Researching a topic
1. Introduction to the activity
This activity is designed to be done early in the Media & IL course. You are being asked to find out some information to answer a question, but the focus is not on the answer itself – the questions are serious ones, but the subjects not particularly so. (Yes, as you will probably work out, all of them are about things which matter to yr. humble tutor in his personal life.) You have complete freedom as to where you go – online or off – to find out the answers. There is no ‘right answer’ as such, and you can answer them in as much or as little detail as you choose, but there are certain key facts I would expect any information literate person to come up with in each case.
What is more important is that you use this information search as a way of reflecting on your own present level of information literacy. It does not matter what your understanding of this term (IL) is at the present time; indeed, that is part of the reflection.
Before beginning the search – indeed, before moving on to read the list of topics – ask yourself:
- What do you think is an “information literate” way of going about this search?
- What criteria do you think you will use for judging the validity of the information you find?
- Where do you think you will start your search? Where do you think it might take you?
- How do you think you will judge when you’ve found enough information?
Note the careful wording of these questions: I’m trying to get you to think about what you will do, not what you’re ‘supposed’ to do, however you understand that. You are not being told to exhibit ‘good’ or ‘information literate’ behaviour – just your normal behaviour. Also, I want you to think about this in a general sense, and not with respect to a particular topic, which is the point of asking you these things before you read the list.
Write down your answers to these questions so you can refer to them later. Then click on the tab below to move onto the list of topics.
2. Three topics
Just to repeat – these are deliberately not ‘serious questions’ in an academic sense, but they are nevertheless genuine questions, which have findable answers. It really doesn’t matter whether you get the answer ‘right’, and you are definitely not being graded on whether you do so. Just see what you can find out: it’s a piece of mild detective work in each case. No clues!
Incidentally, if you already know the answer to any of the questions in any detail, you will get far more out of the exercise if you pick a different one about which you are largely ignorant.
Question a): Why is a gentleman called Bill Archer not remembered fondly in the city of Brighton, UK?
Brighton pier, early evening, 5/11/11
Question b): Why is there a specific law that applies only to housing in the town of Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire? What is the law?
Hebden Bridge, viewed from Horsehold Road
Question c): What are the connections between the place where I grew up (near Crowborough, East Sussex) and Winnie-the-Pooh?
The Sussex village where I grew up
3: Post-search reflection
Once you feel you have done enough, feel free to write up a short summary of your answer. I stress again that this is not graded, but it will give you something to refer to when discussing your search. Notes from this activity end up in your final portfolio, remember, so again, keep notes.
Have a look back at the answers you gave in part 1 of the activity. Question 1 can be passed over at first, but what about your answers to the other three? Did you in fact live up to your own expectations? What did you actually do in each case?
Then, ask yourself: do you think you conducted yourself in this task in an information literate way? Why, or why not? Did you find any conflicting information? Did you get it all from Wikipedia (be honest!)? Did the search lead you in any unexpected directions?
Media and Information Literacy by Andrew Whitworth/University of Manchester is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Seeing as we did this in the on-campus class yesterday (30/1/12, the opening class), some other things came up about the searches and how they might apply in real-life situations. Without giving the game away, question a) is connected to issues of where a community developed an unexpected learning need; but has also managed to create resources as a result, that are useful to other communities in the same situation. (Events like this had occurred before, but this was arguably the first one to develop in the UK in the Internet era – post-1996 really.)
Question b) is a genuine legal matter, something I remember the solicitor, acting on our behalf when we bought our house, had to become aware of, and which we (as owners of HB property) also must. But it would not necessarily be ‘public’ knowledge, in the sense of being widely known.
Question c) led on-campus students in two different search directions, one to travel web sites, one to history. Both reached the same end point, however.
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