Young Canadians Speak Out: A Qualitative Research Project on Privacy and Consent

Youth want clear and simple online privacy policies to better understand online consent

Talking to Kids About AI: Tips for Parents

Here are some tips on how to do that:

Explore AI together. If young kids are using an AI chatbot or voice assistant, sit with them at first to help them learn to use it and get curious about its responses. As they get more comfortable, you can step back, but try to keep a conversation going about what they’re doing and experiencing. Make sure they know to come to you if a chatbot ever says anything inappropriate or upsetting.

Talking to kids about media and body image

Children are exposed to many unrealistic images of both men’s and women’s bodies through media. TV shows, music videos, ads, movies, video games, and social networks can communicate ideas about what their bodies “should” look like. Techniques for manipulating images – from old-fashioned techniques like airbrushing to modern technologies like filters – even make it possible for media images to go beyond what’s possible in reality.

Surveillance techniques

Thanks to the networked nature of the internet, in which information is always flowing both ways, there's no shortage of ways for apps, devices and websites to collect information about us.

Fair Dealing for Media Education

In Canada, consumers have certain rights to use copyrighted material without permission or license from the owner of the copyright. These rights are defined in the Copyright Act as Fair Dealing exemptions and were redefined in the 2012 changes to the Act. A good knowledge of Fair Dealing can be extremely helpful in understanding what you and your students can do with media in class. It's important to note that the Copyright Act provides very little definition for many of these terms; instead, most of the specifics of Fair Dealing have come from court rulings, and the new exemptions and other changes done in 2012 will likely also be further defined in the same way.

Does Media Education Work?

The question of whether media education, or digital media literacy, “works” is a bit misplaced. There is no doubt that it works in the same sense that other areas of study “work,” in that students who’ve received media education know more about digital media literacy than those that haven’t – just as students who take history courses know more about history than those that don’t.

Outcome Chart - Alberta - English Language Arts 11 (ELA 20-2)

This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Alberta, Grade 11 English Language Arts curriculum (ELA 20-2), with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Intellectual Property: Overview

What is intellectual property?: A novel? A film script? A joke? A cook book? A character in a TV show? A painting? The lyrics to a song? All of these are intellectual property.