Outcome Chart - Alberta - Social Studies Grade 10
This outcome chart contains Media literacy learning expectations from the Alberta social studies curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

This outcome chart contains Media literacy learning expectations from the Alberta social studies curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.

Sixty-two per cent of Canadian gamers are male:[1] and in a market targeted primarily at males, games that appeal to girls can be hard to find. Generally girls aren't interested in the violent "first person shooter" games favoured by boys, and many of the girl-specific games promote stereotypical interests such as cooking and babysitting. (Industry representatives claim these topics are chosen based on their surveys of what female games want.)

My teens are still young and new to social media, so until now, we’ve mostly been focusing on the risks. Our main message to them has been to be careful, and that less time online is always better.

Skill Descriptor:
Compare the development over time of marketing methods and activities.
Achievement Indicators:
Describe the changes in marketing method due to growth of information technology.


Malcolm Gladwell's recent New Yorker article “Small Change” has set the blogosphere buzzing with its strongly stated argument that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will not usher in a new age of social activism, as some digital evangelists have proposed, but that they and the relationships they foster are actually detrimental to real social change. As Gladwell puts it, "The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo."

Do young people care about privacy? Participants in MediaSmarts’ 2012 focus groups told us that they valued their privacy highly, despite being enthusiastic participants in platforms and activities that adults see as being about nothing but sharing and broadcasting. Looking at the findings from our Young Canadians in a Wired World survey of more than five thousand students from every province and territory in Canada, we can begin to understand that contradiction: young people may not care that much about what we think of as privacy, but they care very much about control – control over who can see what they post, over who can track them digitally and, most especially, over how other people see them.

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.