Scottish Information Literacy Project

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day in a Junior (Primary) 1 class as part of the work I’m doing for Learning and Teaching Scotland CfE Literacy Team – Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level). The day was amazing with lots of information literacy activities based around some of the CfE learning outcomes and experiences. For example:

Finding and using information: Early Level

I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices to learn new things. LIT 0.04a 

The children aged 5 years old listened to a chapter (chapter 4 I think) from a book about an owl finding out about night and darkness.

The book - The owl who was affraid of the dark

They had to listened for a specific piece of information which they then had to remember. Questions were asked to ensure that they had heard and remembered it. Later on in the day they were each given a worksheet and had to draw a picture to represent what the chapter was all about. The teacher then went round each of them and asked them to complete a sentence with information they had heard. Some repeated the information exactly others put it into their own words. Whatever the child said the teacher transcribed it onto their worksheet.

Other examples of activities included:

• selecting books in groups to find information about a particular night animal that the group had chosen i.e. a fox, badger, bat.

With the help of the teacher reading the text the children decided on the 4 most important facts about the animal. Later each group told the rest of the class what they had found.

• art of the week where they had to look at a picture of a piece of art Rodin’s Thinker and say what they thought it was about. It was amazing to see then looking at it, thinking about it and then giving their thoughts.

I could go on but will end there. My thanks to Mrs Lisa Bonar and her class at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh for allowing me into their world. Discussions regrading the sort of things that would be useful to teachers regarding their own information literacy was also covered. It has certainly helped my thinking for the work ahead of me and I look forward to using this knowledge along with other experiences of Primary 2 and 3 to come in the new year.

This is my last blog of the year so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

The Winter issue 2009 of the Journal of Information Literacy  has been published.

Of particular interest is the Editorial by Susie Andretta   The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle. (1-5) 

The collection of papers presented in this issue positions information literacy in diverse contexts, implying that this phenomenon has finally permeated our social, educational and professional consciousness. This is in line with Catts and Lau’s claim that information literacy “needs to be considered not only in relation to education, but also in the broader context of work, civil society, and health and well being” (Catts and Lau 2008, p. 9). The diverse interpretations of information literacy presented in this issue are illustrated by a visual metaphor which has inspired the title of this editorial ’The multifaceted nature of information literacy: solving the Rubik cube puzzle’. Each facet of information literacy corresponds to one of the colours of the Rubik cube1.

This multifaceted aspect of IL is something that John and I have spoken about over the years as a result of our experiences and knowledge plus project / research work.

Of the articles within the issue three are written by known associates including:

project partners Jenny & Lesley

• Jenny Foreman, Lesley Thomson Government Information Literacy in the “century of information”  (64-72)

Audrey Marshall (John and I were external advisers on the net.weight project at Brighton)

• Audrey Marshall, Flis Henwood, Leslie Carlin, Elizabeth S. Guy, Tanja Sinozic, Helen Smith   Information to fight the flab: findings from the Net.Weight Study (39-52)

Christopher Walker. John and I heard Christopher speak about his PhD research into IL and parents of young children in the early stages at the LILAC Conference in Liverpool 2008. We have had several discussions with him offering suggestions and information from our research and experience.

• Christopher Guy Walker  Seeking Information: A study of the use and understanding of information by parents of young children (53-63)

All 3 articles support our experience that information literacy is not just within formal education but throughout life. They are published from presentations at LILAC 2009 (see also our blog postings on the conference – Some thoughts on LILAC 09, LILAC 2009 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) Cardiff).

Of interest to IL and the workplace is K. Stuart Ferguson Information literacy and its relationship to knowledge management: A theoretical study(6-24). It explores IL and KM, and learning organisations as I did in my 2007 MSc Lifelong Learning and Development research ‘The role of information literacy in addressing a specific strand of lifelong learning: the work agenda’  . It also lead the project to further research in the work place and discussion with Annemaree Lloyd.

Other articles which I haven’t read yet but may be of interest are:

Andrew Whitworth  – Teaching information literacy within a relational frame: the Media and Information Literacy course at Manchester (25-38)

Nora Hegarty,  Alan Carbery,  Tina Hurley – Learning by Doing: Reactivating the Learning Support Programme at WIT Libraries (73-90)

Conference corner:

Peter Godwin, Information Literacy gets mobile in Vancouver  (91-95)

Book reviews:

Nick Frost  Book review of Andrew Whitworth. 2009. Information Obesity. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. (96-97)

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. There were a total of 74 responses of which 72 were from the secondary sector – a response rate of 20%.

The survey suggests that the school librarians are tending to concentrate primarily on the Learning Experiences and Outcomes and not the Principle Papers which are said to be “essential reading for staff” and “a range of practitioners” including themselves as the following quote demonstrates.

It is expected that the literacy experiences and outcomes and this accompanying paper [principles and practice], will be read by a range of practitioners, including those who work in school library resource centres, who make an enormous contribution to the literacy skills of children and young people. 

33 respondents (75%) indicated that they had identified ways in which information literacy can be used to achieve or assist achievement of the experiences and outcomes.

26 respondents (53%) replied that they are or have been involved in any piloting activities, created any new activities or updated existing activities based upon the experiences and outcomes.

28 responses were generated to the question of  ‘How can school librarians optimise their efforts to support information literacy and the Curriculum for excellence Experiences and Outcomes locally and nationally?’  The main points which were frequently repeated were: 

• becoming involved in school activities through school committees such as literacy teams,
• getting the support of the head teacher,
• demonstrating an understanding of the aims of CfE,
• supporting cross curricular activities, 
• developing links with primary schools,
• being involved in all discussions and training and in-service opportunities,
• liaising closely with subject departments,
• working with other school library colleagues,
• working with teachers to standardise terminology, 
• promoting a whole school approach
• involving Learning and Teaching Scotland.  

The full results and findings are to be written up for publication including articles for

The School Librarian - The Curriculum for Excellence: knowledge, engagement and contribution by Scottish school librarians, Chrisitne Irving to be published in 2010.

Aslib Proceedings - The Scottish Information Literacy Project and school libraries, John Crawford and Christine Irving to be published in 2010.

Other publications being looked at are education publications.

I recently participated in a Round Table discussion on

the growing importance of information literacy to the profession generally and CILIP’s policy and advocacy activities in particular.

The session was very ablly chaired by Biddy Fisher, Vice-President of CILIP and Chair of the Policy Forum.

This was

primarily a scoping exercise to identify the place of information literacy within professional practice and the body of professional knowledge, its potential to be a defining characteristic of the work of the profession and its contribution to society, the implications for the policy development and advocacy activities of CILIP and also to determine recommendations for a future strategy for the profession.

Taking part were representatives from different sectors and CILIP’s Information Literacy Group (they organise LILAC - the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference). The project work is well known thus the invitation to attend and I (unfortunately John was not able to make it) shared our experiences of the work in Scotland – what has worked for us and the importance of advocacy, using your professional and personal contacts (they are after all invaluable sources of information), cross sector working plus working in collaboration with partners. 

The session was recorded and I’m looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the discussion and will share any news with you.

Last week (Monday 30th November & Tuesday 1st December 2009) John took part in An Information Literacy Framework for Wales event sharing our experiences here in Scotland. The events seems to have been a great success and we look forward to seeing Wales move forward in their strive to have  An Information Literacy Framework for Wales.

In addition to John speaking Shelia Webber also spoke about information literacy from an international point of view and other speakers spoke about what is happening in their sectors – HE, FE, schools, Public Libraries. Those present then broke into their sector groups for workshop discussions.

To read about the event there is a  blog post for RSC Wales by Karl: http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/2009/12/01/an-information-literacy-framework-for-wales/

 Last month, before the Scottish Learning Festival took place (23-24 September), attendees were invited to submit questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education for her to answer.  I submitted the question below but only a few were answered directly by the minister at the conference. The remainder were subsequently dealt with by email.  The minister’s answer is below. Only a relatively short part of it refers directly to information literacy and only to the schools sector. The wider agenda is ignored and there is no answer to the question – what strategic initiatives does she think the Scottish Government can engage in to promote it? I shall be enquiring further and also refer her to the US President’s greater commitment to information literacy. (See URL http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/2009literacy_prc_rel.pdf  

 Question to Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Scottish Government

My question to the minister is:

 The important skills of critical literacy / information literacy has been highlighted within the Curriculum for Excellence: Literacy across learning (finding and using information, understanding, analysing and evaluating) levels Early to Fourth. Does the minister agree that  information literacy  skills are essential in  independent learning at all educational levels, career choice and long term management, employability training, workplace decision making and lifelong learning and what strategic initiatives does she think the Scottish Government can engage in to promote it?

Answer from the minister

Thank you for submitting a question, please see below the response from the Education Secretary,

 The Scottish Government is determined to help our children and young people develop the literacy skills they will need to thrive in the 21st century. Skills in literacy unlock access to the wider curriculum, increase opportunities for the individual in all aspects of life and lay the foundations for lifelong learning and work. Curriculum for Excellence, the Scottish Government’s major programme of reform for the education sector, emphasises the importance of literacy skills and makes clear that all teachers have responsibility to promote their development.

The Curriculum for Excellence principles and practice paper for literacy sets out the outcomes we want our young people to achieve as they progress through their education.  Young people will need to know about the fundamentals of reading and writing but also how these skills can be applied critically, across different media, to analyse and evaluate information and to work out what trust they may place in it and identify when and how people are aiming to persuade or influence them.

As our children and young people progress through learning they should develop increasing independence in applying these skills, and the ability to use them across a widening range of contexts in both learning and life. Glow, the world’s first national schools Intranet, provides learners with  a range of tools and rich learning materials which can be accessed at any time and anywhere there is an internet connection, offering a safe, accessible online environment which supports independent learning.

Following a review the Scottish Government have confirmed that Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) will continue to play a key role in transforming education in Scotland. Their new core remit

builds on the organisation’s strong track record in delivering significant education reform, including its key role in Curriculum for Excellence and the implementation of Glow in all 32 local authorities.

core remit is:-

• Curriculum – to keep the curriculum 3 – 18 under review and provide advice and support, including quality assured resources, on the curriculum 3 – 18 to Ministers and the education system;
• Assessment – to provide advice and support to Ministers and the education system on assessment to support learning, with support from SQA as appropriate, and to work with SQA to ensure the availability of quality assured resources to support assessment;
• Glow and ICT in schools – to provide advice and support to Ministers and the education system on the use of ICT to support education, to establish and maintain technology standards for education, to ensure practitioners have easy online access to advice and support, including digital resources and to manage the provision of the national ICT infrastructure to support education, currently Glow, the LTS Online Service and the local authority Interconnect.

There are a number of other areas that LTS may work with other partners, perhaps leading on certain elements, to ensure effective provision, including research and intelligence gathering, professional development and the sharing of good practice. 

The project has worked with LTS on a number of information literacy related projects and it is good to see that LTS will continue to work with partners on “research and intelligence gathering, professional development and the sharing of good practice.” The current project we are working with them on is very much based in these areas linked to the Curriculum for Excellence - ‘Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level)

Last week John and I attended the 2009 Scottish Learning Festival which mainly attracts the school sector in Scotland with an occasional scattering of FE and HE. However this year the main focus was the Curriculum for Excellence and I’m not sure if the later sectors of education were present or not as you never get see a list of who is attending. In addition the sessions I attended were primarily focused on literacy across learning and the primary and early years sector as this is the area I am about to start some work on for the Curriculum for Excellence Literacy Team – ‘Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level)

I attended the following sessions and keynote over the two days and will simply provide a link to the programme just now but will do some postings from my notes later:

• Improving Scottish Education 2: Pre-school to Early Primary - Kate F Cherry, HMIE
• Achieving a Smarter Scotland: Transforming our Education System to Deliver the Best Outcomes for Every Child and Young Person - Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop MSP, Scottish Government

The keynote speeches including the Cabinet Secretary’s were videod and are online for viewing / listening to.

• Engaging with Curriculum for Excellence – Small Steps to Success in Primary Schools - Susan Quinn, Educational Institute of Scotland
• Interactive Approaches to Literacy Learning and Teaching – East Dunbartonshire Intervention Team
• A Single Curriculum 0-18: The Same Quality Approach - Keynote Speaker: Professor Ferre Laevers, Director of the Research Centre for Experiential Education, University of Leuven
• Literacy across Learning in the Primary School: The Experiences and Outcomes in Practice 
• Early Years – Making Connections across the National Landscape - Jean Carwood-Edwards, Early Years Team Leader, LTS
  Jane Stirling, Early Years Development Officer, LTS

The work I saw taking place in early years and primary schools was truly inspirational and I will try to take on board / incorporate what I saw into the work I’m about to embark on.

Like most conferences there were sessions that I would loved to have been able to attend but you can’t be in two places at the one time. Sessions like:

• Largs Academy Virtual School Library - Theresa  Newbury the  Librarian is doing some wonderful engaging and interactive work and is included as an exemplar for the National Information Literacy Framework (Scotland)
•  Curriculum for Excellence Outdoors in Primary Schools
• Curriculum for Excellence – Making the Change with Critical Skills
• Improving Learning – Improving Literacy

Open Meeting 2009

The Scottish Information Literacy Project’s third Open meeting took place on Wednesday 16^th September 2009 at Glasgow Caledonian University and about 45 people attended. It was a genuinely cross sectoral event with people attending from all library sectors, educational agencies, government organisations including the Scottish Government and academia.  Inevitably a few people dropped out at the last moment through illness or other commitments. Unfortunately this included our keynote speaker, Professor David Smith, who had to pull out through illness.  

The theme of the day was information literacy as part of the wider skills agenda as one of the Project’s successes has been locating information literacy (IL) within this agenda. I began the day by giving an overview and update of the Project including some of the initial findings of the evaluation which we have done of the excellent employability skills courses which Inverclyde Libraries run.  This drew attention to health as an employability issue and the difficulty in disentangling personal from vocational motivations. This provoked a lively audience discussion during which it emerged that people from different library and educational sectors had shared concerns.  Next Jenny Foreman, the Scottish Government’s Information Literacy Librarian spoke about the Scottish Government’s Information Literacy Strategy. This was very much a policy level presentation explaining the need for a strategy and the issues likely to be encountered in developing it. Jenny also described how the policy is turned into practical training. Her colleague, Lesley Thomson, Knowledge Management Officer at the Scottish Centre for Regeneration then described the Information Literacy Community of Practice which she and Jenny are launching and will host and lead. She explained the principles behind a community of practice and how the website will operate. All are welcome to join and contribute. For further details contact either Lesley.Thomson2@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or Jenny.Foreman@scotland.gsi.gov.uk who will gladly sign you up.

After lunch Christine Irving, the Project Officer on the Scottish Information Literacy Project, spoke about the restructuring of the Scottish Information Literacy Framework which is being restructured to make it a genuine lifelong learning document incorporating early years, the workplace, employability and lifelong learning. It is being physically restructured as a weblog so that postings of current activities and developments can be added. It is also interactive and comments and postings can be made. It includes exemplars of good practice from all educational sectors. There is, as yet, less on the workplace and lifelong learning but the work we are doing on the workplace and employability is helping to enrich it. It can be found at http://caledonianblogs.net/nilfs/ and through the project website http://www.gcal.ac.uk/ils/framework.html .

Next Lou McGill, an elearning and Information Management Consultant reported on a JISC funded study Learning Literacies for the Digital Age (LLiDA) - http://prezi.com/vv_ynswlwwkv/ see also Project website http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/llida/ . LLiDA is a study of academic, ICT and information literacies across a range of HE institutions including Glasgow Caledonian and takes the form of institutional audits with overall analyses and best practice exemplars drawn from participating institutions. She found that IL people were further ahead in their thinking than other learning literacies areas. Flexible education will be needed as it is impossible to predict future employer needs. She feels that there are still to many ‘silos’ in HE each with its own language. Academic teaching is slow to change and there is resistance to a holistic agenda.

IMcCracken Open Meeting 2009

The last speaker was Ian McCracken, Learning Resources Manager at Govan High School – Connections between Information Skills and wider skills: the Future Skills Project where he and his colleagues have developed a Future Skills System of 71 skills which pupils can acquire which includes IL.  The Future Skills System is matched to Standard Grades, local and national business requirements, curricular and extra curricular work and the Curriculum for Excellence. Ian also mentioned the problem of a common language as Lou had. The Framework has been in existence long enough for Ian to be able to identify the most used skills throughout Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes as ‘Analytical Skills’, ‘ICT E-Lit’ and ‘Gathering facts’ which have pretty obvious IL implications.

All in all it was a most useful day and a great deal of information was exchanged in informal discussions as well as the formal sessions. Similar issues were identified across a range of sectors and practical difficulties round employability and linking vocational skill training and personal development were reviewed.  The PPTs and accompanying documents will appear shortly on Slideshare as we are running out of space on allocated space with the university and will be linked to the project web event page http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/events.html. All the presentations were excellent and represent a great deal of work by those who gave them and I would like to thank all who contributed.

A recent article by Dylan Jones-Evans Information Literacy and the Digital Divide  (Daily Post, 10th August 2009) discusses the Welsh Affairs Committee report which “highlighted the problem areas with limited or no access to high-speed internet connects”.

Whilst attention has been drawn to the following quote:

The report by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee is a welcome first step but if we are to create a truly digital society, we must not only build a world class broadband network in Wales but also give everyone the skills to access it properly.

If not, it is like buying a seventeen year old a Ferrari without paying for the driving lessons first.

I hope that it is not just the last sentence that is remembered but the rest of the article where he highlights a pressing problem that of the

inability of many of those within our poorest communities to access the information they need to conduct their daily lives from the internet.

As a result of this lack of information literacy, some of the most vulnerable groups in Wales are becoming even more excluded from modern society, yet it remains an area which has yet to be properly addressed by policymakers. This is despite overwhelming evidence that the growing gap between those who are “information rich” and “information poor” within our society has the potential to create significant social and economic problems in the future.

Certainly, there is little evidence that information literacy forms a part of any initiative to support the educational and training needs of those within our more deprived communities. Indeed, as government services, educational resources and information move online, those who have not been adequately trained to access such services become increasingly excluded and increasingly financially disadvantaged if they cannot access support.

Yet the importance of information and a clear strategy to ensure its dissemination to the wider community is being ignored even by those who should know better.

This is an area that John and I have been giving some thought to over the last couple of years particulalry in conjunction with Government Digital Divide Reports that have seen the answer to the digital divide as providing more access to computers and information rather than making the link to information literacy / the skills people need to access, evaluate reuse etc. and Public Libraries. Last week we were in Greenock doing some learner interviews from recent employability courses that Inverclyde Libraries have been running. We hope to do more in this area if funding is secured.

He also makes a sound statement regarding ‘search engines and Google’ in that

if individuals are not supported properly in how to use search engines such as Google effectively, then it becomes a completely useless tool that may, worryingly and potentially dangerously, provide wrong and misleading information.