Information Literacy

"Information Literacy Skills"

by
Kristen Nelson, Pearson Skylight Professional

For many teachers, their memories of completing a research report focus on being assigned a topic, being sent to the library, feeling lucky if they could find more than one resource (with the encyclopedia serving as the main source), and writing up the report using their own words. Most frequently, their biggest problem was not being able to find enough information in outdated books and encyclopedias.
Fast forward to the twenty-first century. The amount of information available over the Internet, on the news, and in newspapers, magazines, and books is astonishing and overwhelming. Students now are literally surrounded with Web pages of information, CD-ROMs with interactive programs, books, magazines, and other multimedia products. Most frequently, the biggest problem students face is finding too much information and not knowing what to do with it. Before students can be taught to understand concepts and skills and be asked to use their multiple intelligences, they need specific tools to work with the large amount of information at their fingertips. Without these skills, students feel like innocent lambs being thrown to the information wolves.
Disturbing trends about finding information and doing research are developing in students. The top three are (1) students believing that anything from a computer is better than anything that comes from a book, (2) students viewing the library as a last resort, and (3) students being more concerned with the quantity than the quality of their sources. 'It is critical that students learn to find information from many sources and be able to analyze its quality relatively quickly. Only then are they able to move to the next step of using the information to produce a piece of work. These searching and analyzing skills are information literacy skills, and the sooner teachers begin helping students learn them, the better the students' chances are of succeeding in the Information Age.
In a time when many are crying for back to basics in schools throughout the United States, teachers need to carefully evaluate what the basics are for students living in the twenty-first century. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are still at the top of the list, but basic skills also include being able to find, analyze, and work with information. Teachers can no longer expect to fill their students' heads with content and assume the students are prepared for the future. Information literacy skills can now join reading, writing, and arithmetic as basic skills of the twenty-first century.
Michael Eisenberg and Doug Johnson (1996) propose six components of information literacy skills in their Big Six Skills approach* Figure 5.1 briefly lists the information literacy skills with the Bloom taxonomy skill that it relates to in parentheses. Teachers may want to post this list in their classrooms, because these skills need to be seen and discussed on a regular basis.

http://www.il.mahidol.ac.th/th/index.php/resources/professional-development/24-professional-development/618-information-literacy-skills.html?tmpl=component&print=1&page=

History of internet

Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe method. In the 1960s, computer researchers, Levi C. Finch and Robert W. Taylor pioneered calls for a joined-up global network to address interoperability problems. Concurrently, several research programs began to research principles of networking between separate physical networks, and this led to the development of Packet switching. These included Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock's MIT and UCLA research programs.
This led to the development of several packet switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET and X.25. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including UUCP and FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called 'The Internet', and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a digital divide that is still a concern today.
Following commercialisation and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, Internet continues to grow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

The Pomeranian

History

The Pomeranian originated from the sled dogs of Greenland and Lapland, which were eventually brought into Europe in Pomerania. This region, bordered on the north by the Baltic Sea, has been under the control of Wendish Slavs, Poles, Swedes, Danes, Prussians and Germans, at various times, and most recently Poles again. This region extends from the west of the Rügen Island to the Vistula River. The name Pomorze or Pommern comes from Slavic "along the sea". Breeders in Pomerania improved the coat and bred the dogs down for city living, but they were still 20 pounds or more when they reached England.
English breeders, through trial and error and Mendelean theories, are credited for reducing the dog's size and developing the many colors. The Pomeranian of today is small due to selective breeding, but the breed still retains the hardy disposition and thick coat typical of dogs in cold climates. Queen Charlotte first introduced the Pomeranian to English nobility; however, the Pom gained international popularity when her granddaughter Victoria returned from vacation in Florence, Italy with a Pomeranian named Marco.
The dogs owned by Queen Charlotte & Queen Victoria were much larger German Spitz and a Volpino Italiano. The same is true of any other historical Pom from before the 20th century.
The FCI classifies the German Spitz as one family consisting of the Dwarf (Pomeranian), Small and Standard (American Eskimo Dog), and Wolfsspitz (Keeshond). Additional close relatives of the Pomeranian are the Norwegian Elkhound, the Schipperke, and possibly the Samoyed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomeranian_(dog))

Favorite book

The nation's 10 favourite books:

1. The Lord Of The Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen

3. The Bible
by Various Contributors


4. To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

5. Cloudstreet
by Tim Winton

6. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (Book 5)
by J.K. Rowling

7. Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell

8. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
by Douglas Adams

9. The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown

9. Catch 22
by Joseph Heller

10. A Fortunate Life
by A.B. Facey
http://www.abc.net.au/myfavouritebook/top10/default.htm

Hotel

Junk food

Junk food is food that is unhealthy and/or has little or no nutritional value. The term is believed to have been coined by Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in 1972.[1] The term has since come into common usage.
Junk food contains high levels of refined sugar, white flour, trans fat and saturated fat, salt, and numerous food additives such as monosodium glutamate and tartrazine; at the same time, it is lacking in proteins, vitamins and fiber, among other healthy attributes. It is popular with suppliers because it is relatively cheap to manufacture, has a long shelf life and may not require refrigeration. It is popular with consumers because it is easy to purchase, requires little or no preparation, is convenient to consume and has lots of flavor. Consumption of junk food has been associated with obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and dental cavities. There is also concern about the targeting of marketing to children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_food