Understanding Media and Information Literacy in the Digital Age #GlobalMILweek

A substantial free book was given out at the Global MIL Week feature conference last week, and it is also available free online as a pdf. It was edited by Professor Ulla Carlsson (the keynote speaker) with chapters on policy, practice and research. The majority of authors are from Sweden, with a few other international contributors.
Carlsson, U. (ed). (2019). Understanding Media and Information Literacy in the Digital Age: a Question of Democracy. Department of Journalism, Media and Communication (JMG), University of Gothenburg.
https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/gmw2019_understanding_mil_ulla_carlsson.pdf

Opening session; Recipients of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy awards #GlobalMILweek

There is a report on the opening session of the Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) feature conference (in Gothenburg, Sweden, 24 September 2019). Opening speakers included Anna Ekstrom, Minister of Education, Sweden (pictured, in red), "who noted that MIL is necessary ingredient for civic engagement, freedom of Information, and pluralistic media". The report is here https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-marks-ninth-global-media-and-information-literacy-week-and-features-conference-sweden
Additionally, UNESCO GAPMIL (Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy) makes MIL awards each year. For 2019 the six recipients (announced at the feature conference) were:
- UNICEF Montenegro https://www.unicef.org/montenegro/en
- The journal Revista Comunicar (in Spanish here https://www.revistacomunicar.com/ and in English here https://www.revistacomunicar.com/index.php?&idioma=en
- Prof. Alexander V. Fedorov (Russia) ("one of the most influential professors and researchers in Russia in the field of MIL")
- Mr Frank Baker (USA) who "has taken the MIL related message to schools in the US, as well as in Singapore, Mumbai, India and Nairobi Kenya for more than twenty years."
- The Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation (PYALARA http://www.pyalara.org/)
- The UK news literacy project NewsWise https://www.newswise.com/
More information at https://en.unesco.org/news/transformative-initiatives-celebrated-global-media-and-information-literacy-awards-2019
Photographer Ann-Charlotte Ferm (Region Västra Götaland)

Media education in São Paulo schools; faculty development in Thailand; Gaming literacy; framework for engaging with hypercriticality #GlobalMILweek

I will do a few more posts to catch up with the Global Media and Information Literacy feature conference, although I'm now back in the UK. The session that I chaired on Wednesday had five talks with varied perspectives. One focused on MIL education in São Paulo schools, one on critical gaming literacy, one on Digital and Media Literacy for faculty in Thailand, one on critical approaches to news, and I will select some key points on those below. The fifth one was a talk from me and Bill Johnston about transformational learning for adults, and I will blog that separately.
Firstly, Carlos Alberto Lima and Maria Celia Rehder (Educommunication Nucleus, Brazil) talked about 18 years of media education in São Paulo schools, and the progress over time. They started by sketching out some statistics about the city: 12 million inhabitants and 3,834 schools with over 1 million students. There is a municipal law which identifies that the population should learn about media literacy. Study of the UN Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) is integrated into the primary curriculum and this is done with and through Media and Information Literacy (MIL) activities. The students have various media projects, produce pictures, videos and podcasts etc. 470 schools have a “youth press”. Teachers also get taught about MIL, with 25,000 trained in 18 years and 4000 in 2019. There was a recent survey that showed that 40% of the students enjoyed participating in the communication/ production activities.

Jomkwan Polparsi (University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce) gave details of the programme to develop university faculty’s use of Technology Enhanced Learning, incorporating MIL elements and encouraging the faculty members to reflect on their approach to learning design. Stage 2 of the project had “champions” from the faculty redesigning the course themselves. This redesigned course has three levels: exploration of core technical tools, “productivity” (addressing learning design and management of the TEL tools) and then “community”, with the emphasis on sharing examples and experience. The goal was developing the learning ecosystem (which includes the element of “pain” as well). The university runs MOOCs (ThaiMOOC), has had a project with primary schools, and is planning educational programmes for older people. They are working closely with Apple, which they were open about and had found pragmatically useful.
Jonas Linderoth (University of Skovde, Sweden) gave a talk focusing on the concept of critical gaming literacy. He identified the pervasiveness of computer gaming, but also the way in which it is often not treated seriously (despite the huge value of the gaming market) or is demonised. You can find out more about his work here, here and here.

Finally, Yves Collard (Media Animation, Belgium) started by identifying that the message from teachers was now not so much that they wanted young people to be critical with the media, but rather that the young people were be hypercritical: over-doubtful of journalists and the media, and likely to succumb to conspiracy theories. In fact he identified that this has become a subculture of young people who felt there was “no truth”. In order to engage with them it was important to understand them and not to just look down on them. He identified five approaches to challenging a “no truth, conspiracy theory approach to information, each of which had both opportunities and limitations. This was an interesting framework that I wasn’t able to take full notes on (because of my responsibilities chairing the session) so I hope to follow up n it. However I did take photos of some of his slides. Four of the five frames were: empiricism (with a focus on facts and truth); de-constructivism (which focuses on getting people to deconstruct the media to look at elements such as language, producers and representations); ideology (concentrating on the broader political context of the media and its producers, and the influencing factors); and the collective approach, looking at why people share media (I took a picture of a slide with the remaining element but I’m afraid it turned out too blurred to read, though from someone else’s notes the heading was “cognition”). I think the idea was to generate questions which meant that people thought about an item from all five perspectives, so that you overcome the limitations of using only one of these frames. For example the empirical frame (which I think is the one most commonly encountered in library tutorials) is not enough if someone has a strongly held opinion which is not going to be changed by advocating fact checking, but someone might start to question their opinion if they use some of these other approaches to interrogate a media item. His site http://www.theoriesducomplot.be is also interesting (French language).
Photos by Sheila Webber

Media literacy developments in South Korea, Croatia, Ireland #globalMILweek

The previous session at the Global MIL Week feature conference was one in which I was moderator (and a presenter) so I needed to have my attention in the room and I will blog about that later. Now I will liveblog the next session, on national policy and initiatives. The first speaker was Seojoong Kim (SungKangHoe University, South Korea) talking on Development and characteristics of media education ploicy in Korea. He identified the pressures on media, because of dictatorship and religeous groups, and relative lack of freedom of expression in the 70's. Media education grew after the fall of dictatorship, but since 2010 there has been another problem, in the form of social distrust of traditional media and the rise of fake news. He proposed government, citizen and market as the three agents for change. The Korean Broadcasting Commission had played a part in developing media education policy. A key event was revision of the Broadcasting Act, with the introduction of rights and interests of viewers (e.g. supporting a viewers' organisation), and more public access programmes. The MediAct (2002) created media centres, in which citizens have the leading role. There was then further growth in media education services, to more marginalised groups, and also with more engagement in schools. There are currently efforts to introduce the Media Education Supporting Act, with various stakeholders banding together to promote it. Throughout this development the active partcipation of citizens was emphasised, as was the fact that the nature of and needs for media education were constantly evolving.
Next Monika Valecic (Gong, Croatia) talked about Gong, which is a civil society organisation focused on enhancing the democratic process, including citizens' participation in the process. They do education, research and advocacy. The organisation started in 2012. Education for Civic Literacy is a course they run which is designed for teachers. Political Literacy, Media Literacy and EU literacy are the three pillars (it is a pity that EU Literacy was not taught earlier, in the UK, was my thought!) (see photo). They are trying to institute "a new way of thinking about things". A problem is covering the important material in the restricted time! Also they discuss what teaching methods to use e.g. role play, sharing experiences, analyzing media content, watching and listening, group work, debate and reading. Examples of how to use these methods in the classroom are given to the teachers (who are the students of the course).
Finally Philip Russell (Technological University of Deblin, Ireland) talked about the Be Media Smart campaign, the national media literacy campaign inIreland. I have blogged about this before (Russell also spoke at the CILIP conference). It is an initiative of Media Literacy Ireland, which has about 120 members of all sorts, private and public sector. The campaign was built around the idea of getting people to think about the provenance of their information as much as they thought about the provenance of their food. The slogan was stop / think / check, and it was in TV, radio, social media (in which libraries were particularly prominent) and print. The dedicated website is http://bemediasmart.ie Russell emphasised the involvement of libraries, and their key role in developing MIL. There will be another campaign in Spring 2020. For that they aim to develop a campaign tool-kit and it will need to continue to have a multi-stakeholder approach - Russell highlighted the neccessity of this when there is no national policy. Also the involvement of the broadcasting agency was advantageous in getting affordable advertising in broadcasting media.

MIL resources from Twitter; Misinformation in Mongolia #globalmilweek

I'll be liveblogging again from the Global MIL week conference in Gothenburg today. Ronan Costello (Twitter) talked about use of the UNESCO MIL curriculum and related materials, which they have developed for use with students and will make available as a resource site. This includes examples of how the material could be used in class. This resource is going to be available for Global MIL week in October and Twitter will promote the #thinkbeforesharing hashtag. Also during MIL week they will donate advertising for selected worthy nonprofits who want to advertise their MIL resources. Other things mentioned in the talk were statistics about the number of accounts that were challenged or banned by Twitter.
Namnandorj Bayaraa (Remo Media, Mongolia) talked about misinformation in Mongolia. He started by saying that the penetration of the internet in Mongolia was 70% and most people had smartphones. 65% of the population is under 35. He gave examples of fake news. One was saying that Macdonalds was opening and giving away iPhones (they don't Have a Macdonalds in Mongolia) and others to do with giveaways and fake news about food e.g. a soup having antibiotic powers, food products carrying serious diseases. The speaker pointed out that it was easy to laugh if you were media literate, but generally people were stuck being bombarded with this material. Additionally there was a lot of propaganda. For example socialism / communism compared with democracy: with the former portrayed as causing health and happiness and the latter social problems and misery. Satirical sources such as the Onion would be translated into Mongolian as fact. The speaker went on to describe what Remo Media is doing to improve MIL. Examples were having awareness campaigns, working with news companies and in schools. Their website (Mongolian) is here https://www.remo.mn

Credible news; Vulnerable communities; political hate speech #GlobalMILweek

More liveblogging from the Global MIL Week feature conference. Mona Guath (Uppsala University) reported on research about Assessing incidence of credible and less credible news. She began by talking about a large-scale experiment The News Evaluator http://nyhetsvarderaren.se/in-english/. 13-19 year olds took the first piece of news in their feed and evaluate it. Then this choice was stored in a database. A lot of these items were hard and credible news, often behind paywalls: a caveat is that perhaps the young people were selecting items they thought the researchers wanted. Next there was a project of 500 young people, who were asked to rate the importance of consuming credible news, also gave demographic information about themselves, and the took a test covering aspects of media and information literacy. There were correlations between thinking you were good at searching and NOT performing well in the test, and in doing well in the test and: thinking credible information was important; education; studying particular disciplines. Guath also talked about some other strategies associated with ability to detect biased information: e.g. curiosity as a personality trait.
Estrella Luna Munoz (University of Lisbon, see photo) talked about Strategies/Competencies and social integration in vulnerable sectors: community empowerment with mediators. She started by talking about the issue of exclusion from involvement with technology and society. There were still issues of hate speech, intolerance, othering etc. which meant that freedom of expression and dialogue were vital. Thus there was a need to develop tools and strategies to help mediators and teachers in/of vulnerable communities: in terms of technology, you had to work what was available in communities. They went into communities to talk about the news that is spread about that community and to develop an alternative form of news about that community. The community was involved in making news, interviews, photos etc. but just with the technology that people already had. This reflected the tools they had and the topics important to the community. This encouraged debate in the community as well as promoting a different idea of the community. From this they have recommended competencies that people can develop in the community through these activities, and in order to support these activities.
Viktorya Muradyan (Iaelyon School of Management) talked about the Velvet Revolution in Armenia. She talked about the transparent 24/7 non-raditional news coverage that supported and created change. However there is also hate speech and shaming, nutured by media - with a post-revolutionary crisis. Muradyan identified a change in mindset that is necessary for change to happen and be maintained. In good hands, the media can connect people and bring change, but the negative side has to be combatted.
Anna Belkina (Deputy Editor in Chief, RT) talked about the need to enable different voices and perspectives to be heard, rather than excluding journalists and those giving alternative perspectives. She also identified the problem of framing "view you don't like" as fake news or misinformation. Belkina stressed that this was problematic for critial thinking and MIL. She called for genuine information diversity instead of supression of alternative and uncomfortable views.
Finally Muhammad Furqan Rao talked about hate speech a case study of 2018 general elections in Pakistan. He identified the role of social media wiuth hate speech, and the way in which social media was used in Pakistani politics. Politicians had been using social media actively. In terms of the national legislation and constitution: there was freedom of expression, a code of conduct for political conduact and also regulation to do with use of social media. For this research, they carried out 24 elite interviews (e.g. with journalists, politicians etc.) They also analysed Twitter and Facebook profiles/streams of key political figures and parties. The latter analysis showed that politicians were calling each other corrupt, thieves etc. and using various other aspects of hate speech, including incitement and targetting people's personal lives (e.g. accusations to do with people's sex lives). Rao identified by the need for education in MIL and for more  regulation of the poilitical hate speech.

Open bibliographic data; Epistemological Security #GlobalMILweek

I'm attending the Global Media and Information Literacy Week feature conference. The actual week is in October, but the conference is happening now in Gothenburg, Sweden. I will be doing some liveblogging, starting with the session I'm in now. Alice Fagerving, of Wikimedia Sweden talked about how the National Library of Sweden is working with Wikipedia to make bibliographic information more openly available. Specifically, the National Library is working with Wikidata. There is also the WikiCite initiative to build a free and open database of bibliographic data. The idea behind this is to capitalise on the work done by libraries worldwide over many years, in cataloguing resources accurately, and by combining with Wikipedia to help make the widely-used Wikipedia more reliable.

Then Urban Jaksa (York University) talked about Conceptualising security in the era of fake news. He identified that security can mean different things, and once you start talking about people it is a broader concept involving health, infrastructure; people's lives. Jaksa also identified non physical aspects of security, namely ontological security (issues of identity and values) which concept originated with RD Laing, and Jaksa also proposed Epistemological security. This was defined as "having confidence in an accurate perception of reality, the validity of one's knowledge, and the methods to acquire and process information".
Using the examples of terrorist attacks he differentiated ontological and epistemological security in sayng that the former was strengthened (with affirmation of identity and values e.g. after the Paris attacks) but the latter was weakened, as people became uncertain about the reliability of national intelligence information etc. He also identified that information overload, with fake news mixed in, caused further confusion. Epistemological security "is about the degree of certainty in external reality". Ontological and Epistemological Security can help us think of security beyond the physical. This idea overlaps with discussions in the information literacy community and I think adds an interesting extra dimension.
Finally, Michael Hoechsmann (Lakehead University) talked about Pipelines and Snake Oil - taking Canadian examples (pipelines, and the national elections). He is involved in a project which has a series of 15-30 day media monitoring projects around the world (DCMET - I think here http://www.education4democracy.net/homeeng). He proposed there were 3 levels of news consumption (noise, participation and echo chambers); and framing (which he positioned as being done by opinion formers and leaders), filtering, and reframing of events. He gave the example of Canada Proud, which has a strong online presence, and which targets men and older women and particular regions of Canada with their message. He also showed how promotion and images was changed and targeted to different genders and different regions to appeal to the different audiences.

Recent articles: action research; narrative instruction; innovative information seeking

Volume 45 issue 5 (2019) of the priced Journal of Academic Librarianship includes the following articles:
- Exploring Innovative Information Seeking: The Perspectives of Cognitive Switching and Affinity with Digital Libraries by Xianjin Zha, Fenfang Cao, Yalan Yan, Jia Guo, Juan Wang
- Embracing the Spiral: An Action Research Assessment of a Library-Honors First Year Collaboration by Sarah LeMire, Thomas D. Sullivan, Jonathan Kotinek ("In this article, researchers use an action research methodology to explore the effect of information literacy instruction on first-year honors student assignments. The researchers explain how they implemented multiple cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting in order to better understand student needs, increase the impact of library instruction, and communicate that impact to library and external stakeholders. Robust and cyclical assessment gave librarians and their strategic partners the opportunity to make iterative improvements to instruction, address issues of overconfidence in students, and make the case for additional information literacy instructional opportunities for honors students.")
- Telling their stories: A study of librarians' use of narrative in instruction by Mindy Thuna, Joanna Szurmak (it "uses a phenomenological methodology and semi-structured interviews with 19 academic librarians who teach in Canadian higher education institutions to determine what narrative tools or approaches they use, and to what extent these practices may enrich both their outcomes and their teaching praxis.")
Go to https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/the-journal-of-academic-librarianship/vol/45/issue/5
Photo by Sheila Webber: autumn rose, September 2019

Maddie is online website

The Maddie is Online series of videos (mentioned earlier in the year) now have their own blog. MIO is "an educational video cartoon series which aims to illustrate the dangers of online bullying and to teach children online information evaluation through animation". Go to https://maddiesonline.blogspot.com/

Scaffolding Information Literacy

Scaffolding Information Literacy is an online course running from October 14-November 10 2019, taught by Andrea Baer and costing US $175. "In brief: Educators and instructional designers frequently emphasize the importance of scaffolding, through which learning supports are developed and later removed in order to help students build on prior learning, progressively strengthen their understandings and abilities, and ultimately to be more self-directed learners. Whether a teacher is designing a single class session, a series of class sessions, an assignment, an online learning object, or a credit course, scaffolding is a powerful technique that informs the entire instructional design process. Often, however, it does not receive the attention that it deserves. In this 4-week course participants will learn about various scaffolding techniques and will apply these to developing or revising an instruction plan of their choice."
More information at https://inquiringteachers.com/courses/scaffolding-information-literacy/
Later in the month, another course starts, Information Literacy in Politically Polarized Times, running October 28 - November 24. Go to https://inquiringteachers.com/courses/
Photo by Sheila Webber: hydrangea, Weston park, September 2019

Call for proposals: Exploring Literacies Through Digital Humanities

There is a Call for short papers for a special issue of dh+lib on Exploring Literacies Through Digital Humanities. Proposals (250 word abstract + brief biography of authors) should be sent to the editors at dhandlib.acrl@gmail.com using the subject line: 2019 Special Issue by October 30, 2019.
"The aim of this special issue is to provide readers from all areas of librarianship with greater insight into the intersection of DH and literacies, therefore, please keep the audience in mind and make choices such as defining DH-specific terms or linking out to resources that provide further explanation of DH methods and concepts. New voices and submissions from graduate students, junior scholars, instructional technologists, and others who work on the frontlines of DH and literacy work are encouraged. Perspectives from outside of the U.S. are particularly welcome. Submissions may take the form of short essays (between 750 and 1500 words long) or responses in other media that are of comparable length."
Possible topics include: How can digital humanities tools/methods inform teaching information literacy concepts? (Or vice versa?); How do aspects of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, such as the constructed and contextual nature of authority, fit in with digital humanities work? How do digital humanities methods and scholarship create challenges for the ACRL Framework?; How might our professional literacies inform our collection practices, especially around collections as data?; How might DH literacies inform other areas of professional practice?; Discuss criticisms of literacies as a concept or issues with applying a literacy framework to DH work.

More information at https://acrl.ala.org/dh/2019/09/04/cfp-exploring-literacies-through-digital-humanities/
Photo by Sheila Webber: Flowers outside Wahnfried, Bayreuth, August 2019

International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL)

The International Conference on Information Literacy (ICIL) takes place next week 23-26 September 2019, in North-West University (NWU), South Africa. The programme is here: http://library.nwu.ac.za/icil-programme, with a lot of interesting presentations, so Ihope that some people will be tweeting and blogging the conference.

New articles: politics; attention and literacy; Virtual reality; ethics in journal article publication

Thornton, S. (2019). A longitudinal comparison of information literacy in students starting Politics degrees. Learning and Teaching, 12(2), 89-111. [priced] https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2019.120206 there is an open access record at http://orca.cf.ac.uk/119315/ but it is still embargoed.

Hautala, J. et al. (2019). What information should I look for again? Attentional difficulties distracts reading of task assignments. Learning and Individual Differences, 75 (101775).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2019.101775 [open access]. Results included "Students with attentional difficulties made less likely look-backs on the relevant task-objective sentence." and "Probability of look-back on relevant sentence was associated with better performance in the informational tasks" (this seemed interesting to me in linking reading ability, attention, and ability to locate information on a page/screen).

Smith, F.A. (2019). Virtual reality in libraries is common sense. Library Hi Tech News. [early access: priced.] https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LHTN-06-2019-0040/full/html

Routledge and COPE have released a research report Exploring publication ethics issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences which is free if you give them your contact information. It investigated what scholarly journal editors perceived as ethical problems (there are plenty of them!). https://editorresources.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-ethics-for-editors/publication-ethics-challenges-cope-study/?
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wine in the Adelaide Hills, July 2019

New articles: teaching clinicians; gamification of searching

There is a new issue of the open access Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (JEAHIL), vol. 15 issue 3, 2019. It includes:
- How do we teach clinicians where the resources for best evidence are? by Sandra Kendall, Michelle Ryu, Chris Walsh
- Searchaton: a gamified, team-based on-site teaching format for literature searching for medical students by Michael Wilde, Monika Wechsler, Hannah Ewald
Go to http://ojs.eahil.eu/ojs/index.php/JEAHIL/issue/view/130
Photo by Sheila Webber: Gerhard Horak "Landschaftsstücke"; Juliusspital park, Germany, August 2019

Reading in a Digital Environment

The conference Reading in a Digital Environment: Media Use, Functional Literacies and Future Challenges for Universities, taking place at Universität Regensburg, Germany, November 8, 2019, has an interesting programme. They are also seeking poster proposals, deadline 11 October 2019. The conference is free to students, and 75 Euros to others. More info at https://www.uni-regensburg.de/bibliothek/veranstaltungskalender/reading2019/index.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: open bookshelf for children, Bayreuth, Germany, August 2019

Recent articles: STEM; history; bootcamps; teaching librarians

Recent articles from the open access journal College & Research Libraries News include: from Vol 80, No 8, 2019 includes
- Assessment and social change: Empowering underserved students to reimagine their future through STEM outreach by Thura Mack, Savanna Draper
Go to https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1527/showToc

I haven't yet covered the previous issue, Vol 80, No 7, 2019, which included
- New models for instruction: Fusing the ACRL Framework and Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians to promote the lifelong learning of teaching librarians by Annie Armstrong
- A restructured freshman history course: The evolution of a librarian’s role by Laurie Scrivener
- Repackaging library workshops into disciplinary bootcamps: Creating graduate student success by Erin R. B. Eldermire, Erica M. Johns, Susette Newberry, Virginia A. Cole
Go to https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/issue/view/1131/showToc
Photo by Sheila Webber: Juliusspital park, artwork, August 2019

Library Research Seminar #LRS7

The Library Research Seminar takes place in Columbia, SC, USA, at the University of South Carolina on October 16-18 2019. The conference theme is Research Matters: Strengthening Our Values, Defining Our Practice. It has an interesting programme, including a session focusing on information literacy research. More information at https://sites.google.com/ucmo.edu/lrs-vii/home
Photo by Sheila Webber: Glenelg, July 2019

Information Literacy in Public Libraries #PMLG

The PMLG (+ ILG) National Conference 2019: Information Literacy in Public Libraries takes place on 4 October 2019 at Canada Wharf Library Theatre, London, UK. The "conference explores: Health Information Literacy; eSafety for Public Library Users; Information Literacy Skills for Children and Young People; The Architecture of Information; Basic Digital Literacies for the Otherwise Disenfranchised; Drawing together the many strands of information literacy in public libraries. Often overlooked, information literacy stands at the core of a public library’s purpose. Whether it is teaching children how to answer their own questions or supporting retirees to get online, public libraries daily contribute to the development of information literacy skills within their communities."
Sessions will include a workshop on information literacy in everyday life from my colleague in the University of Sheffield iSchool, Dr Pamela McKinney.
More information and registration at https://www.cilip.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1268656
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackfriars station, London, September 2019

New articles: algorithms; advertising literacy; story sharing; assessment; #medialiteracy

Volume 11 issue 2 of the open access journal Journal of Media Literacy Education has been published. Articles include:
- Media Literacy Education for All Ages by Päivi Rasi, Hanna Vuojärvi, and Heli Ruokamo (introduction to the issue)
- Media Literacy Education in the Age of Machine Learning by Teemu Valtonen, Matti Tedre, Kati Mäkitalo, and Henriikka Vartiainen
- Assessing Online Viewing Practices Among College Students by Elizabeth J. Threadgill and Larry R. Price
- Story Sharing in a Digital Space to Counter Othering and Foster Belonging and Curiosity among College Students by Gina Baleria
- Adolescents' Digital Literacies in Flux: Intersections of Voice, Empowerment, and Practices by Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Mary Beth Schaefer, and Daniel Ness
- Measuring Media Literacy Inquiry in Higher Education: Innovation in Assessment by Evelien Schilder and Theresa Redmond
Go to https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jmle/vol11/iss2/
Photo by Sheila Webber: hydrangea, August 2019

Call for proposals for #liw20 ends 23 September

The Call for Proposals for the Library Instruction West 2020 is open until 23 September 2019. The conference takes place at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, on unceded Duwamish lands, July 22-24, 2020. The conference theme is Justice.
"The concept of justice raises more questions than answers: justice for whom, and when? What does justice look like when done well? Is justice something that can ever be achieved, or is it the goal toward which we continually work? The conference organizing committee seeks creative, dynamic session proposals that engage with the conference theme. How can instruction in libraries yield more just outcomes for our learners and library workers? How does “justice” differ from neutrality, fairness, or open-mindedness? How do libraries perpetuate injustice, and what steps can we take to address oppression and inequality in our workplaces?"
Session formats include: Hands-on workshops (up to 2 hours); Solo or panel presentations (approximately 1 hour); Lesson plan demonstrations (approximately 1 hour); Case studies (approximately 1 hour); Facilitated group discussions (approximately 1 hour); Short talks (approximately 30 minutes); Lightning talks (10 minutes or shorter).
Themes they are particularly interested in include: Information privilege; Power and hierarchies in information systems, including bias in algorithms/machine learning/artificial intelligence; Propaganda and misinformation; Teaching information literacy, including outreach, empowerment of learners and use of technologies; Models for information literacy instruction programs tailored to specific populations. This year they are using an open review process "where identifying information (including your name, institutional affiliation, and self-disclosed positionality) will be included with proposals when reviewed." More details are on the website at https://libraryinstructionwest.wordpress.com/
Photo by Sheila Webber: unripe apple on my tree, August 2019

New articles: social justice; library anxiety; research clinics; misinformation; sociology; MIL laws; #critinfolit

The latest issue of open access journal Communications in Information Literacy (volume 13 issue 1) has been published. Articles are:
- Illuminating Social Justice in the Framework: Transformative Methodology, Concept Mapping and Learning Outcomes Development for Critical Information Literacy by Nicole A. Branch
- Investigating the Effectiveness of a Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Course in Reducing Library Anxiety for Adult Learners by Roslyn Grandy
- Through the Looking Glass: Viewing First-Year Composition Through the Lens of Information Literacy by Alexandria Chisholm and Brett Spencer
- The Context of Authority and Sociological Knowledge: An Experiential Learning Project by Julia F. Waity and Stephanie Crowe
- Research Clinics: An Alternative Model for Large-Scale Information Literacy Instruction by Glenn Koelling and Lori Townsend
- Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan? by Matthew C. Sullivan
- Analyzing the Laws of MIL: a Five-step Scientific Conversation on Critical Information Literacy by Andréa Doyle
Plus book reviews. Go to https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/vol13/iss1/
Photo by Sheila webber: my hydrangea, August 2019

cfp Shaping the Futures of Learning in the Digital Age

There is a call for contributions of all sorts for a publication, Shaping the Futures of Learning in the Digital Age. It is part of the ShapingEdu initiative and they say it "is an open access, online publication that aims to capture perspectives on what it means to be creating the future of education -- how we do it well, what success looks like, how we overcome barriers, and all of the big questions and ideas that come with transforming an entire ecosystem." The submission deadline to November 1, 2019.
Possible contributions are: "Short 1-2 page papers (e.g., a trends paper focused on something that deserves our attention in this space); Poems; Video stories (include YouTube or Vimeo link in a word doc, with a brief text summary); Podcast episodes you produced (include the link in a word doc, with a brief text summary); Think-pieces or Feel-pieces (We’ll let you decide what that means.); Bold predictions about the future; A research proposal or research findings; Technology architecture blueprints; Write-ups of any projects you’re working on focused on any of the 10 Actions" They urge that the items should address one of the ShapingEdu 10 actions: https://shapingedu.asu.edu/10-actions These don't explicitly include information literacy, but I can see actions which are very relevant to information literacy and libraries. More information at https://shapingedu.asu.edu/open-access-journal
Photo by Sheila Webber: Juliusspital park, Wurzburg, August 2019

Online course: Primary Source Pedagogy

The online course Primary Source Pedagogy, taught by Robin Katz, runs from September 3-28 2019. It costs US $175. "This course will explore what "primary source" even means. It also assumes that they can be found everywhere — in museums, archives, or special collections; in circulating collections or subscription databases; on the open web, in private hands, or even in natural and built environments. A key text for this course will be the new Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. ... Students who successfully complete this course will gain confidence in their teaching by: - recognizing what skills and expertise they bring to primary source pedagogy; - developing new conceptual frameworks for understanding primary sources; - discovering useful, trusted resources for teaching with primary sources; - mastering concepts of instructional design and active learning; - applying practical strategies for planning and facilitating learning experiences in a wide variety of library settings"
More information at http://libraryjuiceacademy.com/199-primary-source-pedagogy.php