Week 5 - Literacy in a Digital World



While the reading was a lot to unpack, this week’s topic is relevant to teachers across all content areas and disciplines. Digital literacy is more than knowing vocabulary and the parts of a computer as it may have previously been defined. Digital literacy is critically thinking about everything you see and hear within a digital space. Digital media is so embedded and intertwined in the fabric of our society that it’s hard to know where print ends and media begins. Manitoba’s new English Language Arts curriculum tells  us to consider language as communication, messages given and received, taking the emphasis away from only printed text, and instead thinking of the word “text” as any message we interpret.


(Manitoba Education and Training, 2019)

The practice of Language as Power and Agency is critical to the digital world we live in. In this practice, students:

“Recognize and analyze inequities, viewpoints, and bias in texts and ideas. Investigate complex moral and ethical issues and conflicts. Contemplate the actions that can be taken, consider alternative viewpoints, and contribute other perspectives.” (Manitoba Education and Training, 2019)

This opens the door for Digital Literacy as the reality of our lives is that most people, and most of our students, get their information from social media platforms. The following video illustrates the dangers of using social media as a news platform without critical thinking.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=Ryjpu-NWYm8
     Buckingham (2015) argues “that a new digital media can no longer be regarded simply as a matter of information or technology” and that “we need to equip students to understand and to critique” digital media. This applies to internet, digital media and computer games. Buckingham (2015) goes on to assert that “outside of school, children are engaging with these media, not as technologies, but as cultural forms.” In this age of interconnectedness between humans and machines, schools must embrace and embed digital forms of text as an important form of language and communication.


Sources:
Buckingham, David. (2015). Defining digital literacy: What do young people need to know about digital media?. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy. 2015. 21-34.

Manitoba Education and Training. (2019, April). Public Discussion Paper. Retrieved April 17, 2019, from Education and training: https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/educationreview/docs/public-discussion-paper.pdf



Comments

  1. Brenda StewartJune 9, 2019 at 11:36 AM

    HI Kimberley,

    Thanks for sharing that short video clip - it is frightening that things can get so quickly out of control "simply" by people liking and sharing something, that they assume to be true.

    With the Language Arts curriculum opening the door for the critically assessing digital information, when we look at the cross-curricular planning, integrating units, inquiry-based projects, etc..., we can open the door to having students take a closer and critical look at any information presented in any curricular area. This is one of the benefits of not having subject-specific teachers in MY. When educators look at teaching "the whole child" they are able to make the learning so much more rich and relevant than when it is taught in "subject only" courses.

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  2. Kim YoungJune 12, 2019 at 6:11 PM

    HI

    That was an interesting video. I only wish my dad could learn how to fact check on line. He is driving me crazy with what he shares! lol

    It is very important that we equip students with the skills they need to be critical of what the see and read on the internet before they share and react to it. I wonder if we do not teach this enough because the teacher are not always better than their students for being critical of what they see and read on line?

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