Information Fluency in the Future

1
Information Fluency in the Future

• Dr. Ron Eaglin

2
What we Will Talk About

• Where we have been
• Where we are
• Where we are going
• How it impacts you

3
Information - Traditional
4
Information - Traditional
5
Information Traditional
6
Information - Today
fno.org
www.jerryking.com
7
Information - Today
8
Information - Today
9
MySpace
10
Blogger
11
Trends
Using technology at a younger age
12
Trends
World of WarCraft
Deeper, richer, more addictive environments
13
Trends
Second Life
Immersive Collaborative Environments
14
Trends
Accessible and Organized Collective
(user Generated) Systems
15
Fluency (today)

• Capable of using technology to find information
• Not only uses but contributes
• Understands limitations of sources
• Capable of filtering information

16
Future from trends

• What is affected (positive)
• Entertainment
• Health care
• Politics
• Social opportunities
• Democracy

17
Future from trends

• What is affected (negative)
• Extremism
• Privacy
• Relaxation

18
Future where next

• Tenet 1 - All men are created equal -
  Information is not
• A person wants the information that is pertinent
  to them in their current situation.
• Internet based searching will get better.
• Searching will be more intelligent and be
  customized to you and your circumstances.

19
Future where next

• Tenet 2 - All users are not equal.
• IF search engines are more intelligent
• AND all users can more easily find information
• Then ALL users will have equal opportunities ?
• Emphasis switches from
• FINDING to
• USING information
• Therefore ability to use information is key.

20
Future where next

• Tenet 3 Collaboration will increase
• You will be able to communicate within
  communities of common interests and abilities.
• You will be able to find communities of these
  interests.
• Effect on professional societies?

21
Future where next

• Tenet 4 - Open Source will dominate
• What has open source brought us?
• Linux, PHP, Apache, etc
• So what .
• Thousands of websites use Apache
• These open source software will increase
• Open source brought is Wikipedia, almost all
  public bulletin boards, blogging,

22
What does it all mean?

• Future students
• Must be able to use technology to obtain
  information and be able to use information to
  perform tasks.
• For those who cannot there will be plenty who
  are able.

23
What does it all mean?

• Individuals will have more opportunity.
• People with good ideas and ability will be able
  to exercise these abilities.
• Not everyone will progress, simply those who can
  prove themselves and their ideas.

24
Rate yourself

• Give yourself one point if you (out of 10)
• Created your own web page (yourself)
• Used a collaborative multi-player environment
  (secondlife, WOW)
• Downloaded, installed, and use an open source
  software.
• Contributed to a public wiki
• Keep a public blog

25
Rate yourself

• Give yourself one point for (out of 10)
• Contributing to development of any open source
  project
• Used any internet based communications tool
  (skype, WebEx, .)
• Used as shopping bot to find and purchase an item
  on the internet.
• Can use advanced search techniques to find
  information.
• Participate in any internet based game or special
  interest group.

26
From a student (one of mine)

• As an engineer who is about to be fresh out of
  college I would say that I am up on most of the
  current technology. You sit me down if front of
  almost any computer system, Linux, Unix, Sun,
  Windows, Apple, etc. and I can at least get by
  and on most systems I can do just about anything
  I want. I have been doing materials research for
  the past few years so I can use almost every new
  type of microscope and have read papers on
  everything from nano-technology to turbine
  engines. I've grown up around technology so I
  don't even have to read how to set up 99 of
  electronic systems, I can program 90 of
  universal remotes without ever looking in the
  manual to see how to work them, work a program on
  a computer I've never been taught to use,
  navigate networks that are set up completely
  differently than anything I've seen before, read
  programming languages I've never been taught,
  rewire almost anything electrical without ever
  having taken a class on it. I can wire networks
  and debug programs, fix my friends computer
  problems over the phone, and play pranks on my
  friends with annoying but harmless viruses.... I
  can even write macros in excel ) I am, in short,
  a technerd. That is not to say I am a computer
  nerd, the terms aren't synonymous, I don't love
  to program or even play video games all day and
  forget about life outside the game, but I do love
  technology, learning new things and seeing the
  latest and greatest and not just seeing it but
  knowing how to use it and how it works.

27
For more.

• Visit my blog at
• http//profeaglin.blogspot.com/