Web Literacy:
using & sharing dynamic tools to learn & teach the Web
Online Northwest · OSU - Corvallis, OR · February 13, 2015
About Me
Tim Miller
Instruction and Reference Librarian
tim.miller@humboldt.edu
- Teach workshops on how to share information using the Web
- Contribute to the Mozilla Webmaker community to define web literacy and identify key skills to aid in curriculum development and lesson planning
What is Web Literacy?
"the skills and competencies needed for reading, writing and participating on the web."
What we are doing today:
- Condensed version of a student workshop:
- explore URL query strings
- coding to create a custom search box using JSBin to try it out
- We are going to learn through exploration, using some resources for learning and teaching:
- handout
- online: https://github.com/sometimesmotion/webliteracytools
Goals:
- Understand Web Literacy
- Learn how to incorporate Web Literacy into information literacy
- Explore resources to learn
- Explore resources to teach
- Discuss and reflect
- Think about the content we are covering
- Why are we including this as library instruction?
Caveats:
- We have a lot to cover in 40 mins
- We will be skipping around
- I am assuming you have some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS & JavaScript
- If not, don't panic- the concepts are more important than the code
- As we are working, think about the lesson plan
- Why are we covering what we're covering?
- What would you do differently?
- How could you adapt this lesson?
While we get started
Please start up your computer and open a web browser
Why Web Literacy?
"the skills and competencies needed for reading, writing and participating on the web."
Information Literacy is evolving with information technology:
- ALA (1989)
- knowing, identifying, finding, evaluating, organizing, using
- SCONUL - UK (1999)
- ability to construct strategies for locating information
- ability to synthesize and build upon existing information, contributing to the creation of new knowledge
Why Web Literacy?
We are developing new information literacy frameworks:
Media Literacy
- access, analyze, and produce information for specific outcomes
- 'use information in such a way that others can learn from them'
Digital Literacy
- 'networked computer resources' & 'digital technologies'
- access & use - 'function in knowledge society'
(Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2010). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, crl-76r1.)
Why Web Literacy?
"the skills and competencies needed for reading, writing and participating on the web."
Metaliteracy
- Evaluate, produce, share & participate across formats
[Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2010). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, crl-76r1.]
Transliteracy
- Social meaning of literacy
- Read, write and interact across platforms
[Ipri, T. (2010). Introducing transliteracy: What does it mean to academic libraries?. College & Research Libraries News, 71(10), 532.]
How do we teach Web Literacy?
New Culture of Learning
(Douglas Thomas & John Seely Brown)
Teach the tools to explore & create:
- Create environments that foster a culture of learning
- Engagement with the content & medium
- Practice & explore
- learn what you don't know
- ask questions
- work with others
Best of all:
it's what they want!
- We began with 5 Hour of Code events that were (surprisingly to us) very popular
- The students asked: "What next?"
- Now: semester-long series & one-shot workshops
- Our workshops are reaching capacity
- No credit offering - these are self-motivated students
- Next objective: peer-to-peer workshops
- More empowering
- Offer leadership opportunities
Today's Exercise
URL Query Strings
Goals:
- Learn- what is a query string?
- Explore- how query strings work in searching
- Explore- manipulate the URL to conduct a search
- Learn- HTML & JavaScript basics
- Explore- HTML & JavaScript basics
- Create- JavaScript application to make customized search box
Today's Exercise
Questions to think about
- What applications are there for using URL query strings?
- What sites do we want to search?
- What would our users want?
- What are the limits?
- What situations won't work?
- What other considerations are there?
