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Tag Archives: Information Literacy Awareness Month

Information Literacy You Need More Than a Name

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anne Frank Center, Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, Social Media

A Rose By Any Other Name

On the internet you are often known by a name and/or an icon. Normally, even if someone is functioning under a banner not their own, you expect people to choose a unique name and build up the reputation from scratch.

That’s not true for everyone though. Some people choose names of real people who carry weight or follow George Orwell’s recommendation and choose words that create positive and impressive images to create a name borrowing on someone else’s weight. This is the same as the way people use quote magnets to make quotations sound more impressive.

A round about example was Betty White. A Twitter account started in her name and she didn’t know anything about it. Valerie Bertinelli tweeted out that it wasn’t an official account and that people shouldn’t follow it. Turns out that some of White’s publicity staff had started it in her name and just not bothered to tell her. Or was that just a joke Betty played on Valerie? Either way it just shows you often don’t know who you are really talking to online. (Her Twitter feed is still up, but rarely used.)

Frankly Anne Frank

During the 2016 election and afterward there was suddenly a new strident voice on Twitter calling out political missteps and mistakes by Republicans and leading many charges of Twitter users against them. How did this group gain such authority? Why they used Anne Frank’s name of course! They certainly showed up in my Twitter feed and I found it odd that the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam would have such active and loud opinions on American politics. I was right, it would have been odd, but in THIS case that’s not what was happening. It was another organization using Anne Frank’s name. So explains this Atlantic article from April 2017:

“The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, known until about a year ago as the Anne Frank Center USA, is a small organization of about nine staffers. It is independent from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which memorializes Anne’s hiding place, and is not connected at all to the Anne Frank Fonds, the Swiss organization that owns the rights to Anne’s diary. Before Goldstein officially became executive director in June 2016, the center was an obscure educational organization with a tiny storefront museum in New York City that few visited. And though the organization claims it was founded by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, in 1959, the organization’s own historical documentation and people who were part of its founding say it was actually started in 1977, and Otto Frank had no direct involvement.”

(Since the story was originally published, they dug up some paperwork that indicated Otto Frank – Anne’s father – may actually have had knowledge of the organization setting up, but people who worked with Otto Frank near the end of his life and the people who actually did the organizing in the late 1970s and the people who ran the organization prior to 2016 do not remember any such connection. See the article for more information on both sides of the issue.)

The article goes on to explain that until 2016 the organization really hadn’t been political at all. However, in 2016 the organization got a new board chair, a new executive director, AND a new combative social media system policy. It became the outspoken voice and began acting as a self-proclaimed “authority on anti-Semitism and American politics.”

And It Worked

And trading on Anne Frank’s name – and who doesn’t know and respect who Anne Frank was – they established a voice for their organization. They established it more quickly and solidly than they could in any other way simply by using someone else’s name.

And So It Goes

To finish the story Goldstein abruptly stepped down to become a rabbi in Fall 2017. Anne Frank Center still has a Twitter feed, but has returned to its previous focus on Anne Frank, Jewish History, and positive steps you can take to make the world a better place.

DO YOU KNOW a teacher? A teen? A history buff who’s interested in the Holocaust?

The perfect gift for those who want to learn more about the life and legacy of Anne Frank, our 5-part #onlinelearning series with Gillian Walnes Perry starts #today!https://t.co/5KEdvIFZJG

— Anne Frank Center USA (@AnneFrankCenter) August 19, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Stop and Think and Dig

So the next time you see someone online saying things that don’t feel right, don’t just assume it’s a heretofore unknown part of their personality, look into who it is that is actually doing the talking.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Month Spot the Troll

29 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Haters, Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Trolls

Not everyone online is your friend. Some people aren’t just there to have fun. They are there to trick you and attack you. These people are called Trolls.

Learn to Find the Trolls

This website is good for helping you learn what to look for in identifying trolls. Online trolls try to manipulate your opinions and actions. However, the site’s mock-ups don’t really convey everything you’d see in a real feed, so don’t feel bad if you miss a few. It’s really reading the WHYS the quiz gives that help you learn about trolls and how to avoid them.

https://spotthetroll.org/start

No Haters

Another thing to caution you against. People are more aware of trolls now, but just because there ARE trolls, doesn’t mean everyone who has a different opinion than you IS a troll. Some people can genuinely have a different opinion. Some people shake off every criticism with “haters going to hate.” But that really isn’t true. While some people really are haters, attacking people for stupid or wrong reasons, there are other people whose negative comments really ARE worth consideration. Sometimes they are right and you are the one who is wrong or misinformed. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes both parties are partly right and partly wrong.

It’s too easy to just throw anything you don’t 100% agree with in a big pile, labeled hate and ignore it. The most important piece of information literacy you can have is remembering to stop and think. Don’t just automatically assume people you agree with are right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Any one instance might be one of those times.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Millennial Spokesman

20 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, Website Evaluation

Just because someone says something about themselves and get it published doesn’t mean that it’s true. It’s easy to hear that there are people online who aren’t who they say they are. Here’s on story of man who has made a fortune, partly by pretending to be younger than he is and part of a generation who could easily be his children. Then he hops into articles by willing to be a secondary source on any idea a journalist wants to promote, just so they promote him, too!

An Online Fake

“Millennial Dan Nainan Left Intel To Make His Millions Entertaining Others With Comedy” ran the article in Forbes in 2017. In this profile and several others he claims to be 35. Ben Collins, a Daily Beast reporter, tracked down the details of his life. Combining official records with his given timeline makes his story of his life makes no sense. A record of speeding ticket he got in 1987 would have been when he was 6 years old. He would have been a senior engineer at Intel as a 17 year old in 1998. He seems to be trying to be 35 longer than Jack Benny was 39.

Double Check Your Facts

As Collins points out in his article (linked above), Nainan has been referenced as being 35 and a part of the Millennial generation over and over in mainstream publications. He’s been listed as 31 and 35 in the same year. He’s been listed as 35 in different years. Public records including his birth record and an old traffic ticket show he is isn’t. Publications, readily available on the web, have done stories before this. He is 57.

So when you are working on a paper, don’t necessarily trust the first source you come to. Don’t trust a source that makes it too easy to “prove” what you want. Double check you can find more than one source that says the same thing. It really doesn’t matter much what age Nainan is. However, there are lot of things in both academia (what really caused the Civil War) and real life (is that really the best deal on a refrigerator) that you will find people trying to deceive you about. Double check before you put something out there.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

Information Literacy Copyright

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Copyright, Creative Commons, Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, National Information Awareness, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, User License Agreement

InfoLiteracy During the month of October we have been doing posts relating to National Information Literacy Awareness Month and how you can increase your information literacy. This is our last Information Literacy post of this year. We hope you have enjoyed them. Leave a comment if you have a question or suggestion for a topic for next October. In today’s post, we’re taking a brief look at copyright.

Copyright is a complicated subject so this is just going to skim the surface, but I think the basic facts will be helpful. It’s such a complicated subject that most such summaries include a sentence like, this is NOT legal advice and I am NOT a lawyer, contact a lawyer for further information (so there’s mine). Copyright is, at its most basic, a right to copy. It was designed to encourage production of new ideas and writings by making sure people could make enough money off their work to keep them producing more. Copyright is also designed to expire (although laws keep pushing that date farther and farther away) so that the general population could build on and expand on those previously created works building new things and creations for the good of society. For example, Walt Disney Productions can take out of copyright fairytales like Snow White collected by the Brothers Grimm and make the movie Snow White or Seth Grahame-Smith can take the out of copyright novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and make Pride and Prejudice with Zombies.

Anytime you make a copy of a work still under copyright protection, without permission or without falling within fair use guidelines, you have violated the laws governing copyright. Some things to keep in mind as a student:

  • Not everything you copy or manipulate for a class is considered fair use (otherwise known as OK to do) because you are a student.
  • That fact that it’s technically easy to use someone else’s work (to download, copy, manipulate, paste in a paper or a PowerPoint, etc.), doesn’t mean it’s legal to do so.
  • There are places where people post stuff that they want you to copy, so you can use them without asking permission, for example Creative Commons. You can find creative commons photos by searching Photo Pin.
  • Even when you are using something with permission, most people require a photo credit or a citation giving credit that you are using their work in your project.
  • You may think it’s OK to do something because you get away with breaking copyright law once, but if you are caught the consequences can be a cease-and-desist order, a fine, or even a lawsuit. The fact that you had done it many times before without getting in trouble won’t help your case.
  • When you sign up for some program or website (like Facebook or Pinterest) you are often asked to click agree on something called Terms and Conditions. When you click agree make sure you understand that you are agreeing to abide to stricter measures on copyright and giving up control of your work among other things. It’s a good idea to actually read them before clicking.
  • When you buy a program, etc. it often comes with the license, and license restrictions are often much, much stricter than copyright. By agreeing to the license you are agreeing to follow these stricter rules, but again make sure you know what they are before you agree to them.

Learn more about copyright for students with this handout from Iowa Area Education Agencies:
http://www.iowaaeaonline.org/vnews/display.v/ART/48d13d04446d2

See past Kirkwood related blog posts on:

  • Facebook and Copyright
    https://kirkwoodlibrary.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/facebook-and-copyright
  • Copyright Tools (including those specifically for Kirkwood Students and Faculty)
    https://kirkwoodlibrary.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/copyright-tools-from-the-university-of-minnesota
  • Not Everything is on the Internet
    https://kirkwoodlibrary.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/everything-is-not-on-the-internet

Also find books on copyright in the collection around 346 and many more are available as e-books through the catalog.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

 

 

Information Literacy Older Americans Online

23 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Information Literacy, Information Literacy Awareness Month, Older Americans, Seniors

During the rest of October we will be doing posts relating to National Information Literacy Awareness Month and how you can increase your information literacy. In today’s post were looking at how to be smart about passwords. InfoLiteracy

There is a saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but the saying proves false when it comes to older Americans and Internet use. While they still lag behind the numbers of the general population, the percent of older Americans who reported they went online once a week jumped up 6% from last year to a new record of 59%. Once seniors start going online they tend to be very active. Smart phones hold the least interest from them, but cell phones are widely used. Social media doesn’t hold a big appeal, but reading devices like tablets and e-readers hold more interest (probably because they are light to hold and they can easily adjust text size).

There are two main groups of seniors, one who is more affluent and better educated and one less affluent and educated. The more affluent the more likely they are to go online regularly and use things like social media. Older adults who don’t get involved online tend to have three reasons; physical challenges to using technology, skeptical attitudes about the benefits of technology, and difficulties learning to use new technologies.

Read more about it in this report from the Pew Foundation:

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/04/03/older-adults-and-technology-use/

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

 

Information Literacy Contest

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Information Literacy Awareness Contest, Information Literacy Awareness Month

In honor of Information Literacy Awareness Month, Kirkwood Community College Libraries is sponsoring a contest, complete with a gift card from the Kirkwood Bookstore for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

Have you seen shaming posts on Facebook and Tumblr? You can shame your cat, shame your dog, or shame your philosopher. Even Kleenex has done a commercial shaming non-facial tissue users. Now you can expose your Information Literacy weaknesses in our contest. Or if you prefer you can brag about your prowness.

1. Identify a weakness having to do with Information Literacy like “I don’t know the difference between APA and MLA” or “I believe everything on the Internet MUST be true.” Or a strength like “I always double check my facts in a research paper.”

2. Take a photo of yourself holding a sign confessing your weakness or strength. They do NOT have to be true about you, but they DO have to be about Information Literacy. Check out our examples.

3. Either share that photo on the Kirkwood Library Services Facebook page or e-mail it to suthoff@kirkwood.edu between Mon., Oct. 7th and Thurs., Oct. 31st.

4. Note: All entries will be posted BOTH on the Kirkwood Library Services Facebook AND the white board in Kirkwood Library on the Cedar Rapids campus.

5. Winners will be determined by the Kirkwood librarians. All librarian rulings all final. Each of the top 3 winners will receive a $5 gift card to the Kirkwood Bookstore (good at both the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City locations).

Thank you to the Work Study Students who have provided the examples below.

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