Quick update: Literacies and research skills

Image from https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Pearltrees&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1

As part of another project in the ISCI 761 course, I had to curate a list of resources for a specific topic with school librarianship. I opted to curate a list of multiliteracies, such as information literacy, media literacy, and news literacy, as well as some resources for research skills and tools students (and teachers) would need. I created this digital curation in Pearltrees, and I thought I would share those resources here for anyone who might drop by and like to review those. Admittedly, I don't take any credit for creating these. I only take credit for curating these into manageable collections.

A social media account too

As a secondary part of this project, I also had to create a social media account for a school library, so I decided to do that on Twitter. So, you can find the fictitious account for Palmetto Lake Middle School Library & Makerspace (@palmettolakes). While Twitter may have some questionable practices and an uncertain future, I thought it was still a viable social media tool currently. I believe Instagram would also be a strong choice for a middle school library.

About the collection

This collection of resources and lessons focuses on the various literacies students should be aware of and skilled with, as well as the processes and tools for information-seeking and research.

These multiliteracies are important for K-12 students since the amount of information available for use to access on the web, as well as pushed to us in social media, can be overwhelming. In addition, the variety of filtered (e.g., news agencies, government and academic publications) and unfiltered (e.g., blog posts, social media videos) sources can make it difficult to determine the accuracy, credibility, and reliability of information and its sources.

These resources and lessons have been curated for school librarians and classroom teachers, targeting middle-grade students.

The first three sections of resources and lessons are:

• Information literacy
• Media literacy
• News literacy

Each section includes a definition, resources to help guide teachers' professional development about the literacy, and a few lessons to support teaching the literacy's skills.

The fourth section is on building students' research skills. This section has resources and lessons for:

• Research processes and skills, like Big 6;
• Ethics, creating citations and bibliographies, including online tools such as NoodleTools, and plagiarism

The final section is on search engines, including kid-safe and privacy-enhanced search engines and specialized search engines for images, video, and audio.

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Michaelmgrant