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Literacy is:
Being able to understand and be understood within the individual’s society.
Do new formats and delivery modes or multi-modal resources require users to have different literacy skills to make meaning or is this just an extension of the traditional literacy definition above?
How long is a piece of string? Let’s not make ‘literacy’ any more complicated than it needs to be! As previously stated – understanding and being understood = literacy.
These are extremely important life skills to be able to operate successfully in society, the workplace and in an information landscape that is constantly evolving.
It is possible to be information illiterate and become highly successfully in society. Exhibit A: Scott Morrison and his cabinet. Rat-cunning and a dearth of moral fibre, matched with wilful ignorance, are., currently, the MOST prevalent model for ‘success’ in Australia, a model which is being (purposefully) pushed in Education Departments around Australia in an effort to create a “non-thinking” population.
Certainly in most information agencies, but especially in educational organisations, information literacy skills instruction is a major role for the teacher librarian.
Is it really seen as a role for the teacher-librarian other than in T-L courses? From personal experience, most schools see and deploy their T-L as a glorified baby-sitter, useful only for time release for the ‘real’ teachers. Under-valued.
For teacher librarians in schools, their job is to prepare students for the world of work or study outside the school. Students need to have some basic skills in how to use technology to find, evaluate, use and repurpose information. They also need to have problem-solving and thinking skills so they can deal with information problems as they arise in the workplace and learn on the job, ie. they know how to learn by themselves. It is the TL who works collaboratively with teachers to ensure students learn how to learn and therefore, become lifelong learners.
Whilst this is admirable in theory, in practice schools are currently driven by a one-size-fits-all model of assessing secondary school students at the end of their schooling – the ATAR. This leaves little room for students to deep-dive into a topic, idea, or theory.