Information Fluency: Understanding and identifying the credibility of information.

The tide of information is rising much faster than anyone anticipated.

Computing capacity is increasing at 58% annually

Humans have the ability to store 300 exabytes of memory, or 80 Library of Alexandrias per person.

We now live in an age of disposable information because of the massive amount of information.

The five distinct steps to the Information Fluency are: Ask, Access, Analyze, Apply, and Assess.

Information can be mis-leading

Students research a mis-leading wsbite (DHMO.org) Students are outraged that a website could confuse and trick pick people.

Teachers students to not believe everything they hear. "Do your own research"

The analyzing stage of processing information is very important to Myth-information

Ask

Identify the questions they need answered to help them make the right choice. Formulated questions through brainstorming and identifying key words: Girls figuring out which cell phone service they want to have

Acquire

Identify the five most popular national carriers and accessed the information that would answer their questions: Acquire all details, so you can adjust their own questions

Analyze

Girls started to organize and analyze all the information they had acquired lists that summarized the data and read as many many reviews on the cell phone carriers

Apply

Karen and her daughters assembled the information they had gathered from the various sources. Quickly discussed, what they needed for the family plan. Decided not to get a data plan until they had a better handle on how much the plan would cost

Assess

Discussed how effective the process of identifying a plan and phone had been. Instead of making the impulsive decions they made last year, like getting a plasma tv. Glad they took the time to assess the pros and cons of each company

Background research from two guest speakers in order to give students different information from different perspectives.

A field trip to a local site pertaining to the topic to enhance student understanding.

Collect poetry written by those detained during WWII, and absorbing their feelings by performing the poetry, which would cultivate public speaking skills.

5A's

Ask

Fully understanding the question before asking further questions, identifying key words, listening deeply etc

Acquire

Determining where information is, filtering through excess information, identifying useful sources

Analyze

Understand raw data to find relevant information, "mental filter"

Apply

Application of useful information, looks different with each topic: Ex. History essay, scientific data on chart for Science

Assess

Step back and look at finished product, analyze to see if final product meets criteria

Out of the ten grading criteria, five of the sections recieved full points. The project requires students to gather resources from broad sources (all of which were regarded as "quality," due to their proximity to the war), but some of these facts may contain a level of bias since many of the sources were soliders themselves. This activity has the potential to really teach students how to become effective information gathering individuals.