The Internet and Information Skills: A Guide for Teachers and School Librarians

Citation

Turner, R. (2005), "The Internet and Information Skills: A Guide for Teachers and School Librarians", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 11/12, pp. 567-568. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800510635071

James Herring's 1996 Teaching information skills in schools was a classic guide for school librarians delivering information and study skills programmes, focusing on Herring's PLUS model (purpose; location; use; self‐evaluation). At a time when one of the major themes in the profession is information literacy, this accessible and useful new book is very welcome.

Teachers are being increasingly trained to use ICT to develop more interactive teaching methods and students are increasingly required to use ICT for research and presentation of their work. This book is aimed at helping educators provide students with the key skills of information literacy and to become confident independent learners.

The book is aimed at teachers and school librarians across the world. Its purposes are to help educators effectively exploit the internet for educational purposes; to update their knowledge of information skills and information literacy; to provide help and advice by providing teachers and school librarians with a mixture of theory and practice.

The well‐structured book opens with a chapter on the learning and teaching context in which the teaching of information skills and the use of the internet can be seen. It looks at learning, behaviourist and cognitive theories, concept mapping and effective teaching methods. Each chapter is lucidly written, has aims clearly stated at the start with a summary at the close and references.

There is an excellent overview of the nature of the internet, discussing email, listservs and the world wide web. Search engines and search strategies are carefully examined with the excellent advice that “More information does not mean better information”!

Following on from this section there is a vital chapter about evaluating websites, using technical, reliability and educational criteria. This part also looks at in‐service training.

More specific is the discussion about subject gateways which, it is argued, are a more effective tool for teachers and school librarians. This chapter looks at evaluating subject gateways, identifying and using a range of general curriculum‐related, subject specific and commercially available gateways. Again, there is a discussion of in‐service training sessions.

From the technical aspects, the book then looks at information skills. This investigates the nature of information literacy, propagates the PLUS model and critically evaluates other models. From this discussion, Herring develops the PLUS model and the web, including brainstorming, concept mapping, keyword searching, reading and taking notes, writing and presenting and teaching students how to evaluate websites. Both of these chapters have sections on how to develop in‐service training sessions.

A very welcome chapter examines developing a school web site. This will allow the reader to identify a clear purpose for the school web site, design a storyboard for the site, incorporate key elements of design into the school website, learn from the experiences of other schools and be aware of the potential for developing a school intranet, as well as develop an in‐service training session for developing web pages. From this base, the penultimate chapter looks at developing an instructional web site, including using Filamentality and WebQuests.

The final chapter looks at future developments, including evaluating future trends in the curriculum, critically examining future trends in the internet for schools, how these trends will effect the teaching and learning of information skills, and what the future role of the teacher and school librarian will be. A decent bibliography and index complete this useful piece of work.

James Herring has certainly created a handbook for twenty‐first century school librarianship. The book does presuppose some technical working knowledge of ICT provision and a desire to learn such relatively advanced skills, but if this did not apply then that person would be unlikely to read this book! School librarianship is a rapidly developing sector in which an enthusiasm for continuing professional development is now essential if the service is to evolve efficiently to meet the information literacy requirements of pupils. This book is a vital aid to this development and evolution and every school librarian should certainly read it. As information skills are an integral part of the curriculum it should also be read by all teachers as well as senior management within schools.