What We Talk About When We Talk About Web Literacy
Earlier this year I was leading a class called Your Digital Footprint. The curriculum, which was expertly crafted by my coworkers at the Cleveland Public Library, navigates the self-reflexive spheres of the web. We Google ourselves, we talk about privacy settings on social media, and I explain what the “s” in https means.
It’s a great seminar, and as our computer classes go, it’s probably the most advanced course we offer. Certainly it’s the most cerebral.
So we were cruising along and my students were asking all the right questions until we got on the topic of fake news. A student lobbed me a question about Kellyanne Conway’s assertion about a Bowling Green Massacre and as I worked to debunk, another student chimed in to add EVIDENCE, via their Facebook feed, of the event (It really, truly, didn’t happen).
Like a spark to a tinder pile, the room exploded into an impassioned discourse on current events. I let the conversation go because a) we were almost finished anyway and b) what better forum for the open exchange of opinions and ideas than a library?
In my line of work, I interact with hundreds of strangers — usually older, retired folks — every day to show them how a tiny slice of the Internet works. What I witnessed that day was a genuine desire from a sample of the public that wanted to make sense of the increasingly frenetic pace of the Internet and the content it produces.
I admire their quest for knowledge, even if their sources are not totally reliable (more on that down the line), and their opinions don’t always jive with mine. Like, they’re still trying to learn, right? So how do I serve them better?
I participated in Mozilla’s IMLS pilot that my library hosted last summer, and since then I’ve been assisting in training our staff based on that pilot curriculum. This summer I’ll be turning that curriculum into a class that CPL will offer to the public as a part of its mission as the People’s University.
My work this summer, under the umbrella of Mozilla’s Web Literacy Leaders program, puts me in frequent contact with folks in my field who are also working to help their patron populations become more strong and active citizens of the web. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be in such engaged company.
In the spirit of the Mozilla Foundation’s mission, and CPL’s People’s University initiative, I’ll be sharing my experiences and insights with the other Web Lit Leaders as we help each other build a more open web and mold more deliberate users.
I’ve already learned that a fellow Web Lit Leader, Matthew Kopel, works for NDIA and was involved in putting together this report that the map above is from. Small world!
It’s going to be a good summer. I’m ready to strap in.
Until the next time, remember this?
