Case 04 — CD-ROM Multimedia Encyclopedias and Information Literacy

Overview

Item	Content
Period	Spread to homes and schools in the 1990s
Technology	CD-ROM encyclopedias and multimedia titles (Encarta, Grolier, domestic encyclopedia CDs, etc.)
Audience	Elementary and middle school research/project classes
Literacy	Information retrieval, judging sources, writing research reports

Technology Summary

In the era before internet search, hundreds of megabytes of text, photos, audio, and video fit on a single CD and could be searched on a personal computer. Through indexes, keywords, and moving between related entries, it was a tool for learning the basic motions of research.

Literacy Improvement Mechanisms

Question → keyword → selecting sources: Practice turning inquiry questions into words
The existence of sources: The habit of checking “who wrote this?” in the byline
Summarizing and citing: Condensing long entries into your own words
Pairing images with explanations: Interpreting multimodal information

Field Operation Tips

50-minute period: one topic → three keywords → read two entries → summarize in a 3-slide card news piece
Classification discussion: “entries I can trust / entries that need more checking”
In offline environments, substitute a CD, a local database, or an offline encyclopedia package

Implications for Paju Activist Training

Apply directly to designing mini inquiry projects on local history and ecology topics
A model that teaches question design first, rather than only teaching search engines
Expand into an experience track linked with library digital resource rooms and local history collections

Notes

The technology predates 2000, but the competencies (questioning, verifying, summarizing) connect directly to today’s fact-checking literacy
A strong case for showing that “having more material” and “having judgment” are not the same thing