Ottawa, ON (March 31, 2014) – Canadian youth are not as digitally literate as adults may think they are, according to new research released today by MediaSmarts. Though today’s young people have grown up immersed in digital media, they still rely on parents and teachers to help them advance their skills in areas such as searching and verifying online information.
October 20, 2021 - Canadians are spending more time online during the pandemic and this year’s Media Literacy Week aims to put the spotlight on the essential digital literacy skills needed by today’s digital citizens.
By Katherine Lofts of Hands On Media
Content reposted from original article www.handsonmediaeducation.com
For young Canadians, digital literacy skills are vital to:
Our friends and family pay attention to what we share online. Just like a journalist, it’s our responsibility to make sure something is true before we share it.
Social media is designed to make you share things right away, but it’s better to wait a few minutes to think about it first. Give your “thinking brain” time to take over from your “feeling brain.”
Media educators base their teaching on key concepts for digital media literacy, which provide an effective foundation for examining mass media and popular culture. As media education pioneer Len Masterman put it, “You can teach the media most effectively, not through a content-centered approach, but through the application of a conceptual framework which can help pupils to make sense of any media text.”[1]
There have been four main approaches to integrating digital media literacy into the curriculum.[1] The first, infusion, makes digital media literacy an integrated part of the inquiry process. The second, integration, makes digital and/or media into its own, separate subject, or gives it a prominent place within an existing subject: media literacy was first brought into the Ontario curriculum in Ontario following this approach in 1989 as one of the four strands of English Language Arts, on a par (at least in theory) with Reading, Writing and Listening.[2] The third, cross-curricular competencies, identifies digital media literacy competencies as “not something to be added to the literacy curriculum, but a lens for learning that it is an integral part of all classroom practice”[3]; and the last, dispersion, locates them within various grades and subjects without any overall design.[4]
MediaSmarts has developed four online multimedia textbooks to support the Ontario curriculum for Language 1-8 and English 9. These freely available textbooks are designed to give educators flexibility in meeting both the Overall Expectation relating to Digital Media Literacy (A2) but also related Overall and Specific Expectations in the A, C and D strands, including Critical Thinking in Texts; Creating Drafts; and Publishing, Presenting and Reflecting.
Traditional definitions of literacy have focused on skills relating to reading, writing, numeracy, listening, speaking, and critical thinking, with the end goal being developing active thinkers and learners who are able to engage in society in effective and meaningful ways.[1] These skills – what students need to be able to do – are needed for full participation in digital society as well, but they are only part of a larger set of skills and competencies that are required.
