Social Studies 10-12
Media education in the British Columbia Social Studies curriculum is addressed in the currilum organizer Skills and Processes of Social Studies. Media analysis is also identified as a consideration for program delivery.
Mathematics
The Ontario mathematics curriculum includes expectations that incorporate media education themes. The grade curriculum document Mathematics (2007) includes a section that explains how mathematical concepts such as probability can be applied to media criticism:
English Language Arts 9-12 Overview
Like the elementary English Language Arts curriculum, secondary level media-related objectives can be found in foundational outcomes for speaking, listening, writing, reading, and viewing and representing.
English Language Arts 6-9
The Newfoundland language arts curriculum includes expectations that incorporate media education themes. The curriculum document English Language Arts Grade 9 Overview (2012) includes a section that demonstrates the complementary relationship between digital and media literacy and English language arts:
Technology Education K-12
The Atlantic Provinces technology education curriculum includes expectations that incorporate digital and media education themes. The curriculum document Foundation for the Atlantic Canada Technology Education Curriculum includes a section that demonstrates the complementary relationship between digital and media literacy and technology education:
The focus of this curriculum is the development of students’ technological literacy, capability, and responsibility (International Technology Education Association, 1996).
Science
The British Columbia Science curriculum has a number of expectations relating to digital and media literacy, primarily in connection with recognizing and correcting for bias, testing hypotheses, and using digital media for scientific investigation.
Online Ethics - Introduction
Despite all of the concerns about what youth are doing with digital media, MediaSmarts’ study Young Canadians in a Wireless World (YCWW) has found that not only are most kids not getting in trouble online, they’re often being actively kind and thoughtful towards people they know.
Ethical Development
As we grow, we pass through distinct stages of moral development in which our ethical thinking is based on different principles: the desire to avoid punishment (Stage I) and the desire to obtain rewards (Stage II), which are then followed by a wish to fit in and conform in order please others (Stage III) and a duty to follow rules, laws and social codes (Stage IV). Last comes the sense of participating in a social contract (Stage V) and, finally, a morality that looks to universal ethical principles of justice and the equality and dignity of all people (Stage VI).
Empathy
Empathy is at the heart of ethics. In order to develop a sense of right and wrong that goes past just being afraid of punishment or hoping for a reward, we have to be able to put ourselves in another person’s shoes.
Laws, Rules and Personal Morality
It’s important to make young people aware of the laws that apply to what they do online, as well as to have household rules that cover online behaviour.