Monday, June 15, 2009

Information Literacy: developing examples around Swine Flu

One of my current projects is developing a 3D model of information literacy that uses examples of questions and problems to do with swine flu (H1N1) to prompt discussion and develop information literacy, in the virtual world Second Life.
I originally created the basic 3D circular SCONUL 7 Pillars build for a "Bird Flu" scenario (with examples related to "should we panic about bird flu?" including student-created material)
The aim of the build is to provide objects/environments that can be used to stimulate thinking and problem solving, and develop information literacy e.g. what learners need to think about relevant to each of the 7 Pillars of Information Literacy. The aim is not to create a set of links to information about swine flu (H1N1), by the way.
There is material there already, and when there is a bit more I will make it easy for people to get a copy of the whole thing free, which they can then customise and use in their own bit of SL (Infolit iSchool is also open to all, so people can use it there). I suppose this makes it a "learning object". Ideally people will share ideas/experience of how they use it, and there will be periodic meetings about the build.
I have now created a couple of pages on the Infolit iSchool wiki, which are a focus for information and ideas. NB you should be able to add your own suggestions and comments to these pages. [Added later: but this doesn't seem to be working! If you want to comment - you can do it here, or emailme to request access, or you can do that on the page on the wiki]http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Information+Literacy+builds+-+Swine+flu
If you have a SL avatar, the best way of learning about the build is to visit it in Second Life at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/169/189/21/
Also, on 4th June 2009 there was session in which people discussed ways in which the build could be developed. The transcript for the session is here: http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=417
The original (2D diagram and text) SCONUL model was created by SCONUL (http://www.sconul.ac.uk/ )

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