Digital Literacy Contest to be held in Library West on Sept. 17
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The George A. Smathers Libraries will host the Digital Literacy Contest beginning at 11 a.m. on Sept. 17 in Library West. Two back-to-back competitions will test Internet literacy and cognitive agility.
Contestants will be given 30 minutes, 50 questions and Internet access. Correct answers earn points and incorrect answers are penalized. The highest score wins the competition and winners are awarded cash prizes.
The contest is free and open to all UF students, faculty, staff and community members. After the competitions, the libraries will host a discussion on digital information literacy where free pizza and drinks will be provided.
The Digital Literacy Contest was created in 2007 by a Purdue University student, Daniel Poynter. It has since grown to other universities across the nation including Brown University and Indiana University.
“This is the first competition in which people wield the Internet as a cognitive prosthetic,” said Poynter. “It’s a high speed battle of Internet-enabled intelligence. It has three main objectives: to identify people who thrive in information overload; to disseminate their insights; and to create a discussion about what it means to be digitally literate.”
“Our age is both unprecedented and pivotal,” 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.”
To enter the competition, register online at http://www.DigitalLiteracyContest.org. Early registration is encouraged as space is limited.