The decision to undertake a course in information literacy
The decision to undertake a course in information literacy has been beneficial due to the new skills and concepts captured. An information literacy course focuses on integrating the abilities to discover information, realizing how information is generated and valued, and using it to create new understanding and engaging positively in a society of learning. Consequently, exposure to information literacy gave me an opportunity of learning crucial concepts and skills that will be beneficial in a lifetime. One of the essential new skills learned from the course is the ability to identify, analyze, and apply information. The ability to identify relevant information, analyzing and using it is essential in enabling one to become an independent learner. An independent learner has the advantage of being able to penetrate diverse literature materials of any topic to comprehend and digest the information they offer with little assistance. Similarly, I learned from the information literacy the skills and concepts of applying the information resources and information technology in print or electronic form in delivering a given written material for presentation.
The ability to use information resources and information technology to retrieve credible information will be instrumental in enhancing the personal ability to meet academic research projects and class assignments. The skill of sourcing the information from print and electronic sources will ease the ability to meet the class assignments and research projects. Moreover, the course helped enable me to acquire the concept of research and publishing literacy. The idea of research literacy entails the ability to comprehend and use the available information technology in undertaking research. Accordingly, the course had the advantage of giving exposure to software materials that one can employ to ensure the research outcome is free from grammatical errors and breach of copyright. This concept will be instrumental in ensuring that the final research paper at the end of the course is not subject to disapproval by the college leadership. The concept of publishing literacy learned from the course exposes one to the approaches of producing text reports of the research results. The skill acquired in producing research result reports will be instrumental in completing the college successfully.
Moreover, the course introduced a new concept I had not known before, namely, social-structural literacy. The course exposed me to an understanding that information socially produced and situated in generating credible scholarly publishing. The ability to publish the research results will be essential in passing my course. Furthermore, it was interesting to integrate with new people in undertaking class assignments that have enhanced my social networking. Nevertheless, it was surprising to meet people of different cultures with diverse opinions and ways of doing things from what I have known over the years.