The location for all of my Educ 538 reflection essays
Monday, April 4, 2016
Media Literacy
For this assignment I read an article by James Potter titled "The State of Media Literacy" (2010), browsed through the Core Principles of Media Literacy from the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and watched several TED Talks on media literacy principles. I would not say that my understanding of what media literacy entails is changed significantly but I would say that my readings expanded my definition; I previously placed media literacy within the framework of analyzing the validity, bias, audience, etc of the media one consumes (whether through print, television, etc). While I found that definition mostly supported through this new research, I was interested to see the Center for Media Literacy's additional caveat of "the
ability to communicate competently in all media forms, print and electronic" (Potter, 2010). I had not thought of media literacy in terms of accessibility and expression before, but it makes perfect sense. In our increasingly digital age, one cannot critically assess information if they lack either the skills to access it or do not know enough about the medium to accurately assess it.
A joke from "The IT Crowd" based on a character's technology ignorance
As a science educator, I am frustrated daily with a societal lack of media literacy. Issues like vaccination, climate change, and genetic engineering have saturated our discussions, but misinformation runs rampant. While one would hope that an increase in information accessibility would create a generation that is more scientifically literate, we have not seen that. Instead we see a rise in both mistaken conclusions or flat out falsehoods that survive due to a lack of both science and media literacy. While websites trying to sell products, hosts lacking any science credentials, or articles with zero links to research sources should be red flags, a societal lack of media literacy causes many to be duped. It's surprisingly easy to trick people into believing sites like Mercola or Natural News are credible because they use just enough scientific jargon (despite using it incorrectly frequently) to sound legit. Unfortunately, these misconceptions are difficult to change. As educators, especially in science, it is ever more crucial for us to give students the right toolbox for critical analysis of media and to do so early.
Senator Inhofe (R-OK) claiming climate change is a lie because snowballs exist
One of the TED Talks that really stuck with me was Andrea Quijada's
"Creating Critical Thinkers Through Media Literacy." Not only does she describe some childhood experiences with media that mirror examples in Potter's work (2010), but also presents some fun examples of student work from a youth media literacy course.
Groups like Code Academy and the Educational Video Center have expanded media skills to kids both locally and globally. I believe this is a crucial aspect of media literacy in this digital era. I'm not familiar with classroom lessons on recognizing media bias, audience, and manipulation though. Potter's analysis (2010) included a few practices I've seen, such as media limits and instructional intervention, however the results are inconclusive as to their efficacy. While I feel I have decent media literacy, I feel as though that's more through personal trial and error and not direct lessons. My classroom instruction was very limited in terms of media examination and mostly consisted of checking for .gov or .edu sites, avoiding Wikipedia, and not sharing personal information in chat rooms. What practices have you seen or enacted? Do you think they were effective or not? Share your thoughts below!
I love that you included Code Academy in your response! My kids do "Hour of Code" every year and LOVE it! Many of them chose to do additional coding in their free choice time.
You mentioned not being familiar with classroom lessons concerning recognizing media bias, and I suppose it depends on the level you're looking at teaching this. In First Grade, we start extremely basic and advance from there. I try to connect it to point of view. When we read a story or listen to a story, we always talk about who's point of view the story is being told and how that story might look different from someone else's point of view because of bias. This generates some pretty fun dialogue with the kids. It also is a handy tool to whip out during conflict management, a little reminder that there are always two sides to the story. This and author's purpose are useful places to start when teaching about media bias.
It sounds like we have similar experiences with technology, being mostly taught through trial and error and skepticism of dicey chat rooms or websites loosely managed. I also am eager to learn more to both enhance my personal experience with technology and media and my students' experiences with technology and media. Let me know if you learn anything cool!
I love how varied Code Academy is; there's stuff for almost all ages and interests! I hope that spurring interest in coding will increase curiosity in areas like editing, blogging, etc too so that students can learn how those can be manipulated as well.
I don't have experience in a classroom setting so media literacy has yet to be an issue for me in that sense, but I have to agree with you on societies lack of media literacy, especially when it comes to uninformed posts on social media sites. While I have tried to stay away from politics on social media, it's hard to ignore the ignorant posts. It seems as though people actually believe that everything on the internet is true, which is like getting all of your information from Wikipedia. No. No. No!
With our generation being so "tech savvy" you would hope, like you said, for an increase in information accessibility that would create a generation that is more scientifically literate. Unfortunately that is not the case and it seems that the more media we have access too, it creates more misconstrued information.
It's a shame there isn't some form of publishing rules on the internet that there much be data to back up what you post and if there isn't, it has to be labeled as fiction. As educators I feel it is our job to inform our students on these issues so they are able to better analyze what is put out there.
Wikipedia is actually pretty solid; they cite all their sources, note when a passage is disputed, and their data aggregation tends to limit fringe beliefs from gaining false significance. If anything I wish more sites were like Wikipedia! I wish there were more factchecker sites like Snopes and Politifact that were readily available; paywalls tend to block that for science content unfortunately. :/
Good point about the lack of credibility that is being published in the internet. I think Media literacy should be taught as an independent subject in early school years. I think it'll save us (well, not completely) from a lot of the misinformation kids learn through these sites.
As more and more schools implement computer courses I really, really hope so! Paige mentioned some early media literacy with text, but I almost think internet understanding is more important in this digital age.
I love that you included Code Academy in your response! My kids do "Hour of Code" every year and LOVE it! Many of them chose to do additional coding in their free choice time.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned not being familiar with classroom lessons concerning recognizing media bias, and I suppose it depends on the level you're looking at teaching this. In First Grade, we start extremely basic and advance from there. I try to connect it to point of view. When we read a story or listen to a story, we always talk about who's point of view the story is being told and how that story might look different from someone else's point of view because of bias. This generates some pretty fun dialogue with the kids. It also is a handy tool to whip out during conflict management, a little reminder that there are always two sides to the story. This and author's purpose are useful places to start when teaching about media bias.
It sounds like we have similar experiences with technology, being mostly taught through trial and error and skepticism of dicey chat rooms or websites loosely managed. I also am eager to learn more to both enhance my personal experience with technology and media and my students' experiences with technology and media. Let me know if you learn anything cool!
I love how varied Code Academy is; there's stuff for almost all ages and interests! I hope that spurring interest in coding will increase curiosity in areas like editing, blogging, etc too so that students can learn how those can be manipulated as well.
DeleteI don't have experience in a classroom setting so media literacy has yet to be an issue for me in that sense, but I have to agree with you on societies lack of media literacy, especially when it comes to uninformed posts on social media sites. While I have tried to stay away from politics on social media, it's hard to ignore the ignorant posts. It seems as though people actually believe that everything on the internet is true, which is like getting all of your information from Wikipedia. No. No. No!
ReplyDeleteWith our generation being so "tech savvy" you would hope, like you said, for an increase in information accessibility that would create a generation that is more scientifically literate. Unfortunately that is not the case and it seems that the more media we have access too, it creates more misconstrued information.
It's a shame there isn't some form of publishing rules on the internet that there much be data to back up what you post and if there isn't, it has to be labeled as fiction. As educators I feel it is our job to inform our students on these issues so they are able to better analyze what is put out there.
Great post, Kellie.
Wikipedia is actually pretty solid; they cite all their sources, note when a passage is disputed, and their data aggregation tends to limit fringe beliefs from gaining false significance. If anything I wish more sites were like Wikipedia! I wish there were more factchecker sites like Snopes and Politifact that were readily available; paywalls tend to block that for science content unfortunately. :/
DeleteGood point about the lack of credibility that is being published in the internet. I think Media literacy should be taught as an independent subject in early school years. I think it'll save us (well, not completely) from a lot of the misinformation kids learn through these sites.
ReplyDeleteAs more and more schools implement computer courses I really, really hope so! Paige mentioned some early media literacy with text, but I almost think internet understanding is more important in this digital age.
Delete