I don't care what you say, digital literacy is a big deal!

Teaching media to my students has always been a rather daunting task because I can never answer the question: Where do I start?

Looking at the materials for this first week of class (Beach’s writings, the companion website, the videos, and relevant bits of previous classes) didn’t really help me answer my ongoing question, but it did reinforce a lot of the thoughts I have about why this is so important. In fact, the Language Arts Department in the Hopkins School District (where I work) has been discussing these issues with each other as we consider from where we will purchase our updated course materials. There seem to be two camps forming on this one: The “Web People” and the “Publishing People”.

I think that the video about media conglomerates actually fits into this quite well. The arguments in the discussion of course materials always come down to the same couple of points. The “Web People” like the fact that there are infinite resources available for low cost; mostly written by independent teachers in other districts. They seem to think that subscribing to whatever a big publishing company decides is a good idea is like selling out and makes us look like lemmings. On the other side of the argument, the “Publishing People” feel that using a published set of materials adds credibility to our program because names=notoriety. They claim that by using web resources, parents will start to lose confidence in what their children are learning because our program won’t look like that of neighboring districts. This debate has been going on since before I arrived in the district and, as one long time participant sarcastically suggested to me, won’t end any time in the next ten years.

I find this rather amusing, actually, because when we (teachers in general) ask our students to conduct research for projects and papers, we always tell them to look in just a few places such as academic journals and indexes while completely rejecting any websites they may come across because, “it may not be credible”. But we don’t know for sure, do we?

Being guilty of the afore mentioned phrase many times, I sound a bit hypocritical when I say we should stop doing this and start teaching students how to critically analyze what they find. Rather than just tell them something isn’t credible/reliable, we should teach them how to track down the creators of content so they can independently decide how to take the news, arguments, proof, etc. that they find. I like how the video about media conglomerates points out that the news stations in town are owned by one main company. It’s very similar to radio stations in the Twin Cities. It also accentuates the idea that these few companies that own the media have gotten their fingers into the education system because teachers actually do prefer their students to pull facts about the world from these companies rather than independent websites because the companies have people that review the content before publishing it whereas the independents have no filter in place. To quote a graphic novel, soon to be made into a movie, “who watches the watchmen?” It makes you wonder…

I thought that the major media outlets’ coverage of the Presidential Inauguration served as a great example of how all these things can get jumbled up. Here we have our first African American president being sworn in so, naturally, nearly all the media outlets were all over it. Fox News, however, had an interesting way of covering it. They spent a lot of time watching what former President Bush was doing; even after he left Washington. This company touts fair and balanced coverage in an industry that has been accused of leaning too far to the left. Just because they’re different, doesn’t mean they’re balanced or better, but many people believe so. I guess it all depends on who you have filtering the content that decides what the public sees. It makes you wonder if you can really believe anything. I suppose we have to take “everything with a grain of salt, even this” as the video states.

Having taken multiple classes with Beach and O’Brien, I’m no stranger to their thoughts and opinions on media literacies. Perhaps that, alone, is reason enough to discount everything I say here (that, and I watch John Stewart religiously). I don’t think it’s an accident that these two are a writing and a reading expert respectively because it’s very hard to teach one without the other. It seems natural that in order to teach students to effectively analyze media we should also teach them how to express themselves using the same media we want them to analyze. How can someone have an understanding of something if they don’t understand how it works? Images, sounds, and text can be combined in different ways to achieve different ends even if the source material is identical. I’ve embedded a youtube video below that shows this in action using a State of the Union speech given by former President Bush. Although clearly done for entertainment, it mimics what happened to the girl in the media conglomerate video.

As many have already stated on their blogs, digital literacies are becoming more important as we continue to embrace technology in society. I think I only know one or two people that get their information from news broadcasts and/or newspapers anymore. Most find their information on websites, emails, and (rather surpisingly) twitter updates! If this really is where things are going, we need to do a better job at not only teaching our students how to dissect this information but also to create a profession in which this is all universally accepted as a viable way of teaching reading and writing. I don’t discount the “old school” way of doing things but rather argue that we need to add something to it. I grow weary of this all or nothing mindset some people grab onto when someone suggests a focus on digital literacies. It’s akin to calling a pro-choice person a “pro-abortion” person. Just because I support digital literacy instruction doesn’t mean I oppose traditional print instruction. It may be hard to believe, but we can do both. I know, I know, I’m naïve, right?