Reading Review Assignment Part B: Teaching Digital Literacy to 21st Century Learners

Inquiry, Critical Reading, and Digital literacy are crucial skills for students in the digital era. It is therefore instrumental in the success of students as they progress through the school age thus carrying their skills and building on what they know. 

I feel that as an educator I can get carried away by the fancy gadgets and activities available for students. I enjoy watching children discover and explore a variety of software and applications. On the other hand, I think that teaching digital literacy should be a priority. 

In my initial investigations on these topics, I have come across several resources to inform my research: 

Hodson, J. (2020, Sep 14). Teaching children digital literacy skills helps them navigate and respond to misinformation.

In this article Hodson states , "Teaching children digital literacy skills helps them navigate and respond to misinformation.”  “Most public schools now teach students how to code, but we are not teaching students how to identify their own key triggers for misinformation or the organizational incentives for misinformation spread. As a result of these missing information literacy skills, our children may grow into adults who are not prepared to participate democratically in what is certain to be an even more complex information environment.” 

Hodson states that “It is also important to teach children that platforms such as Google, YouTube, Twitter or Facebook are not neutral. Rather, they are designed to maximize engagement, which short-circuits our brain's natural defences and leads us to share misinformation with others. Students need to develop both critical thinking and reflexivity — critical thinking to be able to assess content and sources, and reflexivity to understand the role their own unconscious biases, social connections and emotions play when processing information.”

Ciampaglia, Giovanni Luca and Menczer, Filippo, June 20, 2018. Updated January 10, 2019.

https://theconversation.com/misinformation-and-biases-infect-social-media-both-intentionally-and-accidentally-97148

In this article, Ciamaglia and Filippo state that misinformation on “Social media are among the primary sources of news in the U.S. and across the world. Yet users are exposed to content of questionable accuracy, including conspiracy theories, clickbait, hyperpartisan content, pseudo science and even fabricated “fake news” reports. It’s not surprising that there’s so much disinformation published: Spam and online fraud are lucrative for criminals, and government and political propaganda yield both partisan and financial benefits. But the fact that low-credibility content spreads so quickly and easily suggests that people and the algorithms behind social media platforms are vulnerable to manipulation. Our research has identified three types of bias that make the social media ecosystem vulnerable to both intentional and accidental misinformation.” The good news is that we can educate students to filter through the misinformation and reach the correct ones.

Silvestro, Steve. “Teaching Internet Safety to Kids & Teens.” YouTube, Sept. 2018.

In the video by Steve Silvestro “Teaching Internet Safety to Kids & Teen” one can learn how to teach internet safety to children and teens. As a Teacher Librarian I believe that it is important to teach students about the validity and reliability of resources online. Students will use the Google engine to search their interest. Doing this can put students at risk of encountering the wrong information and meeting the wrong people. Therefore, it is my responsibility to inform and direct the school community towards resources with accuracy, validity, content, etc. 

Barbour, Benjamin. Teaching Students How to Use Wikipedia Wisely. 5 July 2019.

Berinstein, Paula, and Consultant, Berinstein Research. “Wikipedia and Britannica The Kid’s All Right (And So’s the Old Man).” Information Today, Inc., Mar. 2006, 

Another popular resource that a Google search will lead to is the citizen built encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Teaching students how to use Wikipedia wisely is crucial since they will undoubtedly use this search resource to collect their findings. Teaching students about evaluating websites, checking for accuracy and reminding them to also look for other sources to compare and extend their knowledge on a given topic is critical. Students have to be taught to determine where the information originated from by reading footnotes, looking at the webpage’s references and then investigating the source of the material. 

Caulfield, Mike. 2019, June 19. SIFT (The Four Moves) 

Mike Caulfield has come up with a tool educators can review and utilize “a short list of things to do when looking at a source, and hook each of those things to one or two highly effective web techniques. We call the “things to do” moves and there are four of them:”

Fig. 1 Below is an example of a tool students can use when searching online. 

   

In closing, educators need to consider several components when teaching digital literacy while highlighting online safety. It is important to direct students to resources with excellent accuracy and validity. As well as teach students to be skeptical about the resources they come across and look further to confirm their findings by cross referencing their sources.

References

Silvestro, Steve. “Teaching Internet Safety to Kids & Teens.” YouTube, Sept. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhl4unYsdY

Barbour, Benjamin. Teaching Students How to Use Wikipedia Wisely. 5 July 2019, https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-students-how-use-wikipedia-wisely

Berinstein, Paula, and Consultant, Berinstein Research. “Wikipedia and Britannica The Kid’s All Right (And So’s the Old Man).” Information Today, Inc., Mar. 2006, https://www.infotoday.com/searcher/mar06/berinstein.shtml

Hodson, J. (2020, Sep 14). Teaching children digital literacy skills helps them navigate and respond to misinformation,

https://theconversation.com/teaching-children-digital-literacy-skills-helps-them-navigate-and-respond-to-misinformation-145988

Ciampaglia, Giovanni Luca and Menczer, Filippo, June 20, 2018. Updated January 10, 2019,

https://theconversation.com/misinformation-and-biases-infect-social-media-both-intentionally-and-accidentally-97148

Caulfield, Mike. 2019, June 19. SIFT (The Four Moves), https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/