Have the skills required to be considered information literate changed as a result of technological advances? Or is it more a case of there are just more places to find information but the skills remain the same?
As I commented in an earlier blog, this is not a simple yes or no question. I think that if teachers only teach what I consider to be traditional literacy with traditional tools such as paper texts then students will be left short when trying to interpret the information-dense world around them.
I think being literate still means the same thing as it always has but it is so much more complex now because there is far greater amounts of information and so many ways to consume information and as well.
So, what does this mean for teachers and teacher librarians? What impact will this have on the way we teach literacy? We need to teach in a way so that a student has all of the required skills to understand, interpret, evaluate and apply information regardless of where the information comes from. This means that teachers need to ensure that a wide range of texts are used within lessons to ensure that students understand the skills they are being taught are to be used on all types of information, not just print.
I also think that being literate in the highly-connected information landscape in which we live means that students need to be taught not only how to consume information but how to share, create and collaborate.