Media Literacy

In the past, when thinking about school, most people think about reading, writing, math, and other generic aspects of fundamental education. Although today all those same qualities have remained consistent, some things have changed and advanced. Even from when I was in elementary school, computer rooms, gamification of math concepts and even calculators were new, advancing and becoming a tool to help further understanding and engagement. When looking at technology as a whole, it is consuming and taking over our current generation like nothing ever before. It has become common and almost expected that most children have some form of technology at their fingertips at almost any moment. It has been stated that the average kindergartener nowadays, is presented with up to 70 different media messages daily. Furthermore, most teens spend at least one-third of their whole days engaging in media. So clearly as educators this gives us a great opportunity, for increased engagement, collaboration and access to more content than ever before. However, this also leaves us with a big responsibility, making sure our students understand how to navigate and sift through relevant and beneficial media sources.

https://www.slideshare.net/bogeybear/youth-technology
The picture above displayed how fast expanding and growing access to the internet is becoming.

Media smarts “is a Canadian not-for-profit charitable organization for digital and media literacy” (media smarts mission statement about us). Their vision is that “Children and youth have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens”(media smarts mission statement about us). It is a broad website that offers amazing content and information for teachers, students and parents. The website’s homepage presents the user with general information about media literacy, issues that can arise, and some examples of useful games and websites for education. Furthermore, there are later tabs with information and links to educational blogs, e-tutorials, as well as multiple PDFs to back their information and research. A big focus of this site is not just to present the user with examples or links, but to help develop one's critical thinking when processing a multitude of media. The only limitation I can see with this website would be the fact that you need to have some skills and knowledge already acquired to navigate the site. For example, it was mentioned how much media a kindergartener already comes into contact with daily, so it is clear they need to learn media literacy even at that young of an age. However, they would not be able to comprehend or understand the format, or even content for that matter. This website is an amazing resource but should be reserved for those with a somewhat baseline level of already pre existing media literacy. This source is very inline with the Ontario standards for the language curriculum, as it states on page 14 number 4 learners should be able"reflect on and identify their strengths, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in understanding and creating media texts". Media smarts is clearly a great tool to help them acquire this ability and use their own abilities to apply it in many different contexts.

The YouTube Channel crash course was a lifesaver for me in high school and even university. This channel is amazing as it breaks down complex topics and subject matter with amazing video explanations, visuals and step by step processes. Something also overlooked about this resource is the fact that it has a comment section to communicate with other people similar to you, with similar questions or even perhaps answers. The channel itself is not the focus here, but one of their series. In February, the channel decided to release a 12 part/week series that goes in-depth on how to become an effective member of the digital media community. The ‘course’ discusses topics such as advertising, ownership, media skills and even the darker side media. Unlike Media smart, these videos do not contain the same interactive content in the form of links, websites, games or blogs, but do address the issue of needing prior knowledge to engage in it. This series is amazing as it can present any age range with all the information needed to get started using media, and can be digested at as slow or fast of a pace as the person needs (good for younger children as well as older). Again, when looking at pages 13 and 14 of the Ontario language curriculum guide it notes how "Students’ repertoire of communication skills should include the ability to critically interpret the messages they receive through the various media and to use these media to communicate their own ideas effectively as well. Skills related to high-tech media such as the Internet, film, and television are particularly important because of the power and pervasive influence these media wield in our lives and in society" (pg. 13). This series goes over almost every aspect of media literacy from any source you can think of and does a great job meeting these expectations. 

With media literacy, comes great access to information. However, how do we know if the information we come across is verified, credible and actually relevant. The opposite of this is called fake news, and it is shocking how prevalent it is in today's world. Fake news detector is one of many amazing sources that try to lend its hand in catching liars red handed. There is so much content out there, and when written with confidence, it is very challenging to determine what sources and information are legitimate and which are bulls**t. Fake news detector “is a small initiative to try to make some difference in the fight against this problem, joining people's goodwill (Crowdsourcing) with technology (Machine Learning)”(motivation). Essentially, through collaboration, and teamwork users flag fake news and it will be saved in their database and flagged for future users. This website is very useful, however, cannot be trusted 100%. If a site is fake news, but has yet to be detected by a user it may show up as legitimate on the search results. A great tool, with an intent, the effectiveness of this site will only increase with time. Additionally, this resource meets the language curriculum guidelines to tee in terms of "Students must be able to differentiate between fact and opinion; evaluate the credibility of sources" (pg.13).

Media literacy is again, an undeniably a tricky skill to acquire but is almost mandatory in today's society and no doubt education system. There is so much potential for growth and collaboration through the internet and media that it would be rather ignorant to ignore it. However, just accepting all the knowledge as fact and living and dying by that information would be almost as bad as not acquiring it. These dangers could lead to misinformation, uninformed decisions, and even more ignorance. With some of tools presented here in my first blog post, I hope this skill with be something that you can attain a little more easily. The main points however to take and that all these resources innately stress, are critical thinking, taking in multiple perspectives and angles for a topic and comparing them to each other, what you already know and what you predict the truth to be. Find a source you can trust and cross reference, talk to educational specialists, use these resources and even find your own through trial and error. Media is only expanding and growing and so too are the requirements to be media literate. Never stop learning, never stop growing and never stop thinking critically.