In the age of the Internet, the term “literacy” is taking on a completely new dimension — a dimension which is just as important as the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics. That dimension is the skill of acquiring information, and not just any information — the right information. We have more information at our fingertips than human beings have had access to in all of their history, combined. As President Obama said while declaring October 2009 the first National Information Literacy Month, it is no longer enough to simply possess and/or memorize data, “we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation… Though we may know how to find the information we need, we must also know how to evaluate it.”
The ability to sort through an already-staggering and ever-growing supply of information to identify credible, relevant, and unbiased content is critical for education. Don’t believe me that things have changed? Watch this quick video from the Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State: