{"id":750,"date":"2020-05-19T10:09:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T17:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/?p=750"},"modified":"2020-05-19T10:14:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T17:14:39","slug":"information-literacy-and-moocs-critical-academic-reflection-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/information-literacy-and-moocs-critical-academic-reflection-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Information Literacy and MOOCs: Critical academic reflection [update]"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Photo by Tyler Nix<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash]<\/a><\/p>\n

In this blog post, I would like to elaborate further on my experience with MOOCs and how my team’s critical inquiry process has changed my perception of MOOCs and depend my understanding and contributed to my individual learning plan, especially through the lens of critical information literacy.<\/p>\n

In my team’s presentation <\/a>and throughout our team work on identifying barriers to access in MOOCs, I have encountered an interesting concept of reception gap,<\/em>\u00a0identified by Rohs and Ganz (2015). <\/span>Reception gap in MOOCs is identified in the literature as a barrier related to content divide. It has to do with the information literacy capacities of the individuals and their abilities for “self-directing capacities in the learning process” (Rohs & Ganz, 2015, p. 9).<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason reception gap\u00a0<\/em>is identified as a barrier, is because in a hypothetical scenario, when learners have equal access conditions to the learning resources, their individual capacities to understand those resources, “content search and rating strategies as well as cognitive dispositions, can lead towards differences in the reception of information” (Rohs & Ganz, 2015, p. 9-10). As a result, this can put some learners at the disadvantage, even when they might not have any other barriers to access.\u00a0 However, what is interesting, is that Rohs and Ganz (2015) put forward an assumption that higher socioeconomic status is closely related to the higher information literacy capacities of the individuals, and therefore, enable them to gain more benefits from educational opportunities, like MOOCs.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Following this insight from my teamwork on access barriers in MOOCs, I have delved into the critical information literacy topic. Even though information literacy encompasses multiliteracies (such as media literacy, digital and cyber literacy, visual literacy, information fluency (Mackey & Jacobson, 2001), its core definition, according to Bundy (2004), is as follows:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Information literacy is an intellectual framework for recognizing the need for, understanding, finding, evaluating, and using information […], but most importantly through critical discernment and reasoning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to\u00a0 Elmborg (2006), “the lack of precision about what information literacy means has prevented critical judgment about its importance” (p. 193). Highlighting, thus, the need for the critical information literacy in order to bridge the barriers in MOOCs and other online learning opportunities, as well as focusing on its definition, there is a strong need to reassess the value of critical information literacy in Higher Education and beyond.<\/p>\n

Attempting to formulate an answer to Freire (1970), it is important to ask ourselves this question, which Elmborg, (2006) so aptly formulated: “Is the library a passive information bank where students and faculty make knowledge deposits and withdrawals, or is it a place where students actively engage existing knowledge and shape it to their own current and future uses?” (p. 193).<\/p>\n

How to make it happen is what I would like to explore in my critical inquiry over the next few weeks. What was your personal experience so far?<\/p>\n

\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bundy, A. (2004). Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework,<\/em> 2nd ed. Adelaide : Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy.<\/p>\n

Downey, A. (2016). Critical Information Literacy\u202f: Foundations, inspiration, and ideas<\/em>. Library Juice Press.<\/p>\n

Elmborg, J. (2006). Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice. The Journal of Academic Librarianship<\/i>, 32<\/i>(2), 192\u2013199. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.acalib.2005.12.004<\/a><\/p>\n

Freire, P. (1970).\u00a0Pedagogy of the oppressed<\/em>\u00a0. New York: Seabury Press.Retrieved from http:\/\/www.historyisaweapon.com\/defcon2\/pedagogy\/pedagogychapter3.html<\/p>\n

Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2001). <\/span>Reframing Information Literacy as a metaliteracy. <\/span>College & Research Libraries, 72<\/span><\/i>(1).<\/span> doi:10.5860\/crl-76r1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Rohs, M., & Ganz, M. (2015). MOOCs and the claim of education for all: A disillusion by empirical data. <\/span>International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>16<\/span><\/i>(6), 1\u201319.<\/span> doi<\/span><\/a>: 10.19173\/irrodl.v16i6.2033.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo by Tyler Nix\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash] In this blog post, I would like to elaborate further on my experience with MOOCs and how my team’s critical inquiry process has changed my perception of MOOCs and depend my understanding and contributed to my individual learning plan, especially through the lens of critical information literacy. In my team’s presentation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt526"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0115\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}