“The ability to find, use, and communicate information effectively and ethically is commonly known as information literacy. It is the umbrella term for emerging literacies such as technology literacy, media literacy, and health literacy. Information literacy is the domain of all educators”
When I was in Middle School and High School I was trained on how to look for good books for my research papers, teachers and librarians played a very important role in that search for meaningful information. It was also reinforced at home where my parents could see the books that I brought from school. I can remember my father recommending me to read certain books, on how to handle them, and how to cite them in my research. The same thing happened with periodical articles, there where some magazines that where kind of forbidden because they where only for entertaining, and there where also, the great ones, that school had the subscription and some students where lucky to receive them at home. We shared them!
The amount of information that our students can reach nowadays is incomparable from what I used to be exposed to, but the tools might be the same: from early years our students need the presence of the teacher, the librarian and their parents in order to better orient them on how to browse for information, on how to develop information literacy skills. Teachers and parents cannot assume that for the simple reason of being exposed to internet they will be able to find good and reliable information. We need to be present when they look for information, and of course, we need to be actualized and trained in courses like this one (ade634) to better help or fellow students.
