Information and media literacy

A core skill of 21st-century skills is digital literacy. Contemporary concepts address mainly access, evaluation, curation, and production of information in digital environments. In the past, differing ideas, e. g. computer literacy, information literacy media literacy, see Gilster's taxonomy chart (1997)) were competing in education.

1. Digital Literacy

The term originated in the mid-1990s when computers were ushering in a "post-typographic" age where new theories and methods for teaching and learning had to be found. It was predicted that reading and writing on the computer would fundamentally change how we communicate and exchange information due to the absence of a solid framework.

2. Computer literacy

Computer literacy has existed since the 1970s with variations in its usage and meaning. Through the 1980s, two competing approaches to computer literacy began to emerge.

The first focused on the uses of computer technologies. "If you can tell the computer how to do things you want it to do, you are computer literate."
The second approach was concerned with controlling computer technologies, like programming a computer.
When computers were integrated into school contexts throughout the 1980s, a third dimension focused on the politics and economics of computing systems.

It was assumed that computer knowledge would become a form of social capital that could reinforce social hierarchies and be well used on the job market. In the 1990s, all three approaches were implemented, as they were necessary for the social and economic field.

3. Information literacy

Information literacy took shape from the 19970s on, yet developed mainly in library and information science. It focuses on the competencies required to use information in computer-based environments. That included the production and organization of information itself and the knowledge of retrieving, organizing, and evaluating information from media. The concept centered on information-seeking skills, strategies, and dispositions. It could be applied in digital as well as non-digital environments.

4. Media literacy

The term emerged in the 1970s as an extension of the postwar investment in education related to propaganda analysis, general semantics, and visual rhetoric. It searched to protect learners from media manipulation and empower them to critically analyze information quality and produce their own messages. It was defined as learning "new forms of computer literacy that involve both how to use the computer to do research and gather information, as well as to perceive it as a cultural terrain that contains texts, spectacles, games, and new interactive multimedia."

Emerging from these different approaches, digital literacy is an assembly of them, with overlapping areas. The model of Galster (1997) put them into relation as follows:

Concerns:

However, there were raised some concerns in education research on connective technologies.

1. The socio-technical dimension of digital media

Technology is seen as objects (computers, tablets, mobile phones) and as their internal mechanisms that allow devices to function. "Code" is no longer limited to remote commands or programs. Collective life is shaped by algorithms processing data, interfaces structuring user experience, and protocols delimiting possible actions within the system. They all influence life and work in the digital age.

2. The socio-economic dimension of connective media

Technical infrastructures and economic relations underwrite digital practices and are always in motion, adapting to changes within and across their component parts. The following multidimensional model framework for understanding digital literacies was developed by giving space to more dimensions. It has to be taken into consideration the ownership and profit motives of hardware and software companies and their influence via advertising on all platforms.

In the model of Viera (2015), the technological, cognitive, and organizational culture merge to what is essential.

The European Union created a digital competencies framework not only for educators but also for citizens. For each of the competencies, a rubric for assessment can be made and adapted to the specific key area. In my case, for the target group of educators using an internal professional wiki, rubrics can be created, and self-assessment and peer assessment can be done. Foro assessing collaboration through digital technologies (2.1) and writing a wiki article (3.1), please see also the "Evidence of progress" site.

The Rubric Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (RAILS) is a research project designed to investigate an analytic rubric approach to information literacy assessment in higher education. I based my rubric on the RAILS grid to develop a rubric for information literacy, namely (1.1) Browsing, searching, and filtering data, information, and digital content. RAILS is funded by the American Institute for Museum and Library Services and is offered as a free open service to everybody. Because of the scientific setup and continuous evaluation, I considered it credible and reliable to use.

How do learners become aware of what type of resources they choose? The Center for Media Literacy brought it down to five key questions to ask:

Who created this message?
What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
How might different people understand this message differently?
What values, lifestyles, and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
Why is this message being sent?

Correspondingly, there are five Core Concepts.

All media messages are 'constructed.
Media messages are created using a creative language with its own rules.
Different people experience the same media message differently.
Media have embedded values and points of view.
Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power

They can be reached in short videos with some tasks to fulfill, as MediaSmarts from Canada shows in the Media Minute videos.

Levels of assessment of information literacy

Using the typology found in the U.S and Canadian multi-institutional studies at Project Information Literacy (PIL), the micro-level approach for assessing information literacy for my target group is the typology of systems. That means effectiveness is measured as per the learning outcomes; validation is mainly on short-term activities like writing articles and giving feedback on other authors' writings. The learning content can be offered in courses, classes, or self-learning units. Peer and self-assessment can be done by rubrics and published quality criteria.

Some of the assessments can be done on the meso level, on which they need for information literacy instruction is validated by a long series of classes, maybe a whole program. It could be developed based on the European Competence Framework for citizens. The outcomes may be analyzed individually and on the level of data analysis and material analysis.

The assessment should be based on reflective questions to encourage lifelong learning processes. That could be, for example: