Find Aticles and I will not waste any more time doing this. Easy!

Right now, teaching information communications technology (ICT) skills is hit or miss at my school. We are in the process of creating a 1-12 grade curriculum that works for our students. I need to articulate those skills and systematically teach them. Assessment is a strong point in my program but I need to track individual student mastery of skills. That is not happening. I am in the best place to determine mastery of  ICT skills as I see the same students across the curriculum. For example, I teach freshmen in biology, English/art history, and history. If they do not get a skill in biology, I can reteach, review, or extend the next time I see them in history. I have the perfect situation.

I do agree with Mike that pathfinders do not allow students the opportunity to identify and locate sources on their own. However, the range of subjects across databases, er, I mean article search engines (ASE), is vast. I want the students to get used to which ASEs contain certain subjects. So, I help them identify those ASEs that will best deliver the info. And, by helping them, they will more readily use the resources. I will continue to make my assignment wikis, suggesting ASEs, as I collaborate with teachers in planning and teaching.

Finally, Mike Eisenberg is radical. He is an innovator and an agitator. While you may not agree with all of his ideas, we need him to keep us thinking about the things we do and changing the way we do them, therefore remaining viable to our schools. We know that we are still important. We need to market ourselves so that our teachers, principals and central administrators know that, too. What better way than by teaching. Let’s get started!