What is Media Literacy

Media literacy is using media resources in a learning context, and allows students to both learn from and create with these resources (Trilling and Fadel). It is important for students to not just be exposed to the internet, but to learn how to navigate the firehose of information available to them. Also, through learning about media literacy students often will start to develop their own PLN, which allows them to broaden their network wider than just their family, friends, and school. As Julie Smith mentions in her interview, through her PLN she is able to feel connected to people she has never met in person.

Using Media Literacy Effectively

I think that using media in schools can be difficult for some people, specifically those of an older generation, to understand. I really like what Smith said about current society being more visual than literate. This is true, and I think another aspect that the newspaper generation has a hard time understanding. As previously stated, there is so much information available online – and a lot of it is crazy, inappropriate, and incorrect- so sometimes it can be easy to dismiss all media based on the loudest and most outrageous parts of it. But therefore, media literacy is even more important. If we can teach young people how to use an educated lens when engaging with media, then they will be able to use it as a tool to create dialogue on important subjects and connect with people of varied viewpoints.

Early in the interview, Smith mentions that one of the great things about your PLN is that you can curate who you are interacting with, in the context of weeding out people who are always negative or mean. But she is also very specific to say later on that that tool should not be (although often is) used to create an echochamber of affirmation (Smith). She shares that “sometimes we tend to be more interested in what we believe than what is true”, but we need to keep our PLN varied (Smith). The more perspectives we are able to see, the more we will be in a position to make an educated decision on what we choose to believe.  

Works Cited

“EDCI 338 – MEDIA LITERACY with JULIE SMITH.” YouTube, uploaded by MILLER, 6 June 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=57r3-aEnci0.

Trilling, Bernie, and Charles Fadel. 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. 1st ed., John Wiley And Sons Inc, 2012.