Metaliteracy featured at Cedar Crest College Summer Workshop

We are looking forward to presenting at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Wednesday August 19.  The topic of our collaborative workshop will be: Expanding Metaliteracy Across the Curriculum to Advance Lifelong Civic Engagement.  Here’s the description for what we plan to do:

Metaliteracy is a reinvention of information literacy to promote reflective learning, active and critical participation in social settings, including social media, and the ability to adapt to emerging technologies. This is a dynamic reframing of information literacy with an expanded set of learning goals and objectives that could be applied across the curriculum to support metacognitive reflection, and learners as informed consumers and collaborative producers of information. Metaliteracy has influenced the development of the new Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, signaling wider support for this model and increasing adoption in diverse educational settings. Metaliteracy has sparked the development of several collaborative projects initiated by Mackey and Jacobson and their colleagues in the Metaliteracy Learning Collaborative, including a digital badging system and three Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

Metaliterate learners, who apply integrated competencies related to evaluating, consuming, and producing information in participatory environments, will be better prepared for college level learning and lifelong civic engagement. This workshop will define metaliteracy, discuss the four domains of metaliteracy and related learning goals and objectives, and examine how this approach has been applied in the curricular design of several innovative projects such as competency based digital badging and three MOOCs. Participants will have a chance during the workshop to envisage opportunities to enhance students’ metaliteracy abilities, and to share these ideas with other attendees.

One of the presenters for this workshop, Trudi E. Jacobson, was co-chair of the ACRL Task Force with Craig Gibson (The Ohio State University). She will describe the new metaliteracy-informed ACRL Framework and its definition of information literacy. This interactive portion of the workshop will be an opportunity to engage with the Framework and consider how it might inform collaborations between disciplinary faculty members and librarians. We will provide an opportunity for participants to grapple with more easily implemented changes and the metaliteracy underpinnings of the frame content to really build upon the content examined throughout the day.

Metaliteracy Presentation Videos from CIT2014

The SUNY wide Conference on Instruction and Technology (CIT 2014) recently published the presentation videos from this year’s event at Cornell University. We developed a presentation with colleagues from the University at Albany and Empire State College based on last year’s Metaliteracy MOOC. This video features Michele Forte, Nicola Allain, Jenna Pitera and Tom Mackey (Trudi Jacobson was presenting a keynote at the Cornell University Library the same week).  Here’s the link to the video now available via the CIT2014 site: Metaliteracy in Practice: Strengthening Learning Through a Connectivist MOOC.  Tom Mackey was also part of a featured panel presentation about MOOCs with SUNY colleagues from Stony Brook who developed a Coursera MOOC.  This was an excellent chance to discuss our connectivist MOOC in comparison with a Coursera MOOC.  The video for this panel presentation is also available:  Beyond the Front Row Experience: Blending a University Course with a MOOC.  The keynote speaker for the conference was Daphe Koller from Coursera: The Online Revolution: Learning without Limits.  Toward the end of Daphne Koller’s keynote, look for questions from Betty Hurley and Nicola Allain from Empire State College and Jenna Pitera from the University at Albany.

Metaliteracy Webinar for ALA eLearning Series

In June we presented a webinar on metaliteracy for the ALA Editions eLearning series.  The slides are now available on Slideshare.  This presentation features several new pieces in support of our new book Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners.

Video of 2014 CT IL Conference Keynote

This is the YouTube video of our metaliteracy keynote at the 2014 Connecticut Information Literacy Conference. All of the presentation videos are available via the conference web site. The metaliteracy keynote slides are also available on slideshare.

Photo Gallery from Recent Metaliteracy Keynote

In June we presented the keynote address at the Connecticut Information Literacy Conference sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association.  Thanks to the conference organizers for sending us several pictures from that event!  We really enjoyed the opportunity to connect with everyone at the conference.  Click on any image to see the full gallery.

Metaliteracy Keynote at Connecticut Information Literacy Conference

We enjoyed presenting this year’s keynote at the Connecticut Information Literacy Conference sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association. This year’s conference explored Our New Frontier: Metaliteracy, Threshold Concepts, New Standards, and Other Wild Ideas and our keynote addressed Crossing the Threshold: Envisioning Information Literacy through the Lens of Metaliteracy.  We were thrilled that metaliteracy was a key part of this year’s theme and we appreciated all of the great conversations! Trudi Jacobson also presented an afternoon breakout session “Threshold Concepts: Exploring the Potential and the Challenges for Information Literacy Instruction” based on her work as co-chair of the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force.

Metaliteracy MOOC Presented at SUNY CIT2014

Last week, we discussed our connectivist Metaliteracy MOOC at SUNY’s CIT2014 at Cornell University.  The presentation entitled Metaliteracy in Practice: Strengthening Learning Through a Connectivist MOOC featured Tom Mackey, Michele Forte, Jenna Pitera, and Nicola Allain.  Trudi Jacobson presented a keynote about her work with the ACRL Task Force during the same week at the Cornell University Library and contributed previously.  This was a great opportunity to reflect on our Metaliteracy MOOC based on the unique features of the connectivist format, including our collaborative and participatory news feeds (powered by the gRSShopper programming developed by Stephen Downes) and interactive MOOC Talks using Blackboard Collaborate.

Video Recording of 2014 IL Summit Keynote

Thanks to Troy Swanson Department Chair and Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College for posting the video of our keynote Changing Models, Changing Emphases: The Evolution of Information Literacy at the 2014 IL Summit.  We enjoyed our time at the summit and appreciate this opportunity to share the video.

Metaliteracy Keynote at IL Summit

Last week we presented a collaborative keynote address at the IL Summit at Moraine Valley Community College in Illinois.  The conference was sponsored by DePaul University Library and Moraine Valley Community College Library and focused on the theme Into the Next Generation: The Future of Information Literacy.  We also presented a collaborative workshop entitled Designing Digital Badges to Generate Engaged Learning.  We enjoyed our time at the conference and greatly appreciated the opportunity to engage with all of the participants.  Our keynote examined Changing Models, Changing Emphases: The Evolution of Information Literacy and is available on SlideShare. 

Metaliteracy Book Published by ALA!

Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners

New Metaliteracy Book

Our new co-authored book Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners (April 2014) has been published by ALA Books/Neal-Schuman!  The book features seven chapters that range from theory to practice, expanding the concept of metaliteracy with an emphasis on metacognition, exploring current trends in social media, describing the learning objectives required to support metaliterate learners, and analyzing global trends in emerging literacies.  We also present the results of a preliminary survey about metaliteracy and related issues, and then close with two case studies from our own teaching in the classroom and online.  The book includes visual models of the metaliteracy framework and the metaliterate learner and several figures in support of our survey chapter.  Sheila A. Webber, Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research at the Information School, Sheffield University wrote the Foreword to the book.  ALA is currently providing a sample of the book and Facet Publishing is distributing the book internationally.    The new publication is also available via Amazon and other online booksellers.  The official press release from ALA Publishing is available as well: Using Metaliteracy to Empower Learners.  We are excited about the new book and appreciate all of the interest that has been expressed in the metaliteracy model.  We look forward to continuing the conversation now that the book is officially available!  Feel free to post comments about the book via this blog or Twitter using #metaliteracy.  We will be discussing the book as part of our upcoming keynote presentations and can’t wait for the dialogue about these ideas!  -Tom and Trudi