 Hi, I'm Trudy Jacobson, Distinguished Librarian at the University at Albany. And I'm Tom Mackey, Interim Vice Provost for Academic Programs at SUNY Empire State College. We would like to welcome you to meta-literacy, empowering yourself in a connected world. We're delighted to be sharing this MOOC experience with you. We and a team of other educators from the University at Albany and Empire State College, both schools within the State University of New York, will be co-facilitating this course over the next 10 weeks. And look forward to your participation. You will have the opportunity to see, or at least hear, all of us in future weekly videos. At this point, you may just be exploring what this MOOC is all about to determine if you would like to participate. Let us explain meta-literacy along with the benefits of being a meta-literate learner. As you think about this, consider how you participate in today's network world. Collaborative environments, where information plays a big role. Do you feel comfortable creating, curating, and sharing information? How about being a responsible digital citizen? Do you see yourself as a digital citizen? And what does it mean to do so? What are the responsibilities that go along with being a digital citizen? Reflect on your interactions with information. Does this feel like the type of reflection you already do when participating in these environments? Or is it entirely new to you? Perhaps this kind of reflection is not something you've spent much time thinking about. Don't worry, many people may not be aware of this type of reflective thinking. After this course, however, you will find yourself thinking about these issues in new ways. And your approach to consuming and producing information, as well as participating in connected environments, will be strengthened. As information becomes increasingly ubiquitous, and as we have an abundance of ways to present and share that information, we need to be aware of our roles and responsibilities. It can be enough to make your head spin. That's where this course comes in. Tom, I, and the others who are offering this course as instructors and facilitators can also honestly say we're still expanding our own thinking about as meta-literate learners. Nothing stays still. And we are running to keep up just as you may feel you are. We have effective strategies that we use, including collaborating with others to help us learn and create, witness this course. But we can't rest on our laurels. We are each learning just as you are. We are all also participating in the same types of social media environments you are familiar with, and we are interested in making meaningful contributions to these interactive settings. We will contribute our experiences with these spaces and our own analysis of these environments to this course in the same way we developed meta-literacy based on our observations, experience, and collaborative research. This course is organized into ten modules. This week you will learn more about meta-literacy and reflect on your role as a meta-literate learner. The second week will be the start of a three-week unit on becoming a digital citizen, creating and sharing social identity, understanding intellectual property, and the ethical use of information. Week five will focus on the exciting range of modes and formats in which information is shared. We will then move on to creating information, participating in a global information community, curating information, and metacognitive reflection. And essentially, metacognition means thinking about your own thinking. Week ten will be really interesting and exciting since you will be exploring how learners move on to become teachers. Since moving from learner to teacher is such an important part of meta-literacy. For each module, you will watch a short video that introduces you to the topic. You'll also work through one or more activities that will immerse you in the topic of the week. You will also have the opportunity to discuss your learning, questions, and reflections with other participants in the MOOC. You will find the course a mix of both theory and practice with an emphasis on the practical. We feel strongly that everyone should consider him or herself a player in information creation and knowledge production in a safe ethical environment. And this course is one way to do so. We've defined four learning goals for the course as a whole. By completing this course, you will be able to evaluate content critically, including dynamic online content that changes and evolves, such as article preprints, blogs, and wikis. And Tom, could you give us an example? Those are actually pretty good examples too, because in this changing dynamic environment, we're all encountering information now, not just in books and text documents, but in dynamic social spaces such as Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of blogs out there. And the ability to evaluate this content to think critically about it is really a key part of meta-literacy. Goal two is to understand personal privacy, information ethics, and intellectual property issues in changing technology environments. And this is such an important part too. So if we're going to be responsible digital citizens who are participating and contributing to these spaces, we also need to know about the intellectual property dimension. We also need to know how to cite information, how to properly document, and also to think about information that's original or repurposed in these environments. So goal three is to share information and collaborate in a variety of participatory environments. And such sharing information is such a key part of meta-literacy, and it's a key part of working in these environments. We really want to foreground that and think about what is it to create share information with others, what are the different dimensions of that, and what does it mean to be a responsible participant in these environments. And the last goal is to demonstrate ability to connect learning and research strategies with lifelong learning processes and personal, academic, and professional goals. And this is really key because the whole course is about being empowered in a connected world. So how do we work toward that level of empowerment when we are creating, sharing, consuming information in a participatory environment? Doing it all the time. Exactly. So, Tom, that was really helpful giving that sort of gloss on each of the goals. I know we also have a diagram that situates the learner at the heart of meta-literacy. And could you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. This is really an important part of meta-literacy. And as you can see, it situates the meta-literate learner at the center. And beyond that, we see the four domains, the four dimensions of being a meta-literate learner, which is the metacognitive piece, which we've already mentioned, but also the cognitive, behavioral, and effective aspects as well. And of course, we'll be getting into each of these dimensions further in the course. What I'd really like everyone to look at now is this outer ring and to really see these active roles that support this idea of being a meta-literate empowered learner. So we really want everyone to be thinking about your role as a participant in these environments, which we've already mentioned. But as you review this document, think about the roles you might already be playing. And if not, how you can work toward these different roles. So participant, being a communicator in these environments, being a translator of information, especially given all the different format types that are out there, and also the fact that we live in a global community, the idea of being an author of information, and not just an author of a text, but perhaps the author of an infographic or a multimedia production or collaborative work that's produced and shared in these environments. Also the idea of a teacher, which we've already mentioned, because we really see the arc of the course as moving from a learner to a teacher. This is something you may be experiencing. We hope you experience throughout the course, especially with the peer assessments, because you'll be playing a role of not just creating something for others to view, but you will play the role of a peer who will be assessing other learners. And we designed that very purposely. Exactly, so it works perfectly for the course and what we hope to achieve. Also think about your role as a collaborator in these environments, which you'll definitely be doing in the course as well. A producer of information, which we've mentioned several times. A publisher, which again, in these environments, there are so many different ways of publishing information and it continues to change. And a big part of it, of course, is being a researcher. This really needs to be grounded in a research basis, but this idea of research I think is expanded as well, because again, it's not just traditional research. It's really being able to evaluate, analyze the many different resources that are now available. And I'm thinking about one of those assignments that comes up in week two of the class and you're going to be putting a lot of this together just as you described it. Definitely. So we hope all these connections are there and visible to everyone. So we'd like you to think about sort of where you feel strong and where you want to increase your abilities, looking at all these different roles. And when I work with my students and I teach face to face, they often feel really nervous when I tell them they're going to be creating web-based information products. And they don't think of themselves in these roles, but they actually are. You talked about Facebook or Instagram or any of these others. And they're already creating and sharing information widely. It's just the idea of doing so in a different venue, such as a blog or a website. And when I challenge them to do that, despite their initial nervousness, they really are so excited when they actually do this. And it's wonderful to see. They really feel empowered. And so that's something we hope that's going to come through as we work with you in this course. And that's such an important point too, because that space then becomes an opportunity to challenge them to have the students think about this in new ways. So they probably enter the classroom the same way they were entering this course with some prior experience, but really designing the activity so that we really leverage that in important ways. So together, we're going to cover a lot of ground during this course and we've designed it to make it visually interesting, collaborative and interactive. You will learn a lot about the components of meta literacy that will enhance your abilities and confidence and you will have the opportunity to engage with others while doing so. We hope that you find this course to be a great way to explore what it means to be empowered in a connected world and to connect with and collaborate with learners from around the world while doing so. We really hope you enjoy the course. Bye.