Should You Really Believe Everything You See?
Being a teacher today means incorporating technology into our classrooms. What most people do not know is that this also means we have a responsibility to teach our students to be critically literate on the internet and with technology. This means keeping them safe, helping them avoid being scammed, and helping them make their own decisions about whether or not a piece of information is real.
For students to be able to determine if information is real or “fake news” they must be able to critically think for themselves. David Foster Wallace in his “What is Water?” speech says that thinking “means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience” (Wallace). With this being said, we essentially have to teach our students how to think on their own about certain topics.
An article by David Buckingham (2007), titled “Digital Media Literacies: Rethinking Media Education in the Age of the Internet”, describes four conceptual aspects that are major points for critical literacy that are helpful for students, teachers, parents, or really any internet user, to understand. These four aspects are: representation, language, production, and audience (p. 48). Representation is understanding who the author is and how reliable he or she may be, the biases the author may have, and who’s viewpoint the author is trying to represent. Language is the ability to distinguish between formal and friendly language, and production is the purpose for the text. Lastly, audience is how the advertisements and different texts are targeted at specific people and how the audience responds (Buckingham, 2007, pg.48).
An infographic by TeachThought, a website that helps teach educators about different subjects such as literacy, can add on to Buckingham’s argument about teaching critical digital literacy to students. The infographic depicts the five dimensions of critical digital literacy that helps internet users stay safe online while also giving internet users the tools needed to decide if a source is credible or not on their own.
On several occasions, there are individuals who are online and they get hit with a flashing advertisement on his or her phone, computer, or tablet. If this person was not educated on critical digital literacy, then the person might click on the link, give away card information thinking that the site is legitimate, and then the individual is a victim of a scam. If we, as teachers, educate our students early on and often about these dangers on the web, then we could help lower the amount of scams. The same goes with spreading fake news. Below is a video that explains the different precautions to take while reading a “shocking headline” and the steps to take in order to stop the spread of fake news.
With the help of educated teachers, our future students should not have to be victims of scams or advocates of fake news. It’s part of our jobs as 21st century educators to help our students think critically about digital media.
Course Resources:
Buckingham, David. (2007) Digital Media Literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the Internet. Research in Comparative and International Education, Volume 2, Number 1. p 43–55.
J. (2013, May 19). This Is Water — Full version-David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
Outside Resources:
F. (2016, December 08). Retrieved October 21, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=32&v=AkwWcHekMdo
TeachThought Staff. (2018). 5 Dimensions of Critical Digital Literacy: A Framework. teachthought. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/literacy/5-dimensions-of-critical-digital-literacy/
