Digital Natives Still Information Semi-Literate in College

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Digital Natives Still Information Semi-Literate in College

This article is nothing new, but it’s worth putting out there. Here’s what I’ll share with my students from it, from a conversation about a proposed new Information Literacy section in the SAT:

“[Students are] very good at typing in and using the Internet, but they don’t always understand what they get back,” said Linda Goff, head of instructional services for the CSUS library.

“You see an open search box, you type in a few words and you push the button,” said Goff, who is involved in the testing.

“They take at face value whatever shows up at the top of the list as the best stuff.”

Sloppy research skills are troubling, educators say.

“We look at that as a foundational skill, in the same way we look at math and English as a foundational skill,” said Lorie Roth, assistant vice chancellor for academic programs in the CSU system.

Measuring how well students can “sort the good from the bad” on the Internet has become a higher priority for CSU, Roth said.

Teaching website evaluation and search skills shouldn’t be rocket science for teachers (or librarians). Yet I’m darned if I’ve seen these skills pushed in any systematic, school-wide way in any school I’ve worked in.

If anybody has effective resources on how to do this, I’m all ears.

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