No Comments! Be The First!
Digital Literacy Contest at UF Libraries
Posted By bhood
The George A. Smathers Libraries will host the Digital Literacy Contest, a competition that tests Internet literacy and cognitive agility, on Thursday, October 8 from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in the Library West InfoCommons on the third floor. The contest is free and open to all students. Contestants will be given 30 minutes, 20 questions and Internet access. Correct answers earn points and incorrect answers are penalized. The highest score wins cash prizes.
Space is limited. Register online at http://www.DigitalLiteracyContest.org or edit and text the following to 41411: signmeup your@email.com. For more information contact Daniel Poynter at Daniel.Poynter@gnic.org or (765) 588-3620.
Following the competition the libraries will host a discussion about the future of libraries, technology and society. Free food and drinks will be provided.
The Digital Literacy Contest was created in 2007 by Perdue University students and in 2009 the MacArthur Foundation awarded the group a Young Innovator grant. Cornell University, Indiana University, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan have participated. This is UF’s third contest.
“Our age is both unprecedented and pivotal,” contest creator Daniel Scott Poynter said. “Unparalleled global access to information is accelerating technological and social change. Making sense of our increasingly complex world depends upon becoming better information filters through the help of libraries. This competition is one way to ease ourselves into this exciting future.
“This is the first competition in which people wield the Internet as a cognitive prosthetic. It’s a high speed battle of Internet-enabled intelligence. It has three main objectives,” Poynter said. “To identify people who thrive in information overload; to disseminate their insights; and to create a discussion about how the Internet is affecting the development of our minds.”
The libraries will also host a free 45 minute workshop on digital literacy on Friday, October 9 at 11:45 a.m. in the same location. Registration for the workshop is not necessary.
Sep 14th, 2009