I really enjoyed reading different definitions and perspectives of ‘information’. It made me think that as a subject teacher, I have had a rather limited understanding of information up to this point, almost one dimensional. When reading the module however, it was like my linear thinking was pushed into 3-D!
Several things stood out to me within the module sections of 2.1-2.2. They are reflections and are in no particular order.
: I appreciated the flow from raw data to wisdom as presented by Wideman (2008). We have an overwhelming amount of information in our lives and it was refreshing to be reminded of the possibility of a higher purpose – we could really use more wisdom! I started to reflect as to whether the word ‘wisdom’ has featured lately in any discussions I have had with students and I (to my sadness) could not think of any recent examples. I did a little reading around the subject of teaching wisdom in schools and stumbled upon Robert Sternberg who promotes this. “When schools teach for wisdom, they teach students that it is important not just what you know, but how you use what you know–whether you use it for good ends or bad.” (Sternberg, 2002, as cited in the Oregon Technology in Education Council, 2007). I realised that TL’s could play a very important role in this, as information specialists.
: I also found it helpful to think of information as a traded good that is inconsumerable, untransferable, indivisible and accumulative (Derouet, 2020). I had not really thought of information in these terms and it made me realise how powerful information can be due to these attributes.
: In this day and age of mis- and dis- information, when is a fact not really a fact? Information can be so very subjective too.
References
Derouet, L. (2020). The information environment [Study notes]. ETL401: Introduction to Teacher Librarianship. Interact 2. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContentEditable.jsp?content_id=_3883144_1&course_id=_49763_1
Oregon Technology in Education Council. (2007). Data, information, knowledge and wisdom. https://otec.uoregon.edu/data-wisdom.htm
Wideman, R.M. (2008). The information hierarchy. [Powerpoint slides]. http://www.maxwideman.com/issacons/iac1013d/sld004.htm