Technology is the Big Bang that has propelled literacy into an expanding universe. Scientists, no longer able to keep up through printed journals, now understand each other’s work online, through sophisticated visualizations and simulations made possible by supercomputing. Economists, unable to process the volume and complexity of financial transactions, employ armies of programmers to deploy powerful tools for real-time visualization of the flow of wealth. Visualization extends literacy by enabling people to perceive relationships hidden below the surface of vast amounts of data, and to synthesize meaning from these relationships. The challenge to “everyday people” to keep up with this expansion can only be met through development of a framework for Information & Communications Technology (ICT) Literacy, such as that proposed in Digital Transformation, and the resulting research based interventions. Information “thinking skills” are the true essential skills for the 21st Century.

Literacy has always been at the heart of the education enterprise. From the time of the 3Rs to now, being literate has been a consistent yet evolving foundation for citizenship in each cultural era. Literacy has also been used as a wedge, from the times of slavery (when teaching slaves to read was a felony) until the civil rights era, when literacy tests relied upon the inequality of schools to recreate a disenfranchised population by proxy.

In January 2001, Educational Testing Service (ETS) convened an international panel to study the growing importance of existing and emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and their relationship to literacy. Their report, Digital Transformation, has just been released, putting forth a framework for ICT Literacy that provides a foundation for the design of instruments including large-scale assessments intended to inform public policy and provide diagnostic measures to test skills associated with information and communication technology.

Published by Educational Testing Service’s Center for Global Assessment, Digital Transformation states a definition of ICT literacy as “using digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge society.” A free PDF copy of this report is available at http://www.ets.org/research/ictliteracy/ictreport.pdf

In Digital Transformation , Educational Testing Service (ETS) gathered a distinguished panel of international researchers, who find that “ICT literacy cannot be defined primarily as the mastery of technical skills. The panel concludes that the concept of ICT literacy should be broadened to include both critical cognitive skills as well as the application of technical skills and knowledge. These cognitive skills include general literacy, such as reading and numeracy, as well as critical thinking and problem solving. Without such skills, the panel believes that true ICT literacy cannot be attained.”

Such a definition heightens the importance of the work of IT Teams at every level. Only when the people responsible for curricular, instructional, management and technical aspects of the school operate from a shared understanding of the importance of ICT Literacy can their actions align to make contemporary literacy possible for all students. Fortunately, such initiatives are already underway, and reporting significant success.

In December 2000, e-Learning: Putting a World Class Education at the Fingertips of All Children , the second National Technology Plan ever devised was released. In addressing ICT Literacy, the plan states “A meaningful, unified approach to providing students with the skills they will need for their futures must be more than a checklist of isolated technology skills, such as knowing the parts of a computer, writing drafts and final products with a word processor, or searching for information using a CD-ROM database.”

“Rather, technology skills are only a first step in assuring all our children become proficient information and technology users. Also necessary are information literacy skills such as:

o Task definition — The first step in the information problem-solving process is to recognize that an information need exists, to define the problem, and to identify the types and extent of information needed.

o Information seeking strategies — Once the information problem has been formulated, the student must consider all possible information sources and develop a plan for searching.

o Location and access — After students determine their priorities for information seeking, they must locate information from a variety of resources, access specific information found within individual resources, and evaluate the quality of resources.

o Use of information — After finding potentially useful resources, students must engage (read, view, listen) the information to determine its relevance and then extract the relevant information.

o Synthesis—Students must organize and communicate the results of the information problem-solving effort.

o Evaluation—Evaluation focuses on how well the product meets the original task (effectiveness) and the process of how well students carried out the problem-solving process (efficiency).

The plan described above is the Big6 Approach to Information Problem Solving, the most widely known and used approach to teaching information and technology skills. The Big6 is used in thousands of K-12 schools and higher education institutions, as well as in corporate and adult training programs. An estimated 84,000 teachers have been trained in the Big6 program.

The Bertelsmann Foundation and the AOL Time Warner Foundation have joined with experts from education, business and government, recently convening an international 21st Century Literacy Summit. The Summit demonstrated notable examples of 21st Century Literacy initiatives, and to recommended to various institutions how they can support individuals in taking full advantage of the tools and resources of the Digital Age.

Cited as an exemplary practice in the Summit whitepaper , the Big6 (first developed in 1988) provides a systematic process based on six broad skill areas necessary for successful information problem-solving. This approach builds a set of skills and an organized strategy for effectively meeting information needs while developing critical thinking skills. Big6.org provides a complete library and information skill curriculum that can be used throughout a student’s development.

The research basis for this approach is extensive. In her recent literature review of this research , Carrie Lowe writes “The existing body of research on information literacy can be considered in the context of three themes, which are the nature and scope of information literacy, the value of information literacy, and effective methods of information literacy skills instruction.”

On the nature and scope of information literacy, Lowe notes “Kuhlthau”s research contributions led to a much greater understanding of the importance of teaching information skills (such as individual steps in The Big6) in context and not as discrete tasks. Kuhlthau”s (1993) research into the information seeking behavior of students contributed to her central philosophy of information literacy – that information literacy is not a set of individual tasks or skills, but rather a way of thinking that allows individuals to be the flexible thinkers and lifelong learners who will succeed in the information age.”

Regarding the value of information literacy, Lowe notes that the cognitive aspects and related benefits are key. “Pitts” (1995) examination of the mental models of students engaged in the information problem-solving process found that they use different domains of knowledge to complete a task, including one responsible for information seeking and use and others related to the other aspects of the task, including subject knowledge. Pitts found that a lack of knowledge in one area (including information problem-solving skills) could limit learning and success overall.”

The crucial importance of ICT Literacy heightens the value of successful implementations. Lowe reports “Eisenberg and Berkowitz (1988) found that the best way to teach information literacy skills (such as the Big6) in curriculum context is through the collaboration of classroom teachers and library media specialists. Brievik (1998) found that the same is true in higher education, as students succeed in integrated courses designed by faculty members and academic librarians.”

Given the new national educational policy focus on improving student achievement, through research-based practices which document student growth, the work of the ICT is both timely and imperative. As noted in the 1999 National Research Council report Being Fluent with Information Technology, the “requirement of a deeper understanding than is implied by the rudimentary term ”computer literacy” motivated the committee to adopt ”fluency” as a term connoting a higher level of competency. People fluent with information technology (FIT persons) are able to express themselves creatively, to reformulate knowledge, and to synthesize new information. Fluency with information technology (i.e., what this report calls FITness) entails a process of lifelong learning in which individuals continually apply what they know to adapt to change and acquire more knowledge to be more effective at applying information technology to their work and personal lives.”

The goal of developing measures of these skills needs to recognize both the context, as well as the nature of the process, and how this process differs from those typically measured in schools. The report notes, “Because FITness is fundamentally integrative, calling upon an individual to coordinate information and skills with respect to multiple dimensions of a problem and to make overall judgments and decisions taking all such information into account, a project-based approach to developing FITness is most appropriate.”

This is precisely the approach taken by thousands of educators as they work with their colleagues in applying the Big6 Skills to their instruction and assessment. The cover story for MultiMedia Schools magazine May/June 2002 issue Moving Every Child Ahead: the Big6 Success Strategy describes how this powerful ICT strategy has resulted in improved student achievement for several years running. Instead of teaching to the test, scores are raised by improving student thinking skills.
See MultiMedia Schools, May 2002 issue. http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/may02/berkowitz.htm>

Conclusion:

The Digital Transformation report and resulting Framework for ICT Literacy could not come at a better time. As both national and international agendas begin to act on the implications of the digital age on the education, workplace and civic domains, the value of reliable measures and effective interventions is unsurpassed.

About the Author: Ferdi Serim helps people learn to read, write and think, using technology to expand the boundaries of what they read, write and think about. His work as editor of MultiMedia Schools magazine, director of the Online Internet Institute (OII), Associate of the David Thornburg Center for Professional Development (and jazz musician) helps people understand and harness technology”s transforming potentials for distributed learning and networked knowing. He is the author of NetLearning: Why Teachers Use the Internet (published by Songline, a division of O”Reilly and Associates) and From Computers to Community: Unlocking the Potentials of the Wired Classroom (published by Centrinity, inc). He can be reached at: ferdi@oii.org