Support Media Literacy
Co-Authors: Marty Maxwell Lane & Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert
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Abstract: Discussions about online media often neglect the engagement with and interpretation of these technologies. The Internet has become a primary resource for learning, but schools are often not prepared to train students to understand online content. Outside of the classroom teenagers are active online. Conversely, schools often rely on analog tools to teach this already digital generation. This disconnect may result in teenagers who are not prepared as critical digital citizens.
According to research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, teenagers tend to rely on the look of online information to determine credibility. Average users can create content that looks professional and therefore trustworthy. Online content facilitates public discourse, but positions amateurs and experts at the same level. This flattening of source credibility is problematic for teenagers with limited cognitive abilities and life experiences to judge what they see.
Online participation in inevitable. Students must practice communication and collaboration, activities facilitated by an educational framework that relies on online participatory communities. We cannot simply ignore participatory communities and reject interactive tools as learning strategies. We have an opportunity to encourage new media literacy by leveraging existing social participation into teachable moments. These tools will aid students in being critical of content while they engaged in and practice new media skills such as play, performance, collective intelligence and judgment.
We will present prototypes that aid in critical media engagement and assessment, inspire participation, and prepare young audiences to become critical digital citizens.