Overview

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Beyond search A skill set for online
literacy Monica Bulger
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Questions

• What is online literacy? Turn to the person
  next to you to discuss.
• Preliminary understanding of online literacy.
• Online literacy is faster (content delivery,
  dynamic medium) more than a sub-set of general
  literacyinvolves computer navigation skills
  beyond idea of browsing or surfing
• Online literacy is not traditional simply
  reading

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Preliminary definition

• Online literacy is the process of gathering,
  evaluating, and integrating information from
  multiple online sources.

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Approaches to study

• Given your academic background, what are some
  questions you would ask about online literacy?
  Turn to another person next to you to discuss
• Possible questions
• How are we defining online literacy? Is the
  online medium expanding what we consider
  literacy?
• What are the cognitive processes involved?
• How would you further improve the interface?
• Dire cultural loss of literacyhas the experience
  of online literacy put traditional book reading
  at risk ?
• Are other languages dying as a result of
  dominance of English language online?

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Interdisciplinary approach

• Media studies What are the consequences of
  participation? How is reading online different?
• focus on the medium
• Psychology What are the cognitive processes
  involved in online literacy?
• focus on how people learn
• Computer Science How can interface be improved?
• focus on the system/architecture

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Interdisciplinary approach

• Education How can we teach and assess these
  skills?
• focus on pedagogy

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My approach

• Gathered research from cognitive psychology,
  education, library science, media studies, and
  computer science.
• Made table of cognitive and theoretical models.
• Compared differences and similarities between
  models.
• Developed preliminary model of online literacy
  process.

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Next steps

• Define key terms literacy, reading, online
  literacy
• Identify skill set process information from
  multiple sources
• gather
• evaluate
• integrate

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Online literacy process
Writing skills
Set goals
Reading skills
Gather
Computer literacy
Integrate
Document literacy
Visual literacy
Evaluate
Multimedia literacy
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Assess skill set

• Develop study to assess skill set
• Identify what classifies someone as highly
  proficient
• Can these skills be taught? If so, how?