The Big6: Information & Technology Skills Rob Darrow Big6 Trainer for Student Success

A Little About Me Educator, 22 years – grades K-8 Clovis, CA – Central California LMT - over 700 student owned laptop computers at school Big6 user and trainer for the past 8 years Currently coordinate an online high school program – Colorado has one of the best online school cooperatives in the nation

A Little About You Big6 Cards Name, job, school, years in education Read the card Which Big6 step is the card? 1. Task Definition 2. Info Seeking Strategies 3. Location & Access 4. Use of Information 5. Synthesis 6. Evaluation

My Beliefs In an information rich society, you need more trained professionals Students NEED trained teachers and professionals to guide them in how to use information – both print and digital Teachers NEED to know how to guide students in the use of information

Goals for Today To understand the Big6 as it applies to information literacy. To identify ways that you can incorporate the Big6 on Monday and throughout the semester. To challenge you to think about the Big6 and technology integration.

Outline of the Workshop Part I: The information age: implications for learning, teaching and technology Part II: Information literacy: the Big6 Skills process & approach Part III: The Big6 and technology Part IV: Big6 Implementation and Integration

Info Lit Self Assessment From Information Power – American Association of School Librarians

Your Lesson in Big6? Be thinking of a lesson or unit you teach during the second semester…

Why?

Opportunity Calvin and Hobbes B.C. Cartoon

Our mission as educators… To motivate student learning To define “learn”

Why is this a challenge? The definition of “learn” changes The needs of the learners change Consider these statistics…

Facts about Information... Today, the amount of information in the world doubles every two years. In the year 2010, it is predicted that the amount of information will double every 72 hours.

Background Statistics Internet The Internet had more users in its first five years than the telephone did in its first thirty outnumbers regular mail by nearly ten to one The web is still doubling in size…every days (USA Today, 1996) A new web page appears every 4 minutes

More Background Statistics Internet According to a recent UCLA study (2000): – by 1997, some 19 million Americans were using the Internet…that number tripled in one year, and then passed 100 million in – In the first quarter of 2000, more than five million Americans joined the online world – roughly 55,000 new users each day 2,289 new users each hour, or 38 new users each minute. –

More Background Statistics Internet According to UCLA study (2001): – 72% of Americans go online each week for an average of 9 hours per week – The top reason Internet users go online: to obtain information quickly. – A new gap in patterns of Internet use is emerging: experienced vs. non-experienced users –

Background Statistics Children  More than 17 million teens, or three-fourths of all U.S. kids ages 12 to 17, go online each month.  Cyber Dialogue. July, 2001,  Currently 88 million offspring ages 0-20 in U.S.  Tapscott, Growing Up Digital (1998)  More school-age children in the nation use computers at school than at home (Newburger 2001). – Newburger, E. (2001). Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, August 2000.

Background Statistics Children  High school students today are first generation to grow up on the Internet  Students internalize technology use, while adults have to adopt it  It is a world of analog adults and digital kids

Internet Connectivity In fall 2001, 99 percent of public schools in the United States had access to the Internet. – (NCES, 2002)

Computers today are one million times more powerful than 20 years ago. Computing Power

In 20 years computers will be one million times more powerful than today! Computing Power

Information Overload Information Quality Everywhere! – work – school – play Challenges of the Information Age

Information Issue #1: Overload

“More new information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000.” (Source: Large, P., The Micro Revolution, Revisited, 1984) Information Overload

Today, a daily New York Times has more information in it than a person would come across in an entire lifetime in the 17th Century. David Lewis “Introduction to Dying for Information,” Information Overload

An example … David Lewis “Introduction to Dying for Information,” Information Overload

Alta Vista: 454,150 hits 5 minutes on each = 37,000 hours Narrow to that appear to be right = hours. Total Potential time to spend: 635 days or almost 2 years!!! “Should children be immunized? Are immunizations safe?” Another… Information Overload Example

Causing Overload Moore’s Law: Computing power doubles every 18 months! In 18 months you get twice as much power and capacity for the same $$

The Solution to Coping With Overload? to speed things up? to pack in more and more content? to add more technology?

Information Problem #2: Quality

Researchers (Rand) checked out 6 health Web sites and 12 sites dedicated to specific diseases. How frequently Web sites are complete and accurate: Breast cancer 63% Depression44% Obesity 37% Childhood asthma33% U.S. News & World Report, June 4, 2001 v130 i22 p10 Quality

“More than 2/3 of teens said within the last year that they use the Internet as their major resource when doing a big project for school..." Lester, Will "High School Students Love Net for Research." Syracuse Post Standard, 8/21/01 (from AP ) Quality

In a study of 500 sites used by Colorado high school students to do research, only 27% of the sites were judged to be reliable for academic research! Colhoun, Alexander. "But - - I Found It on the Internet!" Christian Science Monitor. 25 April 2000: 16. Ebersol, Samuel, “Uses and Gratifications of the Web among Students,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6(1): September 2000,

Quality The top legal advice person on Askme.com turned out to be a 14 year old whose only legal training was from Court TV and cop shows. But – just as interesting, when he was finally “uncovered,” Advice on the Net: Michael Lewis, New York Times Magazine, July 2001; also Next (Norton, 2001) the demand for his advice still continued!

Quality: Searching the Web Search mechanisms find less than 20% of everything that is on the web It is estimated that the “dark or invisible web” is times larger than the indexed commercial web.

The Solution?

Video: Information Literacy “e-literate” Pacific Bell/UCLA

Key Players to Meet the Need: Library Media Specialists “The mission of the library media program is to ensure that students and staff…are effective users of ideas and information. – Information Power, 1988

“To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” American Library Association, 1989 Information Literacy

“Information literacy, the ability to locate, process and use information effectively, equips individuals to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in the global information society.” Assoc. for Supervision and Curriculum Dev, 1991 Information Literacy

The Solution Information Literacy! – Helping students to be discriminating users of information. – Helping students learn essential information & technology skills! Use the Big6!

Key to Information Literacy: CONTEXT!! WARNING! Teaching information & technology skills out of context is hazardous to your students’ health.

A Question for you… Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Oakland Raiders?

Break time