Ashley Pence
August 21, 2007
Hancock, Vicki E. (1993). Information literacy for lifelong learning. ERIC Publications: ERIC Digests in Full Text.
The topic of this article deals with the current information age and how it is quite different from any previous means of obtaining the information we need. This article focuses on teachers, students, citizens and workers in the twenty-first century.
The topic expands on the fact that we must take seriously this new wave of possiblities to obtain information. The one thing I found interesting about this information age is that it cannot be ignored by us and should become part of a new way of learning in the classrooms, workplace and among every other citizen that still has the potential to learn.
The claim for this article is that for quite some time we have been aware that there is a wide range of literacies. The author, Vicki Hancock, gave several examples; print, visual, computational, cultural, computer, and scientific. Hancock emphasizes that information literacy is the key to all these types of things and more. If you are information
literate, Hancock suggests that you can recognize a need for information, identify and locate appropriate forms of information sources, know how to gain access to information in those sources, evaluate the quality of information obtained, organize the information and use the information effectively.
The evidence that supports the author’s claim is that people no longer need instruction from a teacher to obtain the information they need. We can become active learners by researching for ourselves and having the teacher change roles from dictator to
facilitator. If we can find the answers for ourselves then we can not only teach ourselves, but teach the teacher as well by discovering new information on a broader scale. For citizens information literacy is a huge help. This includes research on their health, housing, schooling, cooking and traveling to name a few. By exploring these topics they are better prepared to make decisions based on these such things. For workers it is hard to even find a place to begin on how important information literacy is for them. I realize that for different types of work there are different levels of importance for information literacy. For example; Someone who is involved in banking or stock markets, things can change for them in seconds and if they are not up to date on the most recent thing, then anything could happen from stock markets crashing to someone losing their job.
This text connects to me through my school work. I can’t even begin to imagine doing projects or research without the abundance of information that I can gain by simply understanding how to get it. I could not have gotten the article that I am writing
about if I had not been exposed to the many different ways receiving information.
This text connects with other texts that I have just read. That is my syllabus for my CD 315 class. The reason for this course is to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a literate person in a digtal world and how I can contribute to developing and continuing literacy skills among those around me.
As a future Speech Language Pathologist this text relates to my obligation for continuing education for myself. I will also be more prepared to inform my patients, parents and coworkers more easily and to hopefully help shape their information literacy as well.
