Tag: media literacy

Media Literacy

I have a previous post that talks about my group’s discussion of Media Literacy in a post named “Emotional Damage”, please check that out! I had posted my blog response for the wrong week, oops.

For this week’s reflection, I want to look at our group’s Mentimeter results:

Word Cloud

Agreement Scales

Media literacy has many aspects that can contribute to confusion surrounding the final “definition”. As the Center for Media Literacy states,

Definitions, however, evolve over time and a more robust definition is now needed to situate media literacy in the context of its importance for the education of students in a 21st century media culture. 

Center for Media Literacy

I can see that even in this class we have a large definition for Media Literacy, as can be seen in our Word Cloud. There are few repetitions in our responses, although they all contribute equally to the evolution of Media Literacy. Of course, this Mentimeter was limited due to the 3 responses per participant and there are several synonyms in the Word Cloud. There are many responsibilities involved in Media Literacy whether we are consuming or creating content.

Gratefully, we live in a society where we do have the option of being Media Literate, we can now clearly see the effects of a government controlled media affecting the Putin Russian invasion. It is surreal to see war being played out on social media, and we can see journalists and citizens risking their lives in order to protest and share (mis)information.

In essence, my (shortened) view of literacy is being able to consume, comprehend, analyze, understand context and format, respond, and apply in different contexts. This means I can apply this to Mathematical Literacy, Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Literacy, Science Literacy, and Physical Literacy (plus more!).

As Chris’ article is appropriately titled, “A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem”. This article investigates how anonymous posters are not examined for bias. It is interesting that reputable journalists, scientists, and experts are increasingly scrutinized but we still aren’t looking critically at all the media we consume. Our EC&I 832 class appears to agree in the Agreement Scales, as under the statement “journalists report facts” our class fell almost directly centered between strongly disagree and strongly agree.

Patricia’s article, The Challenge That’s Bigger Than Fake News, summarizes this sentiment:

Determining who’s behind information and whether it’s worthy of our trust is more complex than a true/false dichotomy

Sarah McGrew, Teresa Ortega, Joel Breakstone, Sam Wineburg

Bart’s article, What is Media Literacy and Why Does it Matter?, tells that Americans spend an average of 473 minutes each day consuming media. This highlights the increasing importance of Media Literacy.

Check out our groups video on Media Literacy for an introduction to Media Literacy and how to teach it to your students:

Thanks to Bart, Christine, and Patricia for creating this video with me!

I began my journey of teaching Media Literacy by introducing Digital Citizenship to Bart’s 7/8 class last week, check out the blog post for more information.

Happy Teaching,

Leah

Emotional Damage 🎶

In Digital Citizenship

We can warn people about being socially appropriate for our audience when posting, but it doesn’t always seem to make sense until you’ve made your own media “mistake”.

People

Teaching students about netiquette and visibility settings is a great place to start. But it isn’t enough to protect students from all possible situations they might encounter on the internet. What we should do is teach strategies when consuming and creating media.

Some things to consider are:

  1. What audience am I trying to reach?
  2. What media is the best format for what I am trying to share?
  3. What platform should this be shared on?
  4. How are my emotions? Will I still feel this way in 1 day, 1 week, 1 year?
  5. Does this add anything to a conversation?
  6. Does my voice need to be heard, or should I be lifting up others voice? (Do I belong to this community?)
  7. Are there facts to support my opinion?
  8. Do I want this to be a part of my permanent digital footprint/identity?
  9. Is this safe for me and others to share?

There are many resources and lessons available for teachers to teach about digital literacy and digital citizenship from many sources including, Edutopia, Be Internet Awesome, InCtrl, Common Sense Education, and so many more!

I firmly believe that this isn’t a one time conversation. Digital citizenship needs to be integrated into many areas of curriculum, not just a one day intervention to be forgotten about (I’m looking at you- one-day sexual health education programs). This can be in Social Studies in the context of citizenship, English Language Arts in the context of author’s purpose, Health in mental health and well-being, Science in technology, and almost every other content area.

Digital Citizenship Lessons available for Prairie South Schools Staff (log in required)

I feel thankful that our division has prioritized Mental Health and Wellbeing these past two years, and have integrated that throughout the organization, including digital citizenship. We also have Learning Consultants (like myself) available to go into classrooms to introduce topics such as digital citizenship into schools. I am lucky enough to be going into Bart’s class this week to do some learning around digital citizenship!

Through my exploration of this topic with my group this week, I really began to see the value of emotional literacy through the podcast Connect Safely. Watch our group’s video below:

Thanks to Bart, Christine, and Patricia for creating this video with me!

I feel like the education sector in Saskatchewan is beginning to see the value in training teachers about digital citizenship by offering post-secondary courses to teachers about media and digital literacy in education. Classes such as EC&I 832 and EC&I 834 through the University of Regina, and the addition of Educational Technology as a route for MEd students. However, we still have lots of teachers who do not take these courses. We have to build capacity in all our educators if we expect them to teach digital contexts, and add explicit language about digital literacy throughout our curriculum.

This week I’m challenging myself to creating a digital literacy lesson for grades 7/8. I’ll do a follow up blog post this week to post the lesson and my reflection.

Happy Teaching,

Leah