Learning in Information-Rich Environments

The amount and range of information available to todays studentsand indeed to all learnersis unprecedented. If the characteristics of the information age demand new conceptions of commerce, national security, and publishingamong other thingsit is logical to assume that they carry implications for education as well. Little has been written, however, about how the specific affordances of these technologiesand the kinds of information they allow students to access and createrelate to the central purpose of education: learning. What does learning mean in an information-rich environment? What are its characteristics? What kinds of tasks should it involve? What concepts, strategies, attitudes, and skills do educators and students need to master if they are to learn effectively and efficiently in such an environment? How can researchers, theorists, and practitioners foster the well-founded and widespread development of such key elements of the learning process? This second edition continues these discussions and suggests some tentative answers. Drawing primarily from research and theory in three distinct but related fieldslearning theory, instructional systems design, and information studiesit presents a way to think about learning that responds directly to the actualities of a world brimming with information. The second edition also includes insights from digital and critical literacies and provides a combination of an updated research-and-theory base and a collection of instructional scenarios for helping teachers and librarians implement each step of the I-LEARN model. The book could be used in courses in teacher preparation, academic-librarian preparation, and school-librarian preparation.