Expanding Information Literacy: The Roles of Digital and Critical Literacies in Learning with Information

This chapter builds upon foundational ideas presented earlier in this book about the natures of learning and of information, their marriage under the umbrella of “information literacy,” and the ways that marriage plays out in today’s various information-rich environments. With this foundation in place, the chapter discusses two intertwined literacies that have recently emerged to expand and enrich our understanding of learning with information: digital literacy and critical literacy. Digital literacy addresses how learners master the “grammar” of digital information to conduct solid research and to create and display new knowledge accurately and ethically through a wide and changing range of technology platforms and multimedia products. Critical literacy encourages learners to go beyond traditional criteria for evaluating information and to examine it from diverse social and cultural perspectives in order to arrive at an astute and nuanced assessment of its value. While we have only a relatively small and recent research base to provide guidance in exploiting these “new” literacies specifically as avenues for learning with information, it is clear that they are central components in the construction of solid, evidence-based knowledge today and will become even more important in the future.