Three concepts that I think are related to the need for
Information Literacy in a democratic society:
1.
Political propaganda and misinformation is
directed towards our society daily.
2.
Participation in Facebook groups showed the
results of the election within an accuracy of 1%.
3.
Online journalists are imprisoned more than
print journalists.
4.
There is no way of stopping filtered information
from getting into the hands of citizens of the world.
5.
It is the parents’ responsibility, not the
governments to regulate and educate their children’s use of the Internet and
other multi-media resources.
6.
Digital freedom to end the digital divide:
digital right and internet freedom—cyber warfare.
Why it is important that information literacy is taught in
school:
It is important to learn information literacy in school,
because students have to know what propaganda and opinion motivates the media
that is daily seen and heard. They have
to be able to discern truth from fiction, as well as become smart consumers. Researching
“facts” that are presented to them, without accepting unjustified statements,
is what will allow our students to be knowledgeable in this day and age. Students need these skills that some of their
parents don’t know. It’s these life skills that help a student become
successful in the real world. Always questioning, will allow students to get to
the truth.
Wikipedia:
Wikipedia should not be used as an information resource in
school, because it is a collaborative website that has no restrictions. Anyone
can change, correct, falsify facts on the website and present it as truth.
There are too many factors involved to make Wikipedia a legitimate resource.
However, it can be used as a tool to find other related resources.
I agree, being able to discern truth from fiction is important in today's society. Students need to learn how to research and become knowledgable with real world scenerios. They must realize that just because it is on the Internet, doesn't mean it is true.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important to distinguish propaganda and opinion from facts and data, and it's important for students to understand the motivations behind mass media. I also think that these skills help protect our democratic freedoms, and always questioning is a key component to that!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Wikipedia is a tool to find other related resources, and because of that, I think it should be used as an information resource in school. However, it is a great example of why information literacy is so critical.
In today's internet , instant information society, it is very hard to discern truth from lies. As Misty stated just because it's on the internet , doesn't mean it's true. However, who is responsible for the truth and how do we find it?
ReplyDeleteI agree that Wikipedia is a tool that can be used to find other related resources. Even though the validity of Wikipedia can be questionable, it can help students find very valid resources.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is important for our students to be able to distinguish reliable information from lies. Students can be naïve when it comes to researching. A few weeks ago while my students were researching the Westward Expansion, one of them found some incorrect information, but he was positive it was correct because "it's on the internet."
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) has misinformation too.
ReplyDeleteHere is an excerpt from a study conducted by the Nature journal in 2005 that compared the errors found in Wikipedia to EB.
"For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which article came from which site.
In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.
That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia.
The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, made this statement on reading the results of the study.
"I have very great respect for Britannica," Wales said. But "I think there is a general view among a lot of people that it has no errors, like, 'I read it in Britannica, it must be true.' It's good that people see that there are a lot of errors everywhere."
Just thought this was interesting.
Here is a link to a review of the study.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html