Reconceptualising Information Literacy for the Web 2.0 Environment?

Abstract

This chapter questions whether the shift from the Web as a vehicle for storing and transmitting information to the new Web as a series of social networking environments, requires significant changes in how students interact with information when they are studying within a formal learning environment. It explores the origins and growth of the idea of information skills development, the translation of this work into frameworks and sequential models and the adaptation of these models to take account of changes in information storage and transmission brought about by the Internet. The chapter then examines the changing contexts and changes in learning being brought about by the Web 2.0 environment and questions whether adjustment of existing information literacy models is a sufficient response to deal with these changes. We conclude that although Web 2.0 developments are not fundamentally undermining the nature of teaching and learning they do provide important possibilities for more effective information literacy development work. A non-sequential framework is offered as a contribution to supporting HE students when seeking to obtain, store and exploit information simultaneously in the informal social world of Web 2.0 and in their formal academic discipline.