Ethics Overview

Many curricular expectations in Alberta Ethics courses relate to media and digital literacy. The following excerpts from Ethics A.1 (Junior High) (1985) detail how media and digital literacy have been integrated into the curriculum:

Junior Kindergarten / Kindergarten

The Northwest Territories has a single curriculum for kindergarten that is based on play-based learning as outlined in the document NWT Right from the Start: Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan.

Guest blog: How YouTube Watches Us

The YouTube video “Ultimate Dog Tease” has jumped from 15 million to 37 million views since the beginning of May 2011. The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” has hit 67 million views since it was launched on YouTube. These two videos have more followers than some TV shows. They're fun, they're silly and, like YouTube as a medium, they are worth celebrating.

Think Before You Share

The internet is all about sharing – sharing news, sharing videos, sharing our thoughts and opinions with our friends.

We are all broadcasters

Here are three tips to make sure you share good information and stop the spread of hoaxes, rumours and scams.

1. Watch for your own bias

One of the hardest things about being a responsible sharer is to be aware of the reasons why you might be more likely to believe something without evidence. Before you share a story, take a few minutes to see whether you’ve fallen into one of these common biases:

Critically Engaging with Media Violence

While parents may find certain representations of violence wholly appropriate for young people, there’s a wide continuum of content that exists online and in the media. Anything from a cartoon cat having an anvil comically dropped on his head to video images of real-life injuries and deaths can be accessed online by children and youth.

Social Studies 4-12

The social studies program in Alberta contains expectations that complement the critical thinking approach of media education. The Alberta social studies curriculum states,

In our changing society, students will need to be practised at using a variety of skills and strategies. Students will need to be able to acquire knowledge, to interpret and communicate information, and to solve problems and make decisions. In doing all of this, students require a wide range of critical and creative thinking skills and strategies that they can apply to a variety of situations.

Arts Education

The British Columbia Arts Education curriculum promotes the development of artistic habits of mind, categorized as exploring and creating, reasoning and reflecting, and communicating and documenting. Digital media literacy is present throughout these curricular competencies, which include a focus on relationships between the arts and various cultures and societies, reflecting on and making connections between creative processes, and considering how audience negotiate meaning.

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:

Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum

In the Northwest Territories technology, literacy and communication, problem solving, and human relations are considered "foundation skills" and are included in a wide range of curricula from Kindergarten to Grade 12. This approach is based on a focus on inquiry, critical and creative thinking, digital citizenship, multiple literacies (including digital literacies) and a gradual release of responsibility from the instructor to the student, with the ultimate goal of making the student responsible for his or her learning.