I think the major thing we walked away with on Monday was sketch of the major aspects / dimensions of thinking about information literacy, of making information literacy a problem. These dimensions are:
1) empirical / historical piece
2) theory piece, i.e. how literacy works
3) normative piece, i.e. the "what should be," the end
4) practice piece, i.e. how to make end operational in context, meaning piece #1
In regards to the empirical piece, we discussed communication technologies and the various modes of interaction they support. We noted that technologies open up some literacy practices and close off others, synchronous vs. asynchronous technologies as per Braman, "hot" vs. "cold" technologies as per McLuhan.
We also tried to take up the problem of getting information in the absence of direct experience, i.e. through technology. We considered a number of "moments" when a literacy practice might not "come off." These included a lack of access to technology or an inability to use technology; economy, meaning one does not have the time and energy; intent, meaning one could be participating in the practice for entertainment as opposed to information seeking; or one may not possess the skills necessary to evaluate a particular claim.
No comments:
Post a Comment