What Makes a Digitally Competent Teacher? Edutech Tells All

We came across this useful posting on the Edutech website:- 

The 7 Characteristics of a Digitally Competent Teacher

 This is likely to be of considerable interest to our B.Ed. students, and the PGCert students training for their teaching certificate in Higher Education.   Also to our Teaching Artist community.

Edutech (Cool tools for the 21st century classroom) homepage - HERE.

(Must we call it) Information Literacy

As you know, 'Whittaker' is a champion of digital information literacy - no-one's going to get far if they're not web-savvy these days.  But is it just me, or is the term 'information literacy' a bit of a turn-off for today's students?  Sure, they need what we're offering, but are we making it sexy?

Anyway, here are two thoroughly worthwhile initiatives, for educators and information professionals to engage with, while we ponder on the best way to promote the message!

• National Information Literacy Framework Scotland - from primary to tertiary level and beyond.
• And now there's another initiative - Information Skills for a 21st Century Scotland, with an aptly-named website, http://www.therightinformation.org/. (This was launched at the recent CILIPS annual conference - the Scottish part of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.)

RIN (Research Information Network) past and present

Something to watch ... a new collaboration supporting digital literacy in research,

RIDLs 

The Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition

This new group has been set up to bring together stakeholders in a variety of research, research support and library/information organisations.  Watch its progress here.

RIN (the Research Information Network) has changed in recent months, but there's a webpage listing some of their formative reports.  We have most of them here at the Whittaker Library in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (Catalogue link), but here are the links to the digital versions.  Quoting directly, with due acknowledgement to RIN:-

"Links to RIN publications 2005-2011

... reports and other publications produced by RIN in its previous incarnation during the period 2005 to 2011 ... listed in reverse chronological order.

• Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies - November 2011
• Research supervisors and information literacy - October 2011
• Data management skills support initiative (DaMSSI): report and career profiles – September 2011
• Data centres: their use, value and impact - August 2011
• Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications – April 2011
• Reinventing research? Information practices in the humanities – April 2011
• The value of libraries for research and researchers – March 2011
• Social media: a guide for researchers – February 2011
• E-journals: their use, value and impact (final report) – January 2011 " 

Digital innovation: start in schools, says Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch says digital innovation needs to start in schools. Quite right!, we say. Read the story as reported by Orange News today.