Information Literacy An information literate individual is anyone who has learned to use a wide range of information sources in order to solve problems at work (or school) and in his or her daily life. (Grassier, 2009)

Rationale In a world where information is everywhere, the need has never been greater for skills to organize that information. Librarians as well as teachers have the responsibility to teach their students not just information, but how to find, assess, and use that information both effectively and efficiently.

The Big 6 From the Big6.com The Big 6 is a process model of how people of all ages solve an information problem. It is a great model to lead students through when starting those first research projects. Follow along on handouts

1. task definition 1.1 define the information problem 1.2 identify information needed – What is my current task? – What are some questions I need to answer? – What information will I need?

2. Information Seeking Strategies 2.1 Determine all possible sources (brainstorm) 2.2 Select the best sources What are all the possible sources to check? What are the best sources of information for this task?

3. Location and Access 3.1 Locate sources (mentally and physically) 3.2 Find information within sources Where can I find these sources Where can I find the information in the source?

4. Use of Information 4.1 Engage (read, hear, view, touch) 4.2 Extract relevant information What information do I expect to find in this source? What information from this source is useful?

5. Synthesis 5.1 organize from multiple sources 5.2 Present the information How will I organize my information? How should I present my information?

6. Evaluation 6.1 Judge the product (effectiveness) 6.2 judge the process (efficiency) Did I do what was required? Did I follow each of the Big6 Stages efficiently?

Info literacy test Before we talk about this process, let's take a few minutes and test our own information literacy in the digital age. Go to: n-literacy-resources/

Information literacy resources Take a few minutes and take the information literacy quiz. How did you score? How do you think your students would score?

Electronic Age Differences Hopefully that quiz opened your eyes a bit to how finding and evaluating information is different in the electronic age. So now thinking about the Big6 and digital information, let's look at: 1.Location of information 2. Evaluation of information

Search Engines First let's look at search engines. That pertains to one of our Big6 processes- location and access, aka where to find information. There is life beyond google, which may not be the best tool for young learners. Here is a list of kid friendly search engines:

Search Engines (this is my favorite) Take a few minutes and search for “cats” in at least two of these search engines.

Search Engine Features Some things to consider: Could you do advance searching? Did it give you ideas if you spelled it wrong? Did it give you enough results without being overwhelming?

Website Evaluation Now that we've talked about where to find the information on the web, lets talk about website evaluation. There are many different schemes of website evaluation for kids, there are two that I especially like.

Website Evaluation ABCD's of Website Evaluation let's take a minute and visit this website from ALA sites/greatwebsitesforkids/greatwebsites.cfm

Website Evaluation This website is more for teachers than students, but brings up many important teaching points for evaluating websites.

Website Evaluation Here is the second one that I like: CARS Checklist Let's take a few minutes to look at: ET/Evaluation.htm

Website Evaluation What I like about this website is the easy acronym for students and the suggested steps of introducing website evaluation to kids.

Summary The need for information literacy is not new. But it has been heightened by the amazing amount of information at our fingertips. Students now need to be more savvy about where to find information and more critical of its source to be both effective and efficient learners.