Information Literacy for Telecenter Users in Low-Income Regional Mexican Communities

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to propose a methodology to increase information literacy among people who attend telecenters in low-income communities in Mexico. The Mexican government created telecenters, or community technology centers, as part of a national project under which adults lacking basic education who are isolated and living under economically and technologically marginal standards are granted access to educational materials and work training in the form of printed, audiovisual, and electronic media (CONEVyT, 2001). Our research group evaluated the Mexican telecenter program as part of a nationwide qualitative diagnostic study, which represented the initial stage of a three-year research project conducted by the Information and Communication Technologies for Education and Community Development research group at the Universidad de las Americas-Puebla in Mexico for the National Institute for Adult Education. The results of this study combine with the concepts of information literacy and socioconstructivist pedagogy to form the basis for the present proposal.