Challenge Three: Information Literacy
What it is:
The Information Literacy competency involves using critical thinking skills to assess the reliability of information from online sources. This includes evaluating the information to judge its accuracy and to determine whether the information comes from a reliable and trusted source (Critical Digital Literacy, University of Edinburgh). This is very important in our digital world, where anyone can publish any content online, making information so widespread and readily available.
Why it is important:
Since anyone can publish content online, increasingly we need to be critical of the information we interact with. The algorithms that are so deeply embedded in our online technologies compound the problem, influencing how the information we interact with is produced, prioritized, and presented. This can lead to the information being inaccurate, limited, or untrustworthy, or containing inherent biases because it is presented through a particular worldview and may not reflect other interpretations. So it’s crucial that we critically evaluate online information to assess its authority before interacting with it. Failing to do so runs the risk of spreading misinformation.
Examples:
- Explore how open pedagogy can facilitate the growth of critical information literacy skills in students with this article: Intersections of Open Pedagogy and Critical Information Literacy: A Case Study
Multimedia Activity
Read through the Explore section of The Digital Tattoo Project’s Algorithms and Your Data tutorial and then complete the quiz from the tutorial below:
Learning Activities
1. Learn it for yourself
Hopefully you’re now more familiar with what algorithms are, how they affect the information we interact with, and how they can be biased. They are an “integral part of our socio-digital eco-system” and strongly influence how online information is produced, prioritized, and presented to us (Marta Samokishyn, Educational Technology Users Group). So, as consumers of this information, how are you and your students vetting the online information you interact with? Concrete strategies are needed to help identify reputable sources and analyze the credibility and reliability of those sources.
Read and familiarize yourself with the following two models for evaluating the suitability of content that both you and your students can use:
- SIFT (Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context)
- CRAAP (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose)
Click on the image hotspots to see more information about the SIFT method. The image and text was adapted from Introduction to College Research by Walter D. Butler, Aloha Sargent, and Kelsey Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
These dialogue cards will give you a more in-depth look into the CRAAP method for evaluating sources. Click through each card to read more about each ste