Start Information Literacy Education in High School or Earlier

When should information literacy education begin? While many colleges and universities offer IL capstone courses to help students get onboard with higher education-level research, most believe that information and media literacy education should start much sooner. The state of New Jersey, for example, passed an information literacy mandate for K–12 public schools with the aim of teaching students how to evaluate information from a variety of sources, including social media, newspapers, and even textbooks. Other states, including California, Delaware, and Texas, have followed suit with their own legislation. 

Infobase can help. Based on years of working with hundreds of schools and libraries, research into current best practices and technology, and insight from our customers, our new Information Literacy Strategy Handbook, High School Edition will help you plan or support your IL program. Get information on AI, learn how to scaffold instruction so students build on existing learning, get tips on how to market your program to educators and administrators, and more. 

In addition, if you’re putting together or reviewing an information literacy program at your K–12 school or district, Infobase has many resources you can use in your IL curriculum, including award-winning and renowned databases and streaming video platforms that will provide you with the expertly researched and written content you’ll need to help your students navigate a world of information overload.

Learn360

There are many reasons your classroom needs Learn360. Not only is Learn360 a great place to support students’ research and help them accumulate background knowledge—with more than 170,000 educator-vetted resources across a broad range of curricular and high-interest topics on a safe, ad-free platform—but it also puts content educators can use in their IL programming right at their fingertips with two Topic Centers: Digital Literacy and Media Literacy. 

In these Topic Centers, you’ll find videos and other media on information literacy from trusted series and producers, including: 

• Mastering the Art of Information Literacy from Motion Masters (Item #291369; for grades 9–12)
• My World Media Literacy from BBC Worldwide Learning (Item #209893; for grades 7–9)
• Internet Know How from Motion Masters (Item #208335; for grades 6–12)
• Digital Storytelling from Makematic (Item #195612; for grades 10–12) 
• How to Recognize Fake News from Motion Masters (Item #145228; for grades 6–12)
• And more!

Credo Source

Many students arrive at college thinking that freely available internet resources are sufficient for academic work and that Google is a sufficient search tool—no need to check any other source. As such, one of the first steps of any IL program is to introduce students to trustworthy research resources like your library’s databases. If you’re introducing students to college-level research, Credo Source is the perfect place to start their journey. Students will find trusted reference content—including 1.5 million curated articles, images, and videos from renowned publishers and producers—plus Credo Source’s instruction-friendly platform allows for seamless integration of federated search results from your library’s licensed e-resources, which can help introduce students to more of your library’s content.

Credo Source also includes Research Skill Builders—point-of-need instructional tools for students tackling the challenges of 21st-century research. Find high-quality videos and tutorials on a wide range of topics, including: 

• Inquiry and Open-Mindedness
• Digital Citizenship
• How to Narrow Your Topic
• Choosing a Database
• Visual Literacy
• Using Lateral Reading to Evaluate Sources
• News Reporting vs. Opinion Reporting
• Plagiarism 
• Time Management Tips
• Preparing for a Pro/Con Debate
• And more.

Educators can incorporate Research Skill Builders into in-class teaching, flipped-classroom instruction, or point-of-need support.

Issues & Controversies

Debates are a key part of many social studies classes, and for good reason: free and open societies can’t exist without them. Debates require participants to listen to opposing arguments and different perspectives, utilize facts to back up their arguments, recognize rhetoric and how it can be misused, and use critical-thinking skills to weigh the evidence on both sides—all skills that also play a role in information literacy. 

Invite your students who are preparing for a debate, discussion, research paper, or persuasive writing assignment to check out Issues & Controversies, where they will find a wide range of pro/con articles on hot-button topics in politics, government, business, society, education, and popular culture. Each article presents a quick, balanced, and succinct synopsis from supporters and opponents that allows students to explore all of the controversies related to each issue in one place, plus links to related content including infographics, court cases, editorials, audio recordings  and podcasts, debate videos from Open to Debate, news articles from Reuters®, and valuable primary sources.  

Issues & Controversies also features enhanced lessons to help educators open a discussion on a pro/con topic in class, plus articles on topics such as how to assess students’ speeches, hold a debate, use editorial cartoons in class, prevent plagiarism, and more. IL educators will also find articles on how to research that they can share with their students, including “Evaluating Online Sources,” “Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism,” “Analyzing Primary Sources and Historical Documents,” “Citing Sources,” and others. 

World News Digest

In our age of information overload and disinformation campaigns, World News Digest can help promote information and news literacy through its trustworthy, accurate, objective, and concise coverage of the most crucial political, economic, and cultural stories and issues. World News Digest features original, authoritative, clearly written news summaries that provide indispensable context and perspective on critical current events. Its “News Media Roundups” section spotlights timely, hot-button topics of the week, linking to editorially curated content, including news articles, social media reaction, videos, editorial cartoons, and infographics. Plus, World News Digest’s summaries and background articles go back more than eight decades, making it easy to explore the events that have shaped our world.

If your students are researching the 2024 U.S. presidential election, World News Digest also features an Elections Guide presenting all of the information they’ll need to know about each candidate, the debates, polling, fundraising, primaries, caucuses, and much, much more. Mis- and disinformation abounds during election season, and students will find World News Digest a useful tool as they compare and contrast news articles for bias or run across misinformation on social media and in other sources. 

Hundreds of institutions—including ABC News, CNN, Fox News, the Rand Corporation, and the parliament of Canada—rely on World News Digest for vital information and context on today’s top issues. Yours should, too.

The World Almanac® for Kids and The World Almanac® for Kids Elementary

Kid-friendly databases such as The World Almanac for Kids Elementary and The World Almanac for Kids for intermediate students give younger students a safe and fun place to develop their online research skills. Students and educators alike will find age-appropriate articles, videos, interactives and games, fun facts, and more on a wealth of curricular and entertaining topics.

Among the many subjects covered in each database are ones that IL instructors can use to introduce information literacy at an age-appropriate level. The World Almanac for Kids Elementary’s “Technology and You” topic includes a section called “Using Technology” where they can learn about using online technology wisely, including online etiquette, blogging, social media, thinking critically, and cyber safety. The World Almanac for Kids features a useful “Homework Help” section where they can find articles to help with research covering evaluating sources, avoiding plagiarism, how to cite sources, analyzing primary sources, and analyzing editorial cartoons as well as short videos on information literacy, internet research tools, evaluating what you read online, plagiarism, and more.