New Book about the ACRL Framework Includes Metaliteracy

Posted on by
Reply

The new book edited by Heidi Julien, Melissa Gross, and Don Latham The Information Literacy Framework: Case Studies of Successful Implementation, features a Foreword written by Trudi E. Jacobson and a metaliteracy chapter authored by Tom Mackey. Trudi’s perspective as co-chair of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) task force that developed the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, informed her Foreword for the book. Trudi noted that: “The chapter authors and editors of this volume have done a great service for librarians and other educators who wold like to expand their understanding of the potential impact and use of the Framework and add to their repertoire of ways for integrating it into their work” (p. xi).

The ACRL Framework was influenced by aspects of metaliteracy and in his chapter entitled “Exploring Metaliterate Learning through the Frames of Information Literacy,” Tom Mackey investigates both models as complementary. In particular, he examines the final project assignment in the metaliteracy MOOC Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World as an example of metaliterate learning from the perspective of the six frames of the ACRL Framework. He also argues that “The metacognitive aspect of metaliteracy has been a driver for these projects and suggests the need for further development of this approach in information literacy as well” (p. 217).

This new book, published by Rowman & Littlefield, includes 18 different case studies from librarians and faculty members who have experience applying the ACRL Framework in practice. Take a look at the range of the chapters–you are certain to find some pertinent to your interests!

Metaliteracy Post-Truth MOOC is Popular and Recommended

Posted on by
Reply
Characteristics of the Metaliterate Learner (Mackey & Jacobson, 2019)

According to Class Central, the Coursera version of our most recent metaliteracy MOOC Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World is one of 2019’s Most Popular Online Courses. The founder and CEO of Class Central, Dhawal Shah noted that his site aggregates MOOCs and collects course enrollment data from MOOC providers as well as data from learners at Class Central to arrive at the list of most popular online courses.

In another recent mention of our Metaliteracy MOOC, Jessica Stillman Contributor at Inc.com recommended Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World in her latest article “20 Online Courses That Will Make You More Successful in 2020.” According to Stillman, she selected “classes in everything from exercise to data analysis that will help you be more motivated, productive and successful this year.” Our MOOC was mentioned along with classes from around the world about such topics as Statistics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Design, Writing and Public Speaking, Critical Thinking, and Ethical Hacking. We join Jessica Stillman in wishing everyone a productive and successful 2020!

Metaliteracy in Wikipedia

Posted on by
Reply

An article for metaliteracy that has been started on Wikipedia is currently available only in draft form. Additional content, including information about its use and the range of practitioners and researchers who have incorporated metaliteracy in their work, would be very helpful in getting this new article approved. Based on the rules of editing in Wikipedia, neither Trudi nor Tom or others who are highly involved with researching metaliteracy are able to contribute to this article. If you are a Wikipedia editor or are interested In learning to edit on Wikipedia, this might be a great article to start.You will find the draft article here.

There are some excellent resources for learning to edit in Wikipedia. Even if you don’t have a chance to edit the metaliteracy draft article, you may be interested in editing an existing article or starting a new one. Here is a list of available tutorials and guides:

Help: Getting Started Page

The Wikipedia Adventure is fun!

BiblioVerifica Blog Response to Metaliteracy Post-Truth MOOC

Posted on by
Reply

We welcome this guest posting from Damiano Orrù, librarian at Vilfredo Pareto Library School of Economics at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata,” Italy. We met Damiano at the Conference on Learning Information Literacy across the Globe in Frankfurt, Germany in May 2019 and he has since completed our Metaliteracy MOOC Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World. He wrote this post in response to the Coursera MOOC as part of his own BiblioVerifica blog. Thanks to Damiano for completing our MOOC and providing these excellent resources!

BiblioVerifica Blog for Fact-checking by Citizens

Damiano Orrù, librarian at Vilfredo Pareto Library
School of Economics,  University of Rome “Tor Vergata”,  Italy

As a Coursera MOOC student, I completed the course “Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World” in 6 weeks, deepening the themes of disinformation and verification of facts and news.

All these contents and tools are useful to teach “how to spot fake news”[1] by the cognitive and behavioral domanins of Metaliteracy.  The cognitive domain of the Metaliterate Learner is important to understand information and news, analyzing sources and contexts. The behavioral domain is essential for a conscious sharing and production of content through chat, social media, e-mail, forums, blogs. Several Metaliteracy practices are excellent tools for empowering citizens to use critical thinking and to evaluate sources.

The BiblioVerifica[2] blog aims to support citizens (not just students) in the autonomous practice of fact-checking, based on open access and open data resources.  Currently, this idea embraces dissemination of open data and open access content for all fact-checkers citizens by eight librarians as editorial staff[3]. BiblioVerifica blog has developed a network of stakeholders in the library and school environment since 2017. For the future our intiative may involve teachers and librarians to develop and share open education oriented fact-chekcing practices and tools. This free digital reference activity will engage citizens and schools in Italy.  

The blog engaged citizenzs also by serious gamification app: BiblioVerifica Olympics[4] a contest based on 15 multiple choice quizzes, open to all citzens, for self assesment, available for free, without money prize or sponsor. In 2018 the first olympics quizzes covered the topics of reliable sources, verification strategies, research tools, etc…  The second edition covered the topics of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)[5] in the current year.  For the future may improve this tool for engage learners by Metaliteracy contents or debunking practices. 

Around European countries BiblioVerifica blog launched CrowdSearcher[6], an international platform supporting the European policy Tackling online disinformation[7] by open education resources, open contents, open data.

In the next weeks the BiblioVerifica bloggers will continue to support European citizens, also suggesting Metaliteracy’s tools, so useful, almost indispensable, to create tutorial and videos, serious games and infographics about media and information literacy.

This media and information literacy against misinformation is disseminated by librarians, without sponsor, without remuneration for posts or tutorial, by “BiblioVolontari“. As librarians the bloggers stick to IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers[8]:
a) access to information
b) open access and intellectual property
c) neutrality, personal integrity and professional skills

BiblioVerifica blog is open to all volunteer librarians around the world, fostering critical thinking, analysing personal BIAS, suggesting reliable sources, fighting propaganda and misinformation by empowering citizens in a Post-Truth World!

[1] https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11174

[2] http://biblioverifica.altervista.org/

[3] http://biblioverifica.altervista.org/bibliovolontari/

[4] http://biblioverifica.altervista.org/olympics/

[5] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

[6] http://crowdsearcher.altervista.org/

[7] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/tackling-online-disinformation

[8] https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11092

post-metaliteracy-final-work-orru-damiano-2019-oct-28-2Download
orru@economia.uniroma2.it 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7493-5648 
https://linkedin.com/in/orrudamiano
Rome, October 27th 2019

Open Pedagogy and Metaliteracy Topic of ICIL Keynote

Posted on by
Reply

bC19g0oxRyOYV6LZ+rTnmw

Trudi Jacobson keynoting at ICIL in South Africa

Trudi Jacobson gave the last international keynote address at the International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL) at North-West University (NWU) in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa on September 26. Her topic was Creating Shareable Knowledge: Exploring the Synergy between Metaliteracy and Open Pedagogy. She spoke about the components of open educational practices, including open educational resources, open pedagogies, open learning, open sharing of teaching ideas, and open technologies. She then asked participants to put themselves in the role of a student and to consider what might be different about their learning experience if open played a role. (Their responses are here, please feel free to consider the question and add your own ideas.)

Trudi delved into how metaliteracy can both scaffold and add to student learning in open pedagogical settings, using Caroline Sinkinson’s open pedagogy model to make connections. Trudi concluded by exploring the connections in two case studies. One, which was analyzed in-depth, is an information literacy/metaliteracy course in which students contribute to Wikipedia. The second, discussed more briefly, is a political science course in which metaliteracy OER play a large role and encourage elements of open pedagogy. If interested in this latter course, look for an article next year in the International Journal of Open Educational Resources that explores this professor/librarian collaboration in more depth.

Applying Metaliteracy in Teaching and Learning Practices Session at ICIL, South Africa

Posted on by
Reply

nehNGVV0RGy+w5uwom2FIA

Tom Mackey and Trudi Jacobson

Tom Mackey’s and Trudi Jacobson’s last, and rather unexpected, joint presentation while they were in South Africa was a session on September 25 at the International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL) at North-West University (NWU) in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. They were invited to give this presentation by Dr. Jako Olivier when another presenter’s session fell through. The presentation, Applying Metaliteracy in Teaching and Learning Practices, was very well attended, particularly for a last minute addition to the schedule. Trudi and Tom explored changing literacy types, the value of metaliteracy in an environment of competing and overlapping literacies, core components of metaliteracy, and the open educational resources available to embed in disciplinary courses. This last part of the presentation focused on the metaliterate learner badges and the metaliteracy MOOCs (massive open online courses), although other resources were also described.

Metaliteracy and Post-Truth Explored in Keynote at NWU in South Africa

Posted on by
Reply

Tom Mackey presented an international keynote entitled Building Communities of Trust: Metaliterate Learning for a Post-Truth Society at the International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL) at North-West University (NWU) in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. Tom was invited to keynote at the conference by Dr. Jako Olivier, UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and OER and Professor in Multimodal Learning at NWU.

2bf4dc76-5e72-42c8-867d-74c108eaaf5f

Tom Mackey Keynoting at NWU (photo by Louise Olivier)

Tom’s keynote is based on the framing chapter he wrote “Empowering Metaliterate Learners for the Post-Truth World” for his latest metaliteracy book with Trudi Jacobson Metaliterate Learning for the Post-Truth World published by ALA/Neal-Schuman.

As noted in the abstract for this presentation: Metaliteracy is a reframing of information literacy to develop metaliterate learners as active producers of information in both local and global communities of trust. In today’s post-truth society, personal and political beliefs have diminished the meaning and impact of verifiable facts and truthful reasoning. Metaliterate learners are empowered through reflective practice to responsibly consume and creatively produce information in collaborative and participatory social spaces. Through informed civic engagement, individuals take control of their participation while working cooperatively with others to build responsible communities of trust. Visualizations have the power to enhance our understanding of and connections with the metaliteracy framework and several were shared as part of this presentation.

An analysis of the Open edX and Coursera versions of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Empowering Yourself in a Post-Truth World, demonstrated how metaliteracy is applied as a pedagogical model to the challenges of a post-truth society.