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As helpful as assignment packets can be, we're always looking for ways to encourage students to think beyond curated resources. Project Information Literacy explores the value of formulating unique, context-sensitive questions and the problems that many students have formulating and researching these questions. Moving toward a robust process of research and inquiry requires students to identify what kind of questions can be researched and which methods are most appropriate to different types of questions. Using different tools and evaluating the best times to use those tools are key.

For example:

The Wayback Machine allows students to compare websites from different times. This tool invites discussions on the fluid nature of information.
- Use during a demonstration of the ease at which online information can change.
- Use while searching laterally to explore an article's development over time
Google Docs allows students to collaborate on composition and note-taking.
- Use during group composition to allow students to see each others' edits in real time.
- Use the document history during review to reflect on how the document changed shape as students introduced new information.
Canva provides free and paid, web-based graphic design options.
- Use during deliverable creation to create visual alternatives (e.g. posters) to slides or essays.
- Use during demonstrations to provide visual examples to enhance clarity for students.
TimelineJS facilitates the creation of interactive timelines using Google spreadsheets.
- Use during source management to indicate how understanding of an issue developed over time.
- Use during deliverable creation to guide the audience through a period of history.
- Use during demonstration to introduce the information timeline.

Our intent isn't to suggest that you always need to know about the next trendy tool, which may stop receiving support in a few months. Instead, our hope is to provide practice with evaluating different tools. When it's time to design a new lesson you will have a range of tools to select or ignore.

This lesson is also valuable for your students, who are exposed to a staggering array of productivity apps, educational software, and information processing techniques. When introducing new tools to an assignment, be sure to build in tool-teaching time. Especially if they're being graded on the results! For example, if your students haven't used PowerPoint or Canva before, spend some time talking about what makes an effective visual argument.

Teaching the tool does add more time to a project, but it also provides transferable skills. It also gives students an opportunity to experience evaluating the churn of new tools. Be explicit about this: "You may not end up using this tool, but it's valuable to become comfortable with evaluating tools and techniques". It's like selecting a tool from a toolbox: a wrench isn't always the right tool for a job, but you won't know that until you know what a wrench can do.

The two most pervasive research tools that are available to your students are worth closer attention: Google and Wikipedia. They most likely already use these sites to answer a variety of questions. Digging deeper into the structure and uses of these sites will highlight the strengths of these sites as well as when another tool is a better option. Let's look at Wikipedia as an example of a tool that can strengthen information-seeking practices.

Generative AI

The use of generative AI in education is a generation-defining question. There are so many ways to misuse it, approach it as a cure-all, or be tricked by its output. However, as information professionals we believe that learning about the tools is valuable for skeptics as well as supporters. Knowing something about tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and DALL-E helps us understand their capacities as well as their risks. At the most basic level, having large quantities of machine-generated text and imagery injected into an information ecosystem can seriously complicate the process of source evaluation. On a wider scale, the ease at which misleading text, images, audio, and video can be created have serious implications for our students' engagement with social media, the news, and—ultimately, reality.

Generative AI is present in a lot of software. It is often presented as a supplement or a replacement for traditional search. Unfortunately, these modifications make it difficult for students to show their work, which is an important aspect of reflection. The more opaque the search process is, the more difficult it becomes to understand it and transfer it to different contexts. For this reason, we strongly recommend that any use of generative AI tools with students includes a discussion of their capabilities as well as related ethical principles and unsolved legal questions.

Note which tools allow you to toggle AI-powered searches on or off.
How is the AI search being presented? It is magical and all-knowing? A proof on concept that isn't completely solved? "For entertainment purposes only?" All three?
How confident does the search tools appear to be about its answers? Will it indicate if it doesn't have enough information to provide relevant results? All of the answers provided by genAI tools are made up. When they're working as intended, these answers are coincide with reality.

The Oregon State University AI Literacy Center has created several videos introducing core concepts useful to exploring public and educational uses of generative AI. OSU Libraries has created a genAI primer for students. We also provide several tutorials sourced from the University of Arizona.

How has generative AI been discussed in your district? Do you feel supported by your institution to make the best choices for your students?