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Librarians & Media Literacy
I found the article about media literacy by Henry Jenkins very interesting. I think that librarians have an important role in this type of education because it ties in with information literacy. I'm taking the Instructional Strategies course this semester, and I will be thinking of ways that media literacy can be integrated into learning about information literacy (if it isn't already).
I think it's important for educators (a role often taken by librarians) to respond to the changing environment that young people are growing up in and also that older generations are struggling to understand and in turn teach relevant skills. Instead of being the "gatekeepers" or "filters" of information, I think that librarians have an important role in teaching people of all ages how to assess the validity and the realities created by new medias, and also think critically of their experiences in virtual spaces. And I don't think that this means discriminating between "good" and "bad" information and experiences, but understanding how the cultural context, the creators of the information, and the medium all have inherent biases.
Does anyone have any experiences related to media literacy? This is new to me, but I'd like to know more about it.
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Hi Amy,
I am also in the Instructional Strategies course, and like you, will be thinking of ways to incorporate social software into instruction in libraries.
Pauline
Hi Amy,
I also found the Jenkins article very interesting. I think that media literacy has been a part of elementary and high school curriculums for some time now, to try to give young people the tools to think critically about all of the commercial and public media they encounter. The Media Awareness Network’s website looks like a good place to get background information on media literacy instruction in schools http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/index.cfm, they’re a Canadian non-profit. From what I see, it looks like media literacy is not only about thinking critically, but also about managing the amount of information we absorb, and the way we spend our time – learning mindfulness, I guess. I was glad to hear this last part, as I find the thought of “continuous computing” a bit exhausting.
An interesting issue that the Jenkins article raised was the fact that professional design quality was the overriding factor for students in deciding whether or not a site was credible. A slick layout has a lot of persuasive power. Someone who has been writing about this since before the internet made it such a major issue is Edward Tufte (if anyone wants to do some extra reading). He’s famous for blaming the failure of the Challenger launch on a poorly designed graph. (I’d personally like to know what watching so many PowerPoint presentations is doing to my ability to organize and think critically about lecture material….:)) I think students still need a lot of help from teachers and information providers in interpreting the information they encounter. I also think that it is worth examining how using wikis and blogs and websites shapes the ways in which we organize information and communicate it.