FRIT 7332: Module 5

From Information Literacy to Transliteracy

Goals:

1) Define information literacy and transliteracy in the context of the school library media

center;

2) Create a short media presentation that presents introduces these concepts to

teachers and/or administrators; and

3) Identify key information literacy and transliteracy instructional resources for school

librarians.

Overview:

This is a TWO-WEEK Activity! You do not need to post the URLs to the resources you

have created until Oct. 1. New content will be posted next week but you will not have a

new weekly activity.

School librarians have always been all about “literacy” and in this course we are

exploring those literacies from multiple perspectives. Many of you may remember

“library skills,” such as using the online card catalog and finding books on the shelves

using the Dewey Decimal System, from your own P-12 experiences. Until recently much

of the focus of our library instruction was on access and finding things. Information was

scarce and many times the only resources available were housed within the four walls

of the school library media center. Today we live in a world of information abundance,

which requires a major shift in our instructional perspective. Helping students become

critical evaluators of information is one of those shifts. Using a variety of media to

transform information into personally meaningful projects is another.

Begin your exploration of these topics this week using the resources on the From

Information Literacy to Transliteracy storify. The three videos and one slideshare

present an excellent overview of the key concepts. Next you will examine some key

instructional resources related to teaching information and transliteracy, beginning with

the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner and the crosswalk that aligns those

standards with the CCSS.

As a school library media specialist, you should familiarize yourself with some of the

common models that schools have adopted to teach information literacy. The most

commonly used model is the Big6, developed by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz.

This module also includes a pdf of Points of Inquiry, a model developed by a task force

of teacher-librarians in British Columbia. Much of the work in British Columbia is based

on an information literacy model developed by Barbara Stripling and Judy Pitts. The

final group of resources on the storify shares resources you can use to develop your

own approach to information literacy and transliteracy in your setting.

Your transliteracy task:

You have been invited to attend a planning meeting for either a grade level or subject

level team at your school (grade or subject level of your choice). You have been asked

to make a 5 minute (MAX—shorter is always better) presentation to those teachers

about the contribution information literacy and transliteracy instruction can make to

student learning. In other words, you’ve been given 5 minutes to “sell” the curriculum of

your school library media program! Using the resources included in this module (and

any others you may encounter) create a creative, memorable and SPECIFIC

presentation about what the curriculum of the school library would add to the

grade/content instruction of your teachers. You may use any web-based tool of your

choice to accomplish this. Web Tools4U2use includes many options. This Pinterest

board highlights animation tools that might be good options.

In addition to your short presentation, create a focused list of curated resources (5-7

items) related to teaching information literacy and transliteracy in the grade or subject

level you’ve chosen. There are many tools available to organize a list of resources like

this. This list.ly highlights five that we find easy-to-use and useful.

Keep these things in mind:

Some of the free versions of these tools let you create very short items, which is

fine—we do not expect you to purchase the fee-based version.

This is your chance to try a tool that is new to you. If you’ve used Animoto before,

try something else!

Be specific! Teachers will be more receptive to your message if you are speaking

directly to the world that they know. This is true both for your presentation and for

your list of curated resources. Don’t expect your teachers to hunt through a

resource to find what’s relevant for them. When you curate a set of resources for

teachers or students you should do that work for them.

Model information and transliteracy skills for your colleagues. This is your chance

to show what you can do—and what you can help their students learn to do!

Post the URLs to the discussion topic: Info Lit and Translit presentation and resources.