that kind of tech — expensive, bleeding-edge tools — makes headlines but doesn’t make it into many classrooms, especially the most needy ones. What does, however, is video.
68 percent of teachers are using video in their classrooms, and 74 percent of middle schoolers are watching videos for learning.
Video is a key aspect of our always-online attention economy that’s impacting votingbehavior, and fueling hate speech and trolling. Put simply: Video is a contested civic space.
We need to move from a conflation of digital citizenship with internet safety and protectionism to a view of digital citizenship that’s pro-active and prioritizes media literacy and savvy.
Active viewing — engaging more thoughtfully and deeply with what you watch — is a tried-and-true teaching strategy for making sure you don’t just watch media but retain information.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) has released Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief, a follow-up to its 2016 strategic brief on digital literacy.
But what does it really mean to be digitally literate, and which standards do we use?” said Dr. Eden Dahlstrom, NMC Executive Director. “This report sheds light on the meaning and impact of digital literacy using cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary approaches, highlighting frameworks and exemplars in practice.
NMC’s report has identified a need for institutions and thought leaders to consider the ways in which content creation is unequally expressed throughout the world. In an examination of digital literacy within European, Middle Eastern, and African nations (EMEA), research has surfaced unequal access to information technology based on inequalities of economics, gender, race, and political divides.
2020
2015
1.
Complex Problem Solving
1.
Complex Problem Solving
2.
Critical Thinking
2.
Coordinating with Others
3.
Creativity
3.
People Management
4.
People Management
4.
Critical Thinking
5.
Coordinating with Others
5.
Negotiation
6.
Emotional Intelligence
6.
Quality Control
7.
Judgment and Decision Making
7.
Service Orientation
8.
Service Orientation
8.
Judgment and Decision Making
9.
Negotiation
9.
Active Listening
10.
Cognitive Flexibility
10.
Creativity
Digital tools themselves are merely enablers, pushing the envelope of what learners can create. No longer is it acceptable for students to be passive consumers of content; they can contribute to the local and global knowledge ecosystem, learning through the act of producing and discussing rich media, applications, and objects. In the words of many institutional mission statements, students do not have to wait until they graduate to change the world.
Using readily available digital content creation tools (e.g., video production and editing, web and graphic tools), students are evolving into digital storytellers,
digital literacy now encompasses the important skills of being able to coordinate with others to create something truly original that neither mind would fathom independently.
The ability to discern credible from inaccurate resources is foundational to digital literacy. my note: #Fakenews
A lack of broad consensus on the meaning of digital literacy still hinders its uptake, although a growing body of research is helping higher education professionals better navigate the continuous adjustments to the field brought about by emerging pedagogies and technologies.
Information literacy is a nearly universal component within these digital literacy frameworks. Critically finding, assessing, and using digital content within the vast and sometimes chaotic internet appears as a vital skill in almost every account, including those published beyond libraries. In contrast, media literacy is less widely included in digital literacy publications, possibly due to a focus on scholarly, rather than popular, materials. Digital literacies ultimately combine information and media literacy.
United States digital literacy frameworks tend to focus on educational policy details and personal empowerment, the latter encouraging learners to become more effective students, better creators, smarter information consumers, and more influential members of their community.
National policies are vitally important in European digital literacy work, unsurprising for a continent well populated with nation-states and struggling to redefine itself… this recommendation for Balkan digital strategy: “Media and information education (with an emphasis on critical thinking and switching from consumption to action) should start at early ages, but address all ages.”
African digital literacy is more business-oriented. Frameworks often speak to job skills and digital entrepreneurship. New skills and professions are emphasized, symbolized by the call for “new collar” positions.
Middle Eastern nations offer yet another variation, with a strong focus on media literacy. As with other regions, this can be a response to countries with strong state influence or control over local media. It can also represent a drive to produce more locally-sourced content, as opposed to consuming
Digital literacy is a complex phenomenon in 2017, when considered internationally. Nations and regions are creating ways to help their populations grapple with the digital revolution that are shaped by their local situations. In doing so, they cut across the genealogy of digital literacies, touching on its historical components: information literacy, digital skills, and media literacy.
Students are not all digital natives, and do not necessarily have the same level of capabilities. Some need to be taught to use online tools (such as how to navigate a LMS) for learning. However, once digital literacy skills for staff and students are explicitly recognized as important for learning and teaching, critical drivers for pedagogical change are in place.
Pedagogy that uses an inquiry based/problem solving approach is a great framework to enhance the use and practice of digital skills/capabilities in the classroom.
The current gap between students’ information literacy skills and their need to internalize digital literacy competencies creates an opportunity for academic librarians to support students in the pursuit of civic online reasoning at the core of NMC’s multimodal model of three digital literacies. Academic librarians need a new strategy that evolves information literacy to an expanded role educating digitally literate students. Let’s build a new model in which academic librarians are entrepreneurial collaborators with faculty,55 supporting their classroom efforts to help students become responsible sharers and commentators of news on social media.
“Digital literacy is not just about ensuring that students can use the latest technologies, but also developing skills to select the right tools for a particular context to deepen their learning outcomes and engage in creative problem-solving”
There is a disconnect between how students experience and interact with technology in their personal lives and how they use technology in their roles as students. Yes, students are digitally savvy, and yes, universities have a role in questioning (insightfully of course) their sometimes brash digital savviness. We have a situation where students are expecting more, but (as I see it) cannot provide a clear demand, while faculty are unable to walk in the shoes of the students.
Starbird argues in a new paper, set to be presented at a computational social-science conference in May, that these “strange clusters” of wild conspiracy talk, when mapped, point to an emerging alternative media ecosystem on the web of surprising power and reach.
There are dozens of other conspiracy-propagating websites such as beforeitsnews.com, nodisinfo.com and veteranstoday.com.
It isn’t a traditional left-right political axis, she found. There are right-wing sites like Danger & Play and left-wing sensationalizers such as The Free Thought Project. Some appear to be just trying to make money, while others are aggressively pushing political agendas.
The true common denominator, she found, is anti-globalism — deep suspicion of free trade, multinational business and global institutions.
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The News Literacy Project
Do you know any fact checking sites? Can you identify spot sponsored content? Do you understand syndication? What do you understand under “media literacy,” “news literacy,” “information literacy.” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/03/28/fake-news-resources/
what is social media (examples). why is called SM? why is so popular? what makes it so popular?
use SM tools for your research and education:
– Determining your topic. How to?
Digg http://digg.com/, Reddit https://www.reddit.com/ , Quora https://www.quora.com
Facebook, Twitter – hashtags (class assignment 2-3 min to search)
LinkedIn Groups
YouTube and Slideshare (class assignment 2-3 min to search)
Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest for visual aids (like YouTube they are media repositories)
Students will be introduced to exercises, experiences, and assignments, which focus on developing student’s classroom engagement, empowerment, critical awareness of media, civic engagement, and adoption of a social justice agenda. The guide enables students to work with faculty to produce GCMLP Webpage content, which can be consumed by the public to help expand citizen’s understanding of key events and processes in the global society. Furthermore, participating students will be granted academic and employment opportunities through the GCMLP, so they can be equitable participants in the 21st century economy.
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more on fake news in this IMS blog https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Education assessed middle, high school and college students on the their civic online reasoning skills, or “the ability to judge the credibility of information that floods young people’s smartphones, tablets and computers.”
The Stanford History Education Group recently released a report that analyzes 7,804 responses collected from students across 12 states and varying economic lines, including well-resourced, under-resourced and inner-city schools.
when it comes to evaluating information that flows on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, students “are easily duped” and have trouble discerning advertisements from news articles.
Many people assume that today’s students – growing up as “digital natives” – are intuitively perceptive online. The Stanford researchers found the opposite to be true and urge teachers to create curricula focused on developing students’ civil reasoning skills. They plan to produce “a series of high-quality web videos to showcase the depth of the problem” that will “demonstrate the link between digital literacy and citizenship,” according to the report.
The report, “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning,” can be found here.
For years educators have leveraged curation tools such as Scoop.it, Storify, and Pinterest to help students critically evaluate online resources.
(my bold to emphasize the difference between the definition of digital literacy, which I am fighting to establish at SCSU LRS and the continuous “information literacy” trend of the reference librarians )
Mapping Digital Literacy Policy and Practice in the Canadian Landscape
A well-rounded digital literacy incorporates print literacy but adds new capacities, competencies and comportments into the mix. Now included is the technical know-how to create a website, produce and upload a video, edit an image, design a functional information architecture for accessing or sharing knowledge – as well as many “soft skills” such as critical thinking and ethical behaviour. One of the primary transformations of the digital era in the 21st Century has been the introduction of end-users as actors in the world of communication, autonomous (producers and consumers of information) who can access and disseminate content in Web 2.0 domains without the regulatory controls of traditional filters and gatekeepers. Given this development, end-users now need greater critical thinking capacities to manage content: to decide what is valid and truthful and be able to incorporate multiple perspectives and voices into expanding worldviews. Additionally, exhibiting ethical behaviour in what may be said or posted online is essential to contemporary civic mindedness whether in a local context or the broader global village.
As a number of publications reported last month, including Education Dive, Inside Higher Ed, and Campus Technology, one of the most surprising takeaways from our survey findings was the discrepancy between students’ and educators’ estimation of their digital media know-how.
Student Self-Perception
45% of students consider themselves to be highly digitally literate
Another 31% would describe themselves as moderately literate
Only 19% of students consider themselves somewhat literate
Outside Evaluation
Only 14% of educators rated their students as highly digitally literate
40% of educators consider their students to be moderately literate
An almost equal percentage of educators—39%—would rate their students as only somewhat literate
Educator Self-Perception
49% of educators described themselves as highly digitally literate
36% of educators rate themselves as moderately literate
Only 14% of educators consider themselves as somewhat literate
Outside Evaluation
Only 23% of students rated their instructors as highly digitally literate
35% of students consider their instructors to be moderately literate
An almost equal percentage of students—33%—would rate their instructors as only somewhat literate
From
Mike Caulfield’s Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
(https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/)
Fact-Checking Organizations
There are many fact-checking sites outside the U.S. Here is a small sample.