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Tag Archives: Information Literacy

Information Literacy Roundup 2020

03 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, Information Literacy Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month

December is here and that ends National Information Literacy Awareness Month, but information literacy and tech literacy are things to work on for everyone all year. Please revisit our posts.

What is Information Literacy?

  • Introduction to the Month
  • What is Information Literacy?
  • Iowa Official Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month
  • President of United States proclaims NILAM
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy 2018

Things to Think and Know About

  • Asking Good Questions
  • Check Your Photos
  • Copyright
  • Have a Plan for an Online Afterlife
  • Millennial Spokesman, NOT!
  • Online Activities and Job Hunting
  • Passwords
  • Privacy
  • Private Browsing Online
  • Satire and the News
  • Social Media
  • Spotting Trolls
  • Tracking Down a Study
  • Twitter Bad History Feeds
  • What Weight Is In a Name
  • What You Put Online Stays Online
  • Your Website Is Watching You

Keep calm, think it through and we’ll be back with more helpful tips next year!

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 You Need More Than a Name

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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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

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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 Is Satire News?

24 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, News

Can’t You Take a Joke?

The Pew Research Center has done a study about where people get their news from. Surprisingly approximately 15% of people surveyed consider The Colbert Report a trusted source for news.

For some, the satiric ‘Colbert Report’ is a trusted source of political news

Bob Hope and Fred Allen

Political Satire has long been a part of American popular culture. Bob Hope and Fred Allen are early adapters of the monologue as part of their radio shows where political quips and jokes are made. (Sadly this means there are often jokes that people at the time got, but we don’t get today.)

Although these comedy reports might make you aware of a topic you’d follow up on, they wouldn’t take the place of legitimate news sources. However, around 15% of people view the Colbert Report as a legitimate news source. They ignore both the fact that exaggeration is a frequent device in comedy and that the comedy comes from a certain political bent.

Take With a Grain of Salt

So no matter what your sources of news, don’t pick just one single source. Don’t trust a comedian to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

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 Your Website Is Watching You

17 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Information Literacy, Information Literacy Month, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Online Privacy

Have you ever gotten the feeling as you were working online that someone was watching you? Turns out you probably weren’t wrong.

According to Ars Technica: “A new study finds hundreds of sites—including microsoft.com, adobe.com, and godaddy.com—employ scripts that record visitors’ keystrokes, mouse movements, and scrolling behavior in real time, even before the input is submitted or is later deleted.”

So private information is inputted into these sites. The recording information may start before you submit anything. These records are made and analyzed by third party organizations, with even less oversight often without giving you any notification. Information like medical conditions or credit card numbers are multiplied across sites around the web.

As it stands today there isn’t a lot a user can do in response. Be careful and selective in where you put your true information online. Using ad-blockers and the “Do Not Track” option built into browsers stopped some, but not all such tracking. So for the most part be restrictive about where you put your personal data online.

Take Helen Parr’s advice from The Incredibles: “Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it. ”

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 What You Put Online Stays Online

13 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Information Literacy, Social Media

Here is a thing that many people don’t seem to know – what you put online stays online AND other people can see it.

Scan and Save is a Thing

You’ll see many articles that include notice that something comes from “a now deleted tweet.” Just because you delete a tweet or a Facebook post doesn’t mean that it’s disappeared. Tweets are especially durable. They are easy to screen capture and there are even systems that automatically scan and save tweets for future searching.

People, like Rose McGowan referring to the N-Word, Alec Baldwin lashed out at a film critic who savaged a documentary he made, have tweets saved and passed on. Deleting doesn’t solve the problem and most people not faced with immediate controversy don’t delete or review old tweets anyway. The tweets slip on down the list, now unread and unattended, but they may still pop to the surface.

In fact, the MLA citation system even has an official format for a deleted tweet.

Screenshots of deleted tweets: https://t.co/mPynPjqNZG

— MLA Style (@mlastyle) November 6, 2019

A Beer Story

An Iowa story very noisily hit the air waves. Carson King accidentally started a fundraiser and generously agreed to turn it over to the Stead Family Children’s Hospital. When Des Moines Register reporter Aaron Calvin did a story on him, he found time to scroll back years through King’s timeline and found two objectionable tweets. When Calvin interviewed King he challenged him about them. King was now appalled at what he had tweeted and immediately had a mea culpa press conference leading the beer company who had picked up the campaign to immediately cut ties. The Register, having had its big scoop short circuited by King’s press conference did publish the tweets and his response in the article but slanted the article very positively and stuck the tweets at the end of the article hoping everyone would forget about it. Anyone should be able to live up to that kind of background check if they wanted any kind of public life or press The Register insisted – their employees did. People were infuriated that instead of focusing on the current fundraiser that The Register spent time and money looking up King’s old tweets that they pounced on Calvin’s old feed — and immediately found more than 2 objectionable tweets on a variety of subjects. This time it was The Register that cut ties and has been attempting to backpedal ever since. Calvin wrote a piece explaining his very different take on what happened.

BUT our point is that just because time has gone by does NOT make what you post disappear and that even things you deleted might still be out there somewhere.

You Don’t Have To Be Famous

Just because you aren’t famous or aren’t in the media’s eye, does NOT mean that the only people who can see or read what you post are friends and family. For instance, I recently found someone’s tweet on a hashtag. I responded to their question and then some other people who follow that hashtag responded. She couldn’t believe it – apparently not understanding how hashtags work – she angrily tweeted that her posts were only meant to be seen by her friends. Other people finding her tweet via hashtag lead to her being tagged in on 4 or 5 tweets she didn’t want to read. The consequences can be much more serious that that. (See note)

Teenage Examples of Things That Got Them in Trouble Right after Posting

Harvard Acceptances Revoked and Revoked Again

People Got Fired (From 2016, but only descriptions of things people said happened on reddit)

CBS VP Fired

Life Lesson Take Away

So in the end  the take away lesson is this – other people can read what you write online, now and in the future. Inc put together a column of advice on how to not let this be you.

NOTE: Just in case you don’t know. Hashtags were created to string together different tweets that had tagged themselves as having a certain subject. Anytime someone searches that hashtag or clicks the hashtag hyperlink within a certain tweet a list pulls up of all tweets that used that hashtag. Quite a few people you see tweeting stuff using hashtags in a similar way to saying very and thinking they are clever. However you mean the hashtags to work it still automatically links your tweet to others and to someone searching on the hashtags (which lots of people do) will find you tweet. Even more than just posting your stuff to begin with it makes it easy for people who don’t know you to find things you posted. That is supposed to be a good thing and it is, as long as you mean to shout whatever you’re hashtagging from the rooftops.

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 Check Your Photos

11 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Photos, Photos Everywhere

One of the consequences of the social media revolution has been an skyrocket in the number of photos that are available. Most times when there is a newsworthy or at least SORT OF newsworthy event you can trust on an army worth of people to take and post photos across social media platforms whether through general formats like Facebook and Twitter or photo specific platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.

What’s Wrong With This Photo?

Posted photos are often passed on without a thought. If it’s on the Internet it has to be true right? WRONG! While many of these photos are exactly what they claim, others are nowhere near what they say they are.

Sometimes like a quote magnet (a famous person who a quote is attributed to making the quote sound smarter) photos just pick up a false attribution to make the quote better. A photo of an alligator in a Miami yard may not be that big of a deal, but if you claim it’s from Chicago then THAT’s worth sharing.

Sometimes people may find a photo that illustrates a story better than what you can find with real photos. No one wants to tell a story about a riot and only have pictures of peaceful protesters and respectful cops – even if those are all the photos that were actually taken at that time or in that place (exciting photos are often used over and over again with the reason for the event and what groups were involved changed in the accompanying text). Sometimes there aren’t provable, clear enough to publish photos of something that really DID happen. But people always want a photo with a story.

Sometimes photos are deliberately altered. Photos can be combined, people or objects can be added or altered. Alternately sometimes photos that are genuine are thought false. (And NO sadly Teddy Roosevelt never rode a moose.)

Reverse the Search!

If you’re wondering about an image a way to check it out before you share is to use a reverse image search like Google Images or TinEye, copy the image in and search. It will give you results about where the photo has been used before and if anyone has flagged it. If it’s big enough to be a news story you call also check sites like Snopes to see if there is more to the story. Sometimes the story really isn’t what you see.

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 Awareness 2020

09 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

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Information Literacy, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, National Information Literacy Month

This is National Information Literacy Awareness Month. Although not publicized nearly as much as it was when it was first declared in 2009, libraries shine a spotlight on Information Literacy.

Information Literacy

According to the American Library Association information literacy is: “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information. Information literacy also is increasingly important in the contemporary environment of rapid technological change and proliferating information resources.”

In other words information literacy is the ability to realize when you need information and then find it, evaluate it, and use it to answer your question or complete your project.

Kirkwood Stands Out

Although library services try to teach information literacy all year, we take a special focus this month. Here are highlights of our previous Information Literacy Posts.

What is Information Literacy?

  • Introduction to the Month
  • What is Information Literacy?
  • Iowa Official Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month
  • President of United States proclaims NILAM
  • New Books Related to Information Literacy

Things to Think and Know About

  • Asking Good Questions
  • Copyright
  • Have a Plan for an Online Afterlife
  • Online Activities and Job Hunting
  • Passwords
  • Privacy
  • Social Media

Keep calm, think it through and we’ll be back with more helpful tips this year!

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 Translate Gender

15 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by Sarah Uthoff - Trundlebed Tales in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Gender Bias, Information Literacy

People often talk about how machines don’t have bias. However, that’s not exactly true. After all, they are programmed by people who do have biases. One of those you might not expect are in things like translators. According to Fast Company, instances have been found in “Bing Translate, Google Translate, Systran, and other popular machine translation platforms.” They follow gender bias. Teachers and nurses are assumed to be women and require female word forms, doctors and engineers are assumed to be men and require male word forms. This happens in both directions of translation, to or from English. So don’t necessarily trust something is unbiased just because it comes from a machine. Think about your words and your word choices and don’t make those same assumptions.

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.

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