Metaliteracy learning objectives inform UAlbany’s new general education learning objectives

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The University at Albany recently made the decision to include four general education competencies within each major. This change, which will take effect for the fall 2014 semester, moves information literacy, critical thinking, oral discourse, and upper level writing (now called advanced writing in the major), from a course-based model to infusion within the major.

As would be expected, many, many task force, committee, and council meetings were part of the process, both leading up to this change in how these competencies are taught, and then developing the supporting structure, including the learning objectives for each. Because departments are mandated to do this but don’t necessarily feel prepared to do so, it has provided an excellent opportunity for information literacy librarians and bibliographers to have meaningful conversations with faculty members about what information literacy really is. And it also provided an opportunity to include elements of metaliteracy into these new learning objectives.

To see the result, take a look at the Campus Initiatives section under the ML in Practice tab.  We hope that this will be just the first of many entries in this section. We would very much like to hear from you if you have something to report. Leave us a comment and we will be in touch.

Keynote address at SOCHE in Dayton, Ohio

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We are presenting the keynote address at this year’s Southwestern Ohio Conference for Higher Education (SOCHE) Library Conference.  The theme of the conference is  Transitions in Learning: Preparing Engaged Students for the E-Learning Environment.  Our collaborative keynote will examine  Reinventing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy for E-Learning. We are also presenting two workshops: Trudi will conduct a workshop on team-based learning and Tom will facilitate a conversation about using emerging technologies in E-Learning.  The keynote address shows metaliteracy as an evolving concept.  We expand on previous talks with material from the new book we are working on and examples of student work that embody the metaliteracy concept of learner-centered production of information in participatory environments.

Metaliteracy Presentation at ACRL 2013

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Tom Mackey and Trudi Jacobson will present this week at ACRL 2013, the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. The presentation entitled “What’s in a Name?: Information Literacy, Metaliteracy, or Transliteracy” will explore metaliteracy in relation to other emerging literacy frameworks as well as the metacognitive dimension of the term.  Trudi and Tom will also report out on the progress of the SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grant (IITG) that established a metaliteracy learning collaborative and developed new metaliteracy learning objectives (available at this blog) with SUNY colleagues.  Follow our Twitter feed during the conference at #acrlname

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New Citation for Metaliteracy

Since it was first published in 2011, Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy has been cited in over 26 different publications.  We just noticed that the article was cited in a new article entitled “Littérature scientifique et formation à l’information, la situation des bioingénieurs à Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (ULg) (synthèse bibliographique)” in the journal Biotechnol. Agron. Soc. Environ. 2013 17(1), 118-130 (Authors: Bernard Pochet, Philippe Lepoivre, and Paul Thirion).  According to the abstract for this essay (in English: “Scholarly publication and education in Information Literacy within the bioengineering curriculum, the Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (ULg) case. A review.”) :

This article is based on a doctoral study on the role of scientific literature in the teaching of bioengineering at Gembloux. It is essentially a summary incorporating recent advances in Information Literacy. Data analysis indicates that the bioengineers working at Gembloux publish at least as much as research as other scientists in Belgium. These bioengineers choose to publish articles in journals with a high impact factor, preferring to read articles rather than books and using all the electronic resources available to them. Their fields of research, and reading, go beyond the bounds of agronomy in the strictest sense (Bernard Pochet, Philippe Lepoivre, and Paul Thirion).

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Metaliteracy discussed at 3T’s Conference

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As part of the 3T’s Transliteracy, Technology, and Teaching conference Tom Mackey, Trudi Jacobson, and Greg Bobish collaborated on a presentation entitled: “Metaliteracy sounds great but how do I teach it?”  The conference also included a keynote by Sue Thomas and a session about OER 101 by Mark McBride and Beth Burns.  All three presentations were recorded by SUNY Empire State College, the host of this year’s 3T’s conference. The link to the main video page can be found via our playlist.  Here are the links to all three videos:

Metaliteracy Wordle

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Metaliteracy Wordle

This is a word cloud of the article “Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy” using Wordle.net. The site creates an image based on the words that are used most often in the text. In this example we can see that the term “information literacy” is used quite a bit as the article argues for a reframing and refers to other literacy types as well as trends in social media and online communities. We may use a word cloud as part of our presentation at ACRL in a few weeks.

UNESCO Papers Cite Metaliteracy

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Two new essays in a series of research papers published by UNESCO cite metaliteracy and promote the framework.  The series is entitled Conceptual Relationship of Information Literacy and Media Literacy in Knowledge Societies and includes an essay authored by Dr. Alice Y. L. Lee, Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism from the Hong Kong Baptist University in China entitled “Literacy and Competencies Required to Participate in Knowledge Societies: WSIS+10: Overview and Analysis of WSIS Action Lines C3 Access to Knowledge and C9 Media.”  Lee references our article “Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy” and summarizes several key points reinforcing that “metaliteracies are critical thinking and collaboration abilities in a digital age that provide a comprehensive framework from which to effectively participate in social media and online communities” (25).  In a second essay entitled “Conceptual Relationship of Information Literacy and Media Literacy: Consideration within the broader Mediacy and Metaliteracy Framework” Dr. Toni Carbo, Teaching Professor at Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology (The iSchool) states that “Metaliteracy comes full circle to the concepts introduced originally by Zurkowski and in ‘Mediacy’ in 1997 and expands the context into social media and the civil society” (99).  Carbo concludes her essay by stating: “This suggests an important role for UNESCO in bringing together both experts and other individuals from different cultures, age groups and disciplines to shape a true Metaliteracy program to improve the quality of life for all” (99).  We appreciate this recent attention to the metaliteracy framework and agree that it has broader implications for how we understand literacy in larger global contexts.  Perhaps our new learning objectives could advance this idea further.

The Latest Metaliteracy Scoop!

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Thanks to a recommendation from Sue Thomas we are exploring the social media site Scoop.it.  We now have a curated space on the topic of Metaliteracy.  This is a visually interesting and dynamic site that allows us to scoop postings related to metaliteracy, transliteracy, open learning, OERs, and MOOCs.  Feel free to follow the scoop.it page on metaliteracy and offer suggestions.

3T’s Presentation: Metaliteracy in Practice

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Last week’s 3T’s 2013 Conference at Empire State College was an inspiration for everyone who attended.  Sue Thomas was outstanding and provided us with an engaging and compelling keynote address.  In the afternoon session Trudi Jacobson, Tom Mackey, and Greg Bobish presented on metaliteracy with a presentation entitled “Metaliteracy in Practice: Metaliteracy sounds great but how do I teach it?”  This presentation includes reference to our article on this topic Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy as well as a preview of the book manuscript currently under development Metaliteracy for the Open Age of Social Media for ALA Books.