Computer literacy: Important Skills to Access Information. Abstract This year millions of children and adults will be subjected to computer literacy education. Yet this new computer literacy movement has little or no basis in research or philosophy. The concepts of ‘information literacy’ and ‘computer literacy’ are described, and reviewed, by way of a literature survey. Related concepts, including computer literacy, library literacy, children literacy, and Internet literacy are also discussed.
After a general introduction, the paper begins with the basic concept of ‘literacy’, and ‘information’, which is then expanded to include newer forms of literacy, more suitable for complex information environments. Some of these, for example library, media and computer literacy, are based largely on specific skills, but have some extension beyond them. They lead to general concepts, such as information literacy and computer literacy, which are based on knowledge, perceptions and attitudes, though reliant on the simpler skills-based literacy.
While this paper is focus on computer literacy, but the content are more on overview of literacy it self and also the important skills to access information. 1. Introduction Information and technologies are belonging together. Without these two things, people may not get new information in every where they go. Information literacy is a concept that has evolved as a result of recent efforts to move technology based instruction and research to a level above the long held concepts previously associated with computer literacy.
The focus of information literacy education being the development of students abilities to construct collect and analyze information in a way that provides the basis use for effective decision making. Computer literacy exists a long time a go. It is important to have skills using computer. For business educators computer literacy has long been a topic of interest and research. The 1990’s began a concentration of study that has continued for almost twenty years as researchers studied the impact of technology on both students’ education and employment .
More recently, researchers have returned to this area of study as the concept of technological literacy has continued to evolve with current research being focused on the changing nature of computer literacy . Some researchers now contend that the very concept of computer literacy has become dated and that the emphasis of current educational and research efforts should be shifted toward a focus on information literacy. Information literacy and computer literacy is two things that can collaborate together.
While computer literacy was often focused primarily on technology based definitions, concepts and skills, the information literacy is much more oriented toward a higher-level set of concepts and abilities. Information literacy is more concerned with a student’s or people ability to collect, analyze and utilize information gathered via the use of information technology and to use that information to make effective decisions. The question then becomes not whether a student can simply manipulate technology to complete a given task, but whether that student make good decisions from the information now at hand.
But sometimes, we do not know. How the effective current efforts convey these newly evolved information literacy concepts? There is a lot of opinion that we can get involve in computer and information literacy. What are actually computer literacy means? This paper starts with a brief summary of key initiatives concerning information literacy and computer literacy among level industries, students, people, and business and so on. 2. What is Computer Literacy? Computer literacy is the knowledge and ability to use computers and technology efficiently.
The pervasiveness of computers is continuing to grow at an outstanding rate. As companies become ever more dependent on technology, the value a potential employee has may be measured in terms of his or her technological competency. The highest goal of a computer-literate person is to be able to learn and use new computer programs without large amounts of help. Computer literacy gives people of all ages an edge in both their careers and education. Figure 1: Computer Literacy of Household Population
Source: Statistics Report of the Department of Census and Statistics, 2004 More than that Computer literacy can also refer to the comfort level someone has with using computer programs and other applications that are associated with computers. Another valuable component of computer literacy knows how computers work and operate. Having basic computer skills is a significant asset in the developed countries. The precise definition of “computer literacy” can vary from group to group.
Generally, literate are one who can read any arbitrary book in their native language, looking up new words as they are exposed to them. According to Miller Inabeth, computer literacy eventually came up with a grandiose umbrella that sounded like every anyone ever wanted to know about substitute computer which is do it by own way. Likewise, an experienced computer professional may consider the ability to self-teach for example to learn arbitrary new programs or tasks as they are encountered to be central to computer literacy.
In common discourse, however computer literate often connotes little more than the ability to use several very specific applications usually Microsoft Word, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Outlook for certain very well-defined simple tasks, largely by rote. Real problems can arise when such a computer literate person encounters a new program for the first time, and large degrees of hand-holding will likely be required. Being literate” and “functional is generally taken to mean the same thing. Moreover, computer literacy is also something that users can take control the computer and not letting it control one.
Usually an individual is computer literate when they feel they are telling the computer what to do and not the other way round. In the short means they are know how to operate the computer system and playing the function that the computer have. But this also depends on the level of users that uses the kind of program. For example, students maybe more computer literate more than business partner or business environment. It is because, students always use a variety of application program that installed or have in their own computer or so on. Then, for the businesses person, they maybe literate on using the application programs oo. But the frequency of using that program also can determined who’s are more literate in computer. More than that, students learned more that business person because they have a lot of time to explore the application. Between teenagers and adult person, we can look this two person are different in term of attitudes. Teenagers are more active rather than adult who’s trying to get a variety skill on computer. They are more love to explore the whole things about the computer. Meanwhile for the adult person, they don’t get the opportunities to explore that thin because of time.
They feel that there is another important thing to settle rather than to look over computer. That is one issue that we can look over it to discover how much people are literate when it involved information technology development in their life. Computer literate can involved many of aspect such as: i. what is a computer a. what are its limitations b. what is a program (not necessarily how to program) c. what is an algorithm d. what is computable e. what a computer cannot do f. why computers cannot produce random numbers some seemingly simple problems are not g. oncurrency and issues with shared data h. Reduce computer literacy needs with Desktop Search i. all computers have the same computing ability with differences in memory capacity and speed j. performance depends on more than CPU clock speed k. understanding the concept of stored data ii. what are the real causes of “computer errors” a. the implications of incorrect (buggy) programs b. the implications of using a program incorrectly (garbage in, garbage out) iii. issues rising from distributed computing iv. computer security v. keyboarding, mousing (using input devices) i. plugging in and turning the computer on vii. Using/understanding user-interface elements (e. g. , windows, menus, icons, buttons, etc. ) viii. Composing, editing and printing documents ix. managing and editing pictures x. Opening files and recognizing different 3. Education of computer literacy Nowadays, computer literacy is needed in most environments. Where computers are widespread, they are also a part of education. Computers are used in schools for many applications such as writing papers or searching the Internet for information. Computer skills are also a subject being specifically taught in many schools.
There is a lot of subject that students can learn to improve their computer skills such as Microsoft excel, access and so on. One problematic element of many computer literacy or computer education programs is that they may resort too heavily on rote memorization. Students may be taught a simple several function such as open a file, save a file, quit the program in very specific ways, by using one specific version of one specific program. When a graduate of such a program encounters a competing program, or even a different version of the same program, they may be confused or even frightened by the differences from what they learned.
That why major computer and software firms such as Apple Computer and Microsoft consider the educational market important: For graduates of computer education programs based around rote memorization may be do not have computer literacy problem because they are totally build up with a lot of computer literacy skills. So these people are more marketable in information technologies environment. So it is important to learn computer skills program in term of searching or getting work. Many such users may need tremendous amounts of hand-holding even after years or decades of daily computer use.
This happened maybe because of their frustrating for frustrating for experienced computer users, who are accustomed to figuring out computers largely on their own. The primary factor preventing such functionally computer illiterate users from self-educating may simply be fear or lack of motivation and skills in any case, more technically oriented friends and relatives often find themselves pressed into service as free support for such users. This always happened when the person first time to learn computer. For these cases, these users do not to worry.
It is because there is a lot of institution, and books that they can cover to learn it. In addition to classes, there are many How-to books that cover various aspects of computer training, such as the popular ‘For Dummies’ series. There are also many websites that devote themselves to this task, such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet. Such tutorials often aim at gradually boosting readers’ confidence, while teaching them how to troubleshoot computers, fix security issues, set up networks, and use software. Most of the employee, need their worker are marketable in any areas.
It is one advantage if that person has knowledge and skills of computer. Having those skills can mean the difference between getting hired and getting passed over However, education in computer literacy should be on the all time. It is because information technologies are changing rapidly in nowadays situation. Every second we will leave behind if we do not know to use computer or other technology. Since we are child, we should learn the basic things to make us more literate rather than literate in secondary schools. It is one advantage for primary students to know it first rather than others.
So that they have along journey to learn more about new technologies appears in their area. Now it is not about know to use the computer, but it also how we handle the program in that application ready for. Sometimes there is an application that we do not use in that program computer. So it makes us loss and something like wasted because of unused program. So that, we need to explore by it self or learning by out self to improved our skills knowledge of computer. 4. Why Computer literacy? The ability of using computer or literate computer is one bonus for that person.
It involved the ability to manage the relentless bit and bytes flooding one electronic desktop on a regular basis. It also ability to systematical flexible the communication process into other people to explain about it. This computer literate is not only about we can click the button into next pages or knowing what button to push but it is more on knowing the differences about between a processor an a text editor, a spreadsheet and a database program, or a local disk and a network file server and so on. Morgan, 2004 simplifies computer literacy as knowing what computer can do and cannot do.
This ability to use a computer effectively for various tasks has become a skill that is increasingly lauded as an essential part of every one education. This computer skill is needed since primary schools. When the issues of information technology or ICT arrive around 1990, the implication or awareness using the ICT is more concern in those times. People are realizing that ICT becomes the important factor to successful in any field of work. Most of people in those years are afraid of ICT especially for the developing country. They are new in that position.
There are a few professional in that field and most of the agencies or company needs to outsource Information Technology person to manage their system and work for that company. These outsourcing technologies sometime burden that organization. It is because they have the agreement that site only what years that they can follow up with the organization, after the contract end, then the organization will loss their profit because they need to recharge again that vendor to process the programmed that have been installed. It is not faired to that organization and the outsourcing people are making money on these issues.
So that is the reasons of the important computer literacy are one of big issues in that years in developing country like Malaysia. The promotion of love IT are expose in every where in that time. It’s something drastic for government to implement those kinds of thing in that country. Moreover, in these cases, government plays the main role to make the project to love IT among residents are successful. The promotion is on everywhere. The impact of this awareness is actually giving a good positive to most of the residents. But in the meanwhile they not realize that they are too much in making the project successful.
The MSC program that launched making them proud and hopefully all the residents or users are more computer literate. Then all government department especially ministry of education also get the good impact on that process. Then, that makes all school at Malaysia must have one computer lab to make them more literate using computer. Primary school also gets those advantages to learn computer skills that suitable with their requirements, and age. It is important to get them more confident in using that item. It is because when we are trying to changing manual concept into other concept we need a skills or time to learn it back.
It is not easy to retrieve new technology in that time into our life. Users till need a space to have learning process on that field. That is the reasons of the existing computer skills program at a lot of university. Support from governments, private sector, non government and so on is important in that time. So, this skills program offered hoped that their country has their own professional in ICT fields. Using outsourcing person maybe have a benefit into organization, but sometimes, when looking into the negative impact, they need to change that perspective and hope their own people can make the system as them.
This level of professional will improved if there is a long time training to all staff to make sure that they know what are the new technology appears in every time. It is because; we realize that technologies are changes rapidly time to time. That is the reasons of learning process for technology are important to us. It makes people more up to date and not left behind. It is important to become up to date person in term of technology. The new technology makes us become a person whose have knowledge in all fields. It’s not only literate of using computer but also literate in searching the information in the right way.
It is because, nowadays environments, information is in your finger. That is the term that users always describe by using the internet connection. That is one issue that we can describe on subtopic information literacy later. It also supported by Aina, 2004 that described the use of computer and communication technologies play a main role in information handling and processing. It arises as result of the increased workload involved in coping with information explosion. In order to keep space in handling increasing number of information, computer is used to handle information processing with greater speed and accuracy.
Then the access to information proceses by computer is more accessible for a long distance. That means, by using the technologies it is one of the advantages that we can get to managing information through that kind of things. It makes users easy when they do their work by using the computer. User uses technology to support their life in daily work. Without this information technology, people may not to improve their successful level, confident level, skills level and so on. This positive impact to user’s makes people are more thinking to learn new things.
In working environment, mostly they tried to found a person that has knowledge or basically know to use the computer. It is important to make them more confident in do their work. All the information process in organization is used computer to support their business entire. With all this items the business process work smoothly rather than used manual or traditional process. In addition, Tyler, 1998 said that, in this information technology driven age, everyone require computer competence skill to survive. Within the professional work, it was necessary to train and retrain their employees to establish their knowledge about computer skills.
This is so; because a wide range of activity in any organization is using the computer to process the information belongs. That means it requires using the computer to perform their business function. Without this technology, maybe they can’t reach into far. Training is important to make person more realize the changing of technology are highly will impact their work. Human resource department will send them into the right place to learn the new technology and that person will come to the organization and make a different or any changes depend on situation.
It is the positive attitude to use back the information that they have learned at that training program and share with all people. Usually, this people are the person that has trust to the organization to improved technologies that have in their organization. So, when the learning process happened for each time and for each staff, that company will have a knowledgeable staff that has a multi tasking skills in their organization. Then the demanding of this person is more needed than the non computer literate person. 5. What is literacy? Literacy included many kind of field.
It can be literacy on education, skills, and environment. It is because literacy is something that universal that we can describe it as long as it makes the positive thinking into a good manner. What is actually literacy? Traditionally literacy has been commonly defined as the ability to read and write at an adequate level of proficiency that is necessary for communication. More recently however, literacy has taken on several meanings. Example of literacy is such as: • Technological literacy, • mathematical literacy, • visual literacy • computer literacy • information literacy library literacy • network literacy All of this literacy is different to each other. But some of this literacy is also related to each other. While it may be difficult to gauge the degree to which literacy has an impact on an individual’s overall happiness, one can easily infer that an increase in literacy will lead to the improvement of an individual’s life and the development of societies. However in developed nations, the majority of the population over the age of 17 possesses basic literacy skills in reading and writing, the rate of literacy in developing nations is much lower.
This lack of widespread literacy hinders the further development of such nations. Developed nation are lack of all this kinds of literacy. That will effect the achievement of the country to be successful like other country such as US, Japan and so on. They are more literate rather than other nation. Moreover, development country still needs to learn before their implement the changes in their nation. So that, it perhaps other country that has successful in this literate subject will compromise, integrated and teaching sharing the knowledge to become like them.
But this is one issue that these successful countries don’t want to invest in this developing country. They afraid of loss the money or just wasted their time. Cost factor are the main problem that usually happened in their country. They do not have enough funding to implement all this for their community therefore there are lack of literate of information and others. They also late in developed their country make the other country do not want to involved. Literacy campaigns around the world also include programs to increase the level of adult literacy.
Increasing literacy rates among adults can serve several purposes. Equipping adults with basic literacy skills can enable them to be more proactive when it comes to their child’s education. As this works to increase literacy, political conditions in oppressive countries may improve. Moreover an increase in literate adults means an increase in individuals campaigning for education as a fundamental human right. However, according to Robert Needlmen literacy is more than just being able to read and write. Literate children see reading as fun and exciting.
They use reading to learn about a wide range of subjects, and they use writing to share their ideas. They tend to have rich imaginations and many interests. Literacy gives people power to live healthier lives. Beside that adults who cannot read or write well whether in industrialized nations or in underdeveloped ones have poorer health and higher medical costs. For children perspective, literacy is part of a broad definition of health that includes being sound in mind and spirit, as well as physically. It is suitable for them because they are still fresh to learn read and write rather than adult who cannot read and rite anymore.
Adult person feels it burden but for children it’s something interesting part in their life. It also can improve their level of education when they are literate. That why reading problems also directly threaten children health. Children who have trouble reading often see themselves in a very negative light. They may believe that they are stupid, and they are more likely to misbehave in school. 6. Information Literacy The term information literacy, sometimes referred to as information competency, is generally defined as the ability to access, evaluate, organize, and use information from a variety of sources.
Information literate requires knowing how to clearly define a subject or area of investigation, select the appropriate terminology that showed the subject are under investigation, formulate a search strategy that takes into consideration different sources of information and the variable ways that information is organized, and also analyze the data collected for value, relevancy, quality, and suitability; and subsequently turn information into knowledge (ALA 1989). Information literacy involves a deeper understanding of how and where to find information, the ability to judge whether that information meaningful, and ultimately.
Beside that it also can figure how best information can be incorporated to address the problem issue at hand. When tried to differentiate most of the literacy types, there are different things between computers her literacy within information literacy. But both this literacy is meet together and making something fresh and valuable. Information literacy is not the same as computer literacy or library literacy although there is a strong relationship among all these concepts.
Each of this literacy requires some level of critical thinking. But compared with computer literacy, information literacy goes beyond merely having access to and knowledge of how to use the technology–because technology alone does not guarantee quality learning experiences. And compared with library literacy, information literacy is more than searching through an online catalog or other reference materials because information literacy is not a technique, but a goal for learners (Gilton 1994).
Information literacy requires an awareness of the way in which information systems work, of the dynamic link between a particular information need and the sources and channels required to satisfy that need (Darch et al. 1997). Moreover, information literacy asks us to search the information in the right way. Person who is literate in information must know how to find or retrieve information. In this part, user also needs computer literacy skills to search relevant information. It is because, nowadays, there is a lot of information that user getting through online.
There is a lot of information there until sometimes users are confused in term of finding the right information. That’s happened when there is an information overload there. What is actually information overload? According to Alvin Toffler, information overload which refers to an excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information. That’s means, there is information given, but users can not trace which one is validate information.
That’s make users trouble in searching the right information. That why information literate is also needed in our daily life. American library Association define that to be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information. In addition as the world moves into a new era of globalization, an increasing number of people are connecting to the internet to conduct their own research and are given the ability to produce as well as consume the data accessed on an increasing number of websites.
Users are now classified as active users because more people in society are participating in the Digital and Information Age. More and more people are considered to be active writers and viewers because of their participation and responsible. This flow has created a new life where we are now dependent on access to information. Therefore we see an information overload from the access to so much information, almost instantaneously, without knowing the validity of the content and the risk of misinformation.
However, The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standard for higher Education synthesis and develop preceding work by defining key areas of desirable behavior. The information literate students are i. determines the nature and extent of the information needed ii. accesses needed information effectively and efficiently iii. evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system iv. ndividually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose v. understand many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally. 7. Information Literate Person Beside that, when that people are information literate person, they have one of the advantages which is can change world. (Figure 1) Those people have knowledge to finding information. In the corporate culture, this people can make a good decision into organization.
For example, before that person build up one organization, they must do a research first to analyze the conceptual that try to making. Then, after realize the opportunities that have, then they tried to put all the information get into their business practices. For example in the corporate culture, they applied what has been research into good management style. So that the employee are more comfortable in that working environment. Then, their information strategies also improved by getting the right information, right place and right time.
When they applied this 2 concept of information, they are move forward rather than others. In other way their result, ethics and attitude in that organization will change into positive way. When a manager implements this information literate for each staff in their organization, that must be a lot of benefit will get. Then others than that this kind of information literate person are more needed on information economy. When this person knows where to get this type of information, automatically this person will get the first point people will refer.
It is because this person knows more about the changes in media, law, pricing access and so on. This make this person is too important in that economy field. In other words, their personal goals of information literate person are moved forward rather than others. They have a special need wherever they go over the national or local country. Figure 2: The structure of awareness as experiences in the information technology conception Source: Seven Faces of Information Literacy in Higher Education. April 7 2009, There is one issue on industrial whereby a lot of manager is not information literate person.
Likewise, they should be that person because they are the important person in their company or country. Its not only happened in level of industries but it also happened in education areas which is most of the student or researcher are not information literate. So what happened here, they will get one person to do a research for him and pay them in certain amount. This situations tells us that there is no quality on that person and that person do not have extra knowledge in term of information that they found. Why this situation happened? There is a lot of question that we can’t describe.
Whether they didn’t know how to access that information or they don’t get training from their learning institution? However it is, the individual it self need the space to recall again and try again to learn the new things so that they can improve their ability and capability to become an information literate person. All agencies out there need to collaborate together to improved their literate on information. Because now days, information is power over the world. Without information, people cannot survive and easy to cheat by other people. We do not want this happened.
Figure 1: the information literate person in the changing world. Retrieved from Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston 8. Why Should We Be Concerned About Information Literacy? Information literacy is important for everyone. The need to evaluate the credibility of information is nothing new, but until recently most learners could expect to deal with some carefully selected collections of reference materials in academic and public libraries, as well as a fairly limited range of widely accepted authoritative texts in the classroom or in the home library.
Table 1: Publication Related to User Education and Information Literacy [pic] Source: Library Instruction and Information Literacy. February 1999 www. emeraldinsight. com However, since anyone can make a web page, for example, how can you tell if the information is reliable or not? A critical point about using the Internet is that individuals posting information aren’t required to pass through traditional editorial constraints or undergo any kind of fact-checking required in conventional published print media.
Nowadays, internet is something big influence for us to get the information. Without internet, we cannot know what happened in others country and maybe we will leave behind. Today’s, as the amount of information increased, technology gains momentum, the use of technology is becoming widespread and societies are restructuring themselves in ways that react to these changes. Therefore Bandura (1977) said that individual also require the confidence to use these skills effectively.
It is because successful is not only based on the possession of necessary skills. In other words, learning certain skills is not enough actually. As an individual, they need to develop their confidence level in the skills that they are learning. Beside that individual of today society must also feel competent and confident in the use of these skills. Moreover, high confidence level make an individual are more trust to search relevant information. According to Bandura, 1997, Kaer, 2000, Pajares 2002, self efficacy influences human functioning.
Although the knowledge and skills people possess play critical roles on the choices they make, people’s level of motivation, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively true. That is one reason why self-efficacy is so important for lifelong learning. If individuals feel themselves competent and confident about their information literacy skills they will willingly undertake and easily solve information problems. Otherwise, it is more likely that they will avoid and hesitate to try solving information problems in their hands.
Pajares, 2002 and Kaer, 2000, determined that self efficacy beliefs determine how long individuals will improve and how they will be in the face of difficulties and how much effort they will expend on an activity. Individuals with a high self efficacy perception expect to succeed and will persevere in an activity until it is completed. They are more successful rather that people who do not have high self efficacy. On the contrary, individuals with low self-efficacy perception anticipate failure and are less likely to persist doing challenging activities.
The higher the sense of efficacy, the greater the effort, and persistence. Bandura underlines that individuals who develop a strong sense of self-efficacy are well equipped to educate themselves when they have to rely on their own initiative. This is why strong self-efficacy perception for information literacy becomes a necessity to accomplish lifelong learning. To become like that, an individual must get a good learning in term of searching information. They can get advice from the professional such as professional librarian.
For the researcher, that is important to become information literate. The frequency of used information is more than the other. That’s why they need these skills to be more knowledgeable person. The reluctance to look for information from tried and true sources such as well-indexed books or the temptation to assign value to information simply because it came off of the computer will likely provide results with poor quality. Not only must we be discerning learners but, in addition, we must be constantly learning. As the pace of global change has increased, so has our need for learning.
Consider the rapid changes in both the amount and variety of information resources, as well as great changes in technology that affects our lives in everything from banking to medical care. Change requires us to know more and learn more about the world around us. Yet several scholars such as Breivik and Jones (1993) have found that the traditional literacy of reading, writing, and mathematical reasoning are insufficient for lifelong learning. The increasing quantity of information from all sources and the pressure to remain in a constant state of conscious learning means that we must be dexterous in the use of information, too.
The need to handle and use information is present in all stages of life and the acquisition of the competencies of information literacy must be intertwined with the acquisition of the other literacy (Darch et al. 1997). 9. Awareness of information literacy Library is the place that students or researcher go to find the information. Library actually is the point of information for them. Nowadays, technologies had replace library function as the point of access to gather information. Internet allowed us to explore information over the world.
To access the internet, users needs internet connection which is network and a set of computer to switch on it. With this two kind of things, users can easily access information wherever their go without any limitation. Rather than library, they always though there is no time to go there. It involved time constraint to go to the library centre. So, most of the researcher are simply get information from the database online that provide under library centre. The lack of users in the library can make the function of library are to slow. This issues need to realize and take the action.
It is because, library still the point of good access in retrieving information. Then, library also makes us are more literate on information. It is because, library is implementing an action planning to achieve goals of improving student and raising staff information literacy. Because becoming information literate is an active process, requiring the seeking out of knowledge from multiple sources rather than passively receiving and repeating back facts, the teacher’s role must evolve from the giver of knowledge into being more of a coach or guide (Wisconsin Educational Media Association 1993).
Teachers, professors, teaching assistants, librarians, administrators, and the community must collaborate to develop ways to involve the students not only in using classroom materials but also in using resources from the broader community and the mass media. According to Lenox, 1993 teachers or professional library must be prepared to teach students to become critical thinkers, intellectually curious observers, creators, and users of information.
The goal is to prepare students early on to learn how to learn and carry these skills into other areas of their lives so that they can be independent seekers and consumers of information throughout their lives. Therefore they also become successful information literate person. That means shifting or putting some of the responsibility of gaining knowledge from the teacher to the student and allowing students to develop questions, strategies to search for answers, and formulate conclusions. It also means having fewer lectures and replacing them with applied strategies for information literacy.
In order to produce learners who are information literate, educational institutional area will need to integrate information literacy skills across the curriculum in all subject areas beginning in the earliest grades. Educational institutions that wish to produce lifelong learners should be engaged in some basic rethinking of how teaching faculty and information specialists such as librarians and media specialists can work together toward this end (Brittingham 1994). For example, the principal, as instructional leader, fosters resource-based learning by providing adequate planning time and budget support.
As instructional partners, the classroom teacher and library media specialist are actively involved in identifying the learning needs of the students, developing teaching units that facilitate activities which offer meaningful practice in using a variety of information resources, and guiding student progress. 10. Accessing information Globalization world today make us more independent in term of accessing information. Information is needed every time, everywhere, and every second. Information is valuable for us in making our life more easily.
Information and knowledge’s becomes a central focus as the source of innovation, creativity and being competitive. This happened because of the worlds activities become more globalized and the world seems to shrink into a global village. Therefore, there is a crucial need to control, organize, manage and access information effectively at individual and organizational levels. What is information? Wiener introduces the concepts, amount of information, and feedback and background noise as essential characteristics of how the human brain functions. From Wiener (1948) p. 18: The notion of the amount of information attaches itself very naturally to a classical notion in statistical mechanics: that of entropy. Just as the amount of information in a system is a measure of its degree of organization, so the entropy of a system is a measure of its degree of disorganization. ” What is information and how is it measured? Wiener defines it as a probability: “One of the simplest, most unitary forms of information is the recording of choice between two equally probable simple alternatives, one or the other is bound to happen – a choice, for example, between heads and tails in the tossing of a coin.
We shall call a single choice of this sort a decision. If we then ask for the amount of information in the perfectly precise measurement of a quantity known to lie between A and B, which may with uniform a priori probability lie anywhere in this range, we shall see that if we put A = 0 and B = 1, and represent the quantity in the binary scale (0 or 1), then the number of choices made and the consequent amount of information is infinite. ” Then, before we go in deep of accessing information, the things that we need to know is data, information, knowledge and wisdom is the important things that need to understand too.
According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories: 1. Data: Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data. 2. Information: information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This “meaning” can be useful, but does not have to be.
In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it. 3. Knowledge: knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that its intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone “memorizes” information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, integration such as would infer further knowledge. 4. Understanding: understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process.
It is cognitive and analytical. It is the process by which I can take knowledge and synthesize new knowledge from the previously held knowledge. The difference between understanding and knowledge is the difference between “learning” and “memorizing”. People who have understanding can undertake useful actions because they can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at least new information, from what is previously known (and understood). 5. Wisdom: wisdom is an extrapolative and non-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It calls upon all the previous levels of onsciousness, and specifically upon special types of human programming (moral, ethical codes, etc. ). It beckons to give us understanding about which there has previously been no understanding, and in doing so, goes far beyond understanding itself. It is the essence of philosophical probing. The Information Age, also commonly known as the computer age or information era, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously.
The idea is linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The period is generally said to have begun in the latter half of the 20th century, though the particular date varies. Nowadays environment involved us to be more information literate. When we miss one of the information we will leave behind other than people outside.
The changing of information also gives impact to us to accessing information. But the way we access important is actually determined how literate we are in information. We are now living in an information age. The society is characterized as information society. The transaction of information age scenario can be seen as follows. In this information age people make their living by handling information more than by growing crop or making product. By looking at these stages, it shows that information is changing by revolution that sometimes we didn’t know the real situation.
From the agrarian society, it becomes bio technology society in the future. Actually it depends on the way of society to handle it. Beside that, because now we are living in information society, it makes us more convenience in getting the right information. The term knowledge worker appears in this society. The literate of information also can become literate to other process such as literate to retrieve information. It is true because, when people are literate in ICT, in automatically it will help them in retrieving the right information in the right place.
Which is it makes them more easy access to information. What means by access to information? Access refers to the users’ ability to connect to a particular database, network or electronic bulletin board system to gather the right information. Furthermore it also about the ability of users in getting the information from the sources such as a book, database, file, journal and so on. Their ability of access is actually depends on their literate on searching the information. That why information literate, computer literate are depending to each other in helping user to get the right information.
The issues happened in much library institution in this world, whereby the users didn’t apply the services that they produce for them. For example by using the electronic database in searching the information, library maybe subscribes many of journals, book, and article for their usage. But the problem is, most of them are really not used that services. This makes us wondering why it it’s happened. Then some of the answer is about computer literate among user. RECOMMENDATION When we looked into the issue that arrived here, there is much impact that will affect the effectiveness to accessing the right information.
So that, all the private and government sector should take it as a serious matter to cover the whole things about user literate in dealing their performance for every day. All this sector should collaborate and sitting together to give an solution to improved students, employee, user and so on to become more literate in other future that will come. It is because; technology is changing by every second in our life. The incoming technology must be advance from the others. It is important to get them improved. Without the circulation of certain things, people may not improved their self and will become not uptodated person.
By the way, all the institution should also take it as a serious matter to cover that their employee is literate in every thing. This will give benefit for them also. So it depend on their management it self weather to forget about it or not. For the good organization, they will send their staff or employee to go to the other training centre to make them improved their own skills. CONCLUSION For the conclusion, it can be concluded that information literacy is important for every one. We need to ensure that, all the perspective area. Need to be concluded and understand by every age about this issue.
Nowadays environment, all trhe user need to be more alret about the whole on going process from their sector.. withoiout a specific skills and knowledge, we will be left behind. BIBLIOGRAPHY Sheila, W. & Bill, J. (2000). Conception of information literacy: New perspective and implications. Journal of Information Sciences. 26(6): 381-397. Inabeth, M. Why call it computer literacy. Atariarchives. Org. Internet www. atariarchives. org/deli/computer_literacy. php Shaheen Majid & Alfia Fanielivna Abazova. (1999). Computer literacy and use of electronic information sources by academic: A case study of International Islamic University Malaysia.
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