Comments for The dying art of information literacy

Comment from magia3e on 2007-05-20

2007-05-20T07:59:38Z

Your post reminds me of when I was doing my Masters of Knowledge Management. I had researched a discussion point to post on our online forum and, ready to enjoy an accademic discussion, only found someone commenting "I don't think that's right". No logically constructed argument. No research. No nothing. I was aghast!

I never thought any of my high-school, undergraduate or post-graduate courses taught me how to think, form hypotheses, use deductive reasoning, research my arguments... I could go on, but you get the point.

Much of learning is social in nature - interaction, mentoring, watching, listening, and engaging. I'm not sure that our instant gratification world, our google-any-answer world, is at fault.

I would hypothesise that if my teachers engaged me in debate and intellectual persuits rather than wanting me to digest facts and spit them out I would be better at arguing and my first year psych marks would have been better. I also bet that those I met in my KM Masters would have produced a few more words in their posts.

I survived and taught myself how to think and learnt how to keep learning. I wish more people would spend more time learning how to think as well.

Comment from iain on 2007-05-23

2007-05-23T10:51:41Z

Nothing new here. A Beeb report dated June, 2006 summarising research by Sally Brown (Leeds Metropolitan University) found that not only do most students think copying from the Internet is just fine but they just don't get the idea of plagiarism. According to Prof Brown: "They are post-modern, eclectic, Google-generationists, Wikipediasts, who don't necessarily recognise the concepts of authorships/ownerships."

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/5093286.stm

Comment from Arjun Thomas on 2007-05-27

2007-05-28T03:47:02Z

Nice article Jack, made for some interesting reading..

cheers,
Arjun Thomas.

Comment from jackvinson on 2007-05-27

2007-05-28T04:03:22Z

A few others have been commenting on this topic and have linked to this post. Here are a pair of articles:

Jason the Content Librarian, Information Literacy Crisis?
Matt Hodgson, Information literacy: why the Oxford model works

Comment from David Montgomery on 2007-05-28

2007-05-28T19:33:30Z

Jack, here is something I put together or rather rambled out in one fell swoop on reading the post above:

PLAGIARISM
I say to you a plague on isms
Or should that be plagiarism
As searching on the Internet
I find my appetite it is whet

Just look at all these good ideas
Like honey to a swarm of bees
Surely all we find is free
All these thoughts they come from me

Secured by searchers' finders rights
From looking on the net at night
What's the point of cyberspace
If authors want to claim their place

So please do not start to moan
When I state source unknown
Since from my mind your name has gone
Thus my source becomes Anon

Not (nearly) in the same calibre as Burns or even Lear but I thought it was worth a punt anyway to make the point about those siphoning the ideas of others....at least they'll never snaffle the tacit knowledge!!!

David

Comment from magia3e on 2007-05-28

2007-05-29T02:14:34Z

According to Prof Brown: "They are post-modern, eclectic, Google-generationists, Wikipediasts, who don't necessarily recognise the concepts of authorships/ownerships."

@Ian: Really??? I think it's a good thing if no one 'owns' information. Certainly, as far as copyright is concerned, you can't own an idea, you can only own a 'work' in its entirety.

I know there are disadvantages with this world view of "Google-generationists" (as Ian puts it), but maybe more people should be thinking that we should let knowledge and information be free.

Comment from David Montgomery on 2007-05-30

2007-05-30T07:37:13Z

"but maybe more people should be thinking that we should let knowledge and information be free."

I think many people do think like this until its their idea that gets snaffled......Budweiser from Czech Republic or born in the USA? Emotional Intelligence = Daniel Goleman or extrapolation from Howard Gardner?

Food for thought.

David