Information Literacy and Participatory Media

Learning in Public: Information Literacy and New
Social Technologies in Schools
Andrea Forte

College of Information Science and Technology
Drexel University

If you wanted to ﬁnd information about
environmental issues, what would you do?

“Oh, well, I’ll probably look at government sites
ﬁrst. ‘Cause I know I can trust those…”

– Anne, high school junior

“Oh, well, I’ll probably look at government sites
ﬁrst. ‘Cause I know I can trust those…

...anybody can write on google, not anyone
can write on government sites.”

– Anne, high school junior

Overview

Information literacy

Wikipedia
New publishing model
Informal learning environment

Wiki in the classroom
Designing new tools
How wiki publishing can support information literacy skills and writing-to-learn
in classrooms

Penn, August 2, 2010

Information Literacy

Reading
Finding and interpreting messages from advertisers, government agencies,
educational institutions and other sources

Writing
Using information to participate in the construction of new resources and new
knowledge

American Association of School Librarians 1998; Association of College and Research Libraries 2000;
Buckingham 2003; Eisenberg 2008; Flanagan and Meztger 2007; Flower 1994; Rieh and Hilligoss 2008;
Agosto 2002; Bilal 2000 & 2001; Kafai and Bates 1997


Information Literacy
and User-Generated Confusion

New social technologies mean new forms of information
production, new publishing models and new access
models…


“Algorithmic Authority” and “Disintermediation”

“people trust new classes of aggregators and
ﬁlters, whether Google or Twitter or Wikipedia”

-Clay Shirky, 2009


Wikipedia


Wikipedia

How can this possibly work?


“The problem with Wikipedia is that it
only works in practice.
In theory, it can never work.”

– New York Times, 2007


Contributions

Wikipedia Studies, 2004-present
Wikipedia as a community—joining is a process of legitimate peripheral
participation
(Bryant, Forte, & Bruckman 2005)

Wikipedia governance—it has highly reﬁned policies, social norms, technical
infrastructure that support decentralized quality control processes
(Forte & Bruckman 2008)

Wikipedia as a learning environment—content is agreed upon through
consensus building discussions that include features of knowledge building
discourse.
(Forte & Bruckman 2006)


Wikipedia as a Learning Environment

Talk pages support discussion and consensus building

Assertion Challenge Support Resolution

Information literacy is an important aspect of participating in
discussions about Wikipedia content: “How do we know
this?”


“The process is really messy. It means there’s a lot of
conflict—some interpersonal conflicts, some conflicts over
content, a lot of conflict over emphasis. But in the process
it means that people are exposed to ideas and information
and perspectives that they wouldn’t be otherwise.”

– Allison (Wikipedian)


Wikipedia as a Learning Environment

Knowledge Building Discourse (Scardamalia & Bereiter)
Based on sociology of science (Latour and Woolgar)
Messy, cyclical, often emotional process of making claims, peer-review,
publication

Students as producers of knowledge
CSILE, Knowledge Forum
“Second-order learning environment” where each person builds on the
contributions of peers

Wikipedia discourse includes features of knowledge
building discourse


“I look up and read books about the subject and I’ll look
something up. It’s not that I’m doing all of this in order to
develop an encyclopedia, although I am, it’s more that I’m
doing this because I want to learn and you have to learn in
order to contribute knowledgeably to Wikipedia.”

– Chris (Wikipedian)


Learning and Wikipedia

Reﬂecting on information, nature of knowledge
In the process of writing, Wikipedians reﬂect on
How they know what they know
How well accepted different theories and ideas are
What constitutes a reliable information source
How an article should be written to educate readers

Learning content
Wikipedia is a motivating context for writing-to-learn


Create opportunities for Wikipedian-like reﬂection and
learning in formal education


Create opportunities for Wikipedian-like reﬂection and
learning in formal education

Classrooms are not online communities,
they’re different.


New Wiki Tools for Classrooms

Pilot study, 2005 (n=42)
Undergrad American government class in which students published resource
about policy
Q. How does publishing for a real audience affect students’ writing and use
of information sources?
Q. What are the design and research challenges associated with using wikis
to support information literacy skills in the classroom?

Data and Analysis
Analysis of revision histories
In-depth interviews


Pilot Study

Students did not perceive the resource as public (Forte &
Bruckman 2006)

Local audience of peers affected argumentation and use of
information sources
“[Someone] mentioned something about one of my sources having a liberal
bias… I cited an ABC article, which quoted a Pentagon ofﬁcial. So instead, I
could never ﬁnd the Pentagon quote, but I went to a Supreme Court document
that cited the same thing so I could have a less biased quotation.” – Jeff
(Undergraduate Student)


Pilot Study Design Guidelines

Classroom wiki needs to:
Support citation
Support social relationships in classrooms
Make it easy to ﬁnd peers’, students’ work but also protect student privacy

Used open source MediaWiki as infrastructure and built
new features to support classroom use


Classroom Studies

Q. How do students write and reason about information
when contributing to an information resource for others?

Q. What role do the wiki tools play in supporting and
inﬂuencing their writing and information use?


Two Iterations of Design and Fieldwork

Collecting process data
Iteration I (n=19)
8 months (Sept 06 – May 07)
Two advanced placement environmental science classes; highly-ranked public school
Teacher former scientist, wiki enthusiast
47 observation days; 21 interviews; wiki history;
pre-post DBQs (incomplete data)
Iteration II (n=14)
3 months (Feb – May 08)
Honors biochemistry class; private school
Teacher former scientist
6 observation days; 36 interviews; wiki history; pre-post DBQs


Studies – Analyzing Process Data

Interviews
Unstructured; semi-structured; structured

Findings from interview data
Grounded Theory
(Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1987)
Inductive approach to building explanations of phenomena

Iteration I yielded data about what students did
Iteration II yielded denser data about how and why they did it


Findings

Assessing Information
Students paid attention to non-traditional features of new media; used their
publication experiences to reﬂect on characteristics of other information resources
(Study I & II)

Value of Citation
Publication changed the meaning of citation in schoolwork (Study II)

Content Engagement
Publication encouraged metacognitive engagement with content (Study II)

Affordances for Learning
Wiki as a medium has features that support processes of learning in communities
(Study II)


Students’ Assessment Strategies Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Suggest New Heuristics Content Engagement

• “had what I was looking for”
• based on Google page rank
Utility/Relevance • based on URL name (not sufﬁx)
• presentation/readability
• media was licensed for reuse

Based on Content
• subjective assesment/prior knowledge
• cited other sources
• consistency with other sources
Based on conditions of production
Credibility • authorial credentials
• expert review
• publisher/publication type
• role of publication in science
• activitsm/political agenda
• number of editors/potential reviewers

Access • ease of obtaining material

• teacher-directed source use
Following Rules • familiarity with school/other rules


Students’ Assessment Strategies Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Suggest New Heuristics Content Engagement

“I just would not go Wikipedia ﬁrst, because it is an edited
source. It is just like I am writing my own, so people are
writing their own thing on that.”
– Diane, junior

“Wikipedia, it’s like, known that it possibly could be wrong
but so many people read it that they can correct it that it
kind of like checks, it’s like checks and balances… and like
there’s a giant list of references at the bottom... I guess it’s
like Science Online maybe.”
– Alli, junior


Responsibility for Content Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Affected Reasoning about Citation Content Engagement


Value of Citation


Students positioned themselves as mediators in the cycle
of information consumption and production

They felt a responsibility to assess sources that went
beyond the grading rubric; this affected how they reasoned
about what makes citation valuable

Citation legitimized contributions and protected them from
critique


Value of Citation


“I have no credibility behind my name, I’m a student still.
But all the work that I was—all the information I put up had
sources, had everything, had a credible background to it.
So I think if it’s going to be so open for other people to use,
your work should be credible. You just don’t want to lead
people wrong.”

– Jerry, high school senior


Opportunities for Metacognitive Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Engagement with Science Content Content Engagement

Students adopted mediator role, this time between the
scientific community and laypersons

Needed to identify their own knowledge gaps and fill them
in order to simplify scientific language for their readership


Opportunities for Metacognitive Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Engagement with Science Content Content Engagement

“So I mean, I had to take words and I mean, I wanted to
make it readable for people too, because I knew other
people were going to look at this, so I was not going to use,
like, huge words, just kind of make it simple.”
– Lina, senior

Another student noted 40% of his effort: “was collecting
information. 60% was actually trying to understand what on
earth are we talking about.”
– Jerry, senior


Assessing Information
Value of Citation

Wiki Supports Learning Processes Content Engagement

Wiki as a transparent, incremental publishing medium
supports learning in communities
LPP: low barrier for contribution makes legitimate peripheral contributions
possible
Cognitive apprenticeship: features like history pages, discussions, open editing
make peers’ and experts’ process visible


Summary

Assessing and using information take on new meanings for
students when their school work becomes an authentic
public resource

Wiki publishing affords opportunities for learning and
becoming more savvy information consumers and
producers

The right wiki tools were critical for getting this kind of
activity to work in the classroom


Unprecedented Opportunity and Need for
Information Literacy Learning

More and more people are participating in production of
information
59% of youth are content creators online (Pew, 2007)

Responsibility for assessing information is increasingly
distributed
Disintermediated/apomediated information environments


Education is not preparation for life, education is life.
- John Dewey, 1938


Some Implications...

Production and Participation - Students need access to
practice in schools

Open Access - Students need materials to work with

“Web Credibility” is not a sufﬁcient concept - Educators and
researchers need to develop increasingly nuanced views of
online resources


Questions, Discussion...

aforte@drexel.edu


Information Literacy and Participatory Media

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