Category: Other

ETL512 Study Visit – Module 1 Activity

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Cunningham Library

  • Romany Manuell, Research Librarian
  • Australian Council for Educational Research
  • Information Agency type: Special Library

Who do I think the users will be?

I think the users will be information professionals conducting research into the educational field.

 

Research of the agency

  • The Cunningham Library is a collection of Australian educational research material, including ACER research such as reports, conference papers, etc. It also contains research on and information about international education, not just Australian.
  • It was very easy to find information on this agency, as it is a well-funded, well edstablished library used to support research into one of the most prolific institutions in Australia – the education system. A simple google search brought up the home page of the institution, including information about the purpose and contents of the library and its collection.
  • This information does therefore confirm my assumptions of the site.
  • My investigation of the site would therefore be from a cataloguing and organisation perspective – how do you organise the resources, and categorise the metadata attached to them, when there is such a broad range of resources? How do you provide access to the resources (e.g. is there multi or single user access? Is it online or only accessible in person?)

Helpful Definitions

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A list of helpful definitions collected over the course of my TL education. 

Critical literacy: the analysis and critique of the relationships among texts, language, power, social groups and social practices. It shows us ways of looking at written, visual, spoken, multimedia and performance texts to question and challenge the attitudes, values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface” (Tasmanian Department of Education, 2009).

Literacy: the integration of listening, speaking, reading, writing and critical thinking. It includes a cultural knowledge which enables a speaker, writer or reader to recognise and use language appropriate to different social situations. It is the making of meaning and its clear communication to others

Literacy Learning: learning to be literate. Learning how to decode/read literature, how to deconstruct it, and how to use the literacy skills developed.

Literary Learning: learning through literature – learning by actually reading literature, through a literature-based curriculum.

Transliteracy: the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks

ETL401 Module 2.1 Thinking About Information

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What is Information? Reflections on Module 2.1

As a secondary English teacher, information and communication, and how the two interact to create different forms of meaning, have always been something I have considered in my profession. The raw nature of information was something I have not.

This module, for me, revealed the interesting contradiction that defines information: It is static, dynamic, adaptive – but it also is. It is constant, and in that sense it is never changing. Yet information is constantly changing and transforming. It is untransferable, but it can be transfered in the sense that it can be shared. It is inconsumable because it will never cease to be, but it can be digested. Perhaps not like food, of course, but it can be taken in and understood by receptors. It is indivisible, but it can – and should, in the education profession – be ‘broken up’ so that it can be more readily understood.

And perhaps the most intriguing of all – information is, and yet information is not. It exists, but only because we, as consumers of such an unconsumable product, attach meaning to what might otherwise be a meaningless string or sequence of data. Yet even if we didn’t, it would still exist.

Despite it’s subjective nature, the idea of information as data was something that really resonated with me. When considering the dictionary of computing definition, the analogy of information being like data made as much sense as the idea of information being subjective. The brain, like a hard drive, takes and stores information (raw data) in schema’s, adding to them as we get more information, and locking them away for safe keeping whilst we sleep. But just like a computer, if we forget to revisit it, add to it, and don’t save it in a clearly labelled folder, it (or we) will discard it as meaningless.

In this sense, the nature of information as data means that, as a TL, the communication of it needs to be precise, manageable for students, and fit for purpose – a Stage 1 student won’t be able to receive it the same way a teenager can. In the same way, the sheer amount of it means that teaching students how to understand and communicate data/information won’t be the final frontier. We need to teach them how to access and acquire it critically in a world growing smaller and smaller with greater access to world wide knowledge. The data and information age, and the malleable nature of information, has therefore made the teaching of critical information literacy more paramount than ever.