Media Fluency and Your Classroom

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 Media is no longer something that is just consumed.  Students are creators and contributors in their classrooms and have an world wide audience outside of school walls.  This has created the need for a new type of awareness that the classroom teacher must consider.  While the skill was once how to decode books and text, students must now decode a variety of media and make sense of it.  This requires a larger focus on critical thinking skills regarding the sources that they gather information from.

As an example, reporting on scientific discoveries through internet sources are often oversimplified  (Majetic & Pellegrino, 2018) Students need the ability to decode the article to understand better what context and other information might be missing and then be able to track that information down to complete the research.  It is easy to understand this from a scientific perspective as wrong information could send a student on a road to nowhere.  The information they could be looking for might not exist or might not be relevant.  Although in the scientific construct it might seem essential it is just as essential in other disciplines as well.

In a study of perceived medial literacy in preoperatory students it was determined that they utilize the internet far more than all other media components in regards to their studies  (Akcayoglu & Daggol, 2019)The three keys that were outlined in this research is the ability to access, analyze and to see the implied messages in the content (Akcayoglu & Daggol, 2019).  It is the last portion of this concept that is so essential to students and their ability to make wise decisions regarding the materials that they are accessing.  Being able to decode messages and discover what context and nuances are missing to then be able to fill in those gaps is an essential part of learning in the digital age. 

In the modern classroom teachers should work on critical thinking through articles to uncover the hidden meaning and messages.  Outlining what parts are missing and logically what needs to be researched further in order to advance the ability to then create your own material.  This process is more complicated than it has ever been but it is essential to keeping students well informed about the world in which they live in. 

References

Akcayoglu, D. I., & Daggol, G. D. (2019). A Study on the Perceived Media Literacy Level of Preparatory Year Students in a University Setting. Contemporary Educational Technology, 10(4), 416-429. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.30935/cet.634195

Majetic, C., & Pellegrino, C. (2018). Building Information Literacy Skills Using Science News Media: Evidence for a Hands-On Approach. Journal of College Science Teaching, 48(1), 83-91. http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fbuilding-information-literacy-skills-using%2Fdocview%2F2096470152%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D12085



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