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NCSS Position Statement on Media Literacy Media Literacy A Position Statement of National Council for the Social Studies © 2009 National Council for the Social Studies. All rights reserved This position statement was prepared by a task force of the Technology Community of National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and was approved by the NCSS Board of Directors in February 2009. "In the twenty-first century, participatory media education and civic education are inextricable" (Rheingold, 2008, p. 103) This position statement focuses on the critical role of media literacy in the social studies curriculum. The statement addresses the following questions. First, why and how has media literacy taken on a significantly more important role in preparing citizens for democratic life? Second, how is media literacy defined, and what are some of its essential concepts? Finally, what is required to teach media literacy and what are some examples of classroom activities?

* About Netskills * Staff * History * News & Publicity * Projects o Past Projects * Clients * Contact * This Web Site Teaching Information Skills: Materials for Secondary Schools The need to equip the 'Google generation' with effective information literacy skills was highlighted recently in a report by JISC and the British Library. These materials provide guidance to staff in schools about teaching information literacy, as well as including a selection of activities which can be used with pupils. The materials have been produced as part of a project funded by Eduserv's Information Literacy Initiative and delivered by Helen Blanchett from Netskills. The information literacy activities for use with pupils were developed by Pauline Roberts, school librarian at Longbenton Community College.

"Today I have come to the pre-event for #altc2010, 'Learning Literacies in a Digital Age' (note not 'Digital Literacy'), and have had a really interesting afternoon thinking about the challenges that face us in HE in giving graduates key digital skills."

"Top 10 Sites for Digital Storytelling Digital Storytelling is the practice of telling stories w/ computer tools. Wikipedia explains teachers use digital storytelling for several reasons such as,"1) to incorporate multimedia into their curriculum and 2) Teachers can also introduce storytelling in combination with social networking in order to increase global participation, collaboration, and communication skills. Moreover, digital storytelling is a way to incorporate and teach the twenty-first century student the twenty-first century technology skills such as information literacy, visual literacy, global awareness, communication and technology literacy.""

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it) Post-Oprah and apres-Ashton, Twittermania is definitely sliding down the backlash slope of the hype cycle. It's not just the predictable wave of naysaying after the predictable waves of sliced-breadism and bandwagon-chasing. We're beginning to see some data. Nielsen, the same people who do TV ratings, recently noted that more than 60% of new Twitter users fail to return the following month. To me, this represents a perfect example of a media literacy issue: Twitter is one of a growing breed of part-technological, part-social communication media that require some skills to use productively. Sure, Twitter is banal and trivial, full of self-promotion and outright spam. So is the Internet. The difference between seeing Twitter as a waste of time or as a powerful new community amplifier depends entirely on how you look at it - on knowing how to look at it. When I started requiring digital journalism students to learn how to use Twitter, I didn't have the list of journalistic uses for Twitter that I have compiled by now. So I logged onto the service and broadcast a request. "I have a classroom full of graduate students in journalism who don't know who to follow. Does anybody have a suggestion?" Within ten minutes, we had a list of journalists to follow, including one who was boarding Air Force One at that moment, joining the White House press corps accompanying the President to Africa.

"My suggested assumptions in MOOC include: * people would learn in a self-directed manner * Knowledge is distributed * Knowledge is negotiated * Knowledge is emergent * Knowledge is rhizomatic (thanks to Dave's video posted - refer to How to be successful in MOOC?) * Learning is capacity to construct, navigate and traverse across networks * personal learning networks would be a far better way for people to learn * people like to learn via social networks * people know how to connect (people have the communication, literacy and critical literacy skills) * people know how to use the technology to connect * people are self motivated (intrinsic motivation) * people like to accept challenges, chaos and complexity is just part of the learning process * people don't need to follow a course or qualification for learning to be effective * Learning is emergent, and is based on connections, engagement and interactions * Learning is open * Identity in networked learning is based on individual's "participation, interaction" in the networks, and is reflective of ones involvement in the media, it's dynamic, adaptive * Individual and social learning is emphasised - cooperation * Sensemaking and wayfinding are important"

"Howard Rheingold There are a lot of voices talking about social media today, but Howard Rheingold defined the field before it existed. A noted author and commentator, Rheingold has a proven record of accurate technology and social forecasting, over two decades of syndicated columns, best-selling books, and pioneering online enterprises. His latest research and forthcoming book focuses on 21st century literacies -- how individuals and organizations learn to use digital media effectively and credibly. He coined the term "virtual community" in 1987 An acknowledged authority on the marriage of mobile phone, PC, and wireless internet, Rheingold's previous work reveals how this convergence has changed the way we meet, mate, entertain, govern, and conduct business. His book Smart Mobs, named one of the Big Ideas books of 2002 by The New York Times, chronicles the new forms of collective action and cooperation made possible by mobile communications, pervasive computing, and the Internet. Rheingold is the recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Knowledge-Networking Grant through the Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Competition. He was founding Executive Editor of Hotwired, the first commercial webzine where the web-based discussion forum and the online banner ad were invented. Rheingold has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, ABC Primetime Live, CNN, CBS News, NBC News, Macneill-Lehrer Report, NPRs Fresh Air and Marketplace. He currently teaches at Stanford University. To learn more about Howard, please visit his web site at http://www.rheingold.com."

After exam boards have been conducted, letters signed and mailed to students, external examiners thanked and supplementary assessments created, there is a moment - a fracture in time - where academics breathe, reflect and consolidate. Before writing courses for the September start, I take a week to think about the semesters that have passed. I review my teaching journal, think about student reviews and locate the literature that has emerged in the past few months while I've been buried in marking, moderating and examining. This year has been special. All my students - from first year through to doctoral candidates - have been engaged, challenging and provocative. They have big personalities, work hard and care about both personal success and wider social justice. There was Alex who saw every concept, from postFordism through to information literacy, through the gauze of Lady Gaga. Toby never knew how extraordinary he was until the final seminar of his first year when fellow students burst into spontaneous applause in response to one of his comments. Aimee thought deeply, read widely and arrived 30 minutes before each lecture to make sure she did not miss it. Sophie discovered Google Scholar early in the course and proceeded to give her colleagues updates of the conference papers she had read during the week.

Knowledge Work Types : eLearning Technology Several people have asked for some clarification on my definition of Concept Work and Concept Workers. To help clarify this and to begin thinking through implications for Work Literacy Skills, I went back through a couple of different sources. Thomas Davenport classifies Knowledge Work Types in Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances And Results from Knowledge Workers using a variety of classifications. One was based on the complexity of the work. Work that requires greater interpretation/judgment vs. work that is relatively routine. He also classified these according to the level of dependence on others. Within that he then defined the following types of knowledge workers: * Transaction Worker - Routine, individual, ex. call center. * Integration Worker - Routine, collaborative, ex. systems development * Expert Worker - Interpretation/judgment, individual, ex. family physician * Collaboration Worker - Interpretation/judgment, collaborative, ex. investment banker

October 29, 2008 The New Educational Reality: Part 1 What do you get when you combine a meatball sundae, home/school communication, brand management, the long tail, the New York Times best sellers list, Google, homework, outsourcing, and the definitions of literacy? Let's put them in the Education Innovation blender and find out.

Threshold Magazine Spring 2009 This issue of Threshold: Exploring the Future of Education features articles focused on learning in a participatory culture, produced in partnership with MIT Project New Media Literacies.

OpenZine is a publishing platform with web browser based tools that provides an easy way for anyone to make their own magazine, for free. The best way to describe what OpenZine provides is by understanding how magazines work. Magazines have a staff of writers, photographers, designers, illustrators and editors that create & contribute. Here at OpenZine you create & contribute on those same principles but your resources are other OpenZine users! To preserving the design experience of print we've created amazingly powerful one click layouts. You can even change them as you go! Create your magazine cover online with the OhhZee Image Editor. In just a few clicks, you can add shapes, text and effects the OhhZee way!

"The Freire Project is dedicated to building an international critical community which works to promote social justice in a variety of cultural contexts. We are committed to conducting and sharing critical research in social, political, and educational locations."

The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge - the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part - the part a machine can do. The real difficulty kicks in when you click down into your search results. At that point, it's up to you to sort the accurate bits from the misinfo, disinfo, spam, scams, urban legends, and hoaxes. "Crap detection," as Hemingway called it half a century ago, is more important than ever before, now that the automation of crapcasting has generated its own word: "spamming."

"Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1 By Tony Bates, on October 10th, 2009 Is e-learning failing in higher education? In previous blogs, I have discussed whether e-learning is failing in higher education. To answer the question, I have examined the expectations or goals for e-learning, and whether they are being achieved. Finally, I come to the last goal or expectation: that e-learning will increase the cost-effectiveness of higher education. I will argue that this is the most important and valuable of all the goals for e-learning, but is the one that is furthest from being achieved."

Tony Bates reckons these ideas won't 'sell' in most conventional universities... "which is why I think we need new universities that start from scratch"... I'm wondering what he actually *means* by 'start from scratch'...?! There's some interesting comments accompanying this post about what role 'traditional universities' will take in the future. George Siemens brings us back to earth a bit with his comments on Tony's vision... http://news.te-wu.eu/media-literacy-making-sense-of-new-technologies-and-media-by-george-siemens-oct-17-09-209/ I think it's great to have a vision, but we all need to identify what we personally - and others - need to do to make parts of that vision real, and go ahead and do it.