21st Century Skill: Digital and Media Literacy

Kids reacting to old computer

It’s crazy to think about how kids today have never lived their life without any digital devices, kids today have access to a huge variety of digital devices, some students would have their first smart phone in Grade 2, kids today know how to go online and search for information as well as going on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to socialize with their peers. Students nowadays have more knowledge about different types of media and they are also exposed to more information on a daily bases than ever before.

Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media by a various platform. The ability to understand the various type of media and being able to utilize these media become an essential skill in 21^st century education (Media Literacy Project, n.d.) .    

Media Literacy in Action:Girls Inc. of Long Island Media Literacy Program

While digital literacy expand on media literacy and it empathies on the usage and comprehension of information in the digital age (Gilster, 1998). Digital literacy require students to use critical thinking to evaluate the creditability of the source of the information that they encountered on a daily basis. 

Creating critical thinkers through media literacy: Andrea Quijada at TEDxABQED

Classroom implication: In the classroom, the teacher can tech students media/ digital literacy by having a group of students reviewing some popular advertisement on the market and analyses the content of the ad, and justify if these ads are realistic or not. Teacher can also invite students to use a variety of media to create an assignment, such as digital poster, vblog, video, powerpoint. 

How Media/Digital literacy is implied in classrooms

References:

Media Literacy Project. (n.d.). What is Media Literacy?. Retrieved April 08, 2017, fromhttp://medialiteracyproject.org/learn/media-literacy/

Gilster, P.(1998). Digital Literacy. Wiley. ISBN 0471249521.