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Technical.ly Philly reporters Juliana Reyes and Thomas Creedon contributed to this report. The lines between digital literacy and adult education are blurring. Today at Congreso , the well-regarded North Philadelphia nonprofit that has served its Latino community for 40 years, digital literacy is part of just about every adult education course.

I'm not sure whether Steve wanted an article on information/media literacy in the sense of evaluating news content, but I've interpreted it here as multimedia literacy, or digital literacy in the information age. This article is just another example of the reason I wanted to take this course in the first place: these days, digital literacy is essential.

This article examines why media/digital literacy must be added to the common core standards to better prepare students for life in the 21st century. "While they (young people) may be media-savvy, we maintain that they are not necessarily media- or digital-literate. In order to be successful in the 21st century, students need to be both Information and Media Literate. In order to encourage schools to implement Information and Media Literacy in the curriculum, media/digital literacy should be added to common core standards. Assessments should be devised in which students are assessed using digital formats.

This article discusses a report published by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory and the Meteiri Group entitled "enGauge 21st Century Skills: Literacy in the Digital Age" . The brief outlines the skills needed to be successful in the 21st century, but also reinforces the fact that Digital Age literacy is grounded in the traditional 3R's.

This is a resource that explains that students who can only read text but not analyze, synthesize and utilize that information are still considered illiterate! The resource reviews a program that was put together called Digital Youth Network (DYN) and how this organization empowers young people with critical digital literacy skills that make them academically and professionally competitive.

use as example/resource for Digital Citizenship Project in Computer Literacy

This news article begins by pointing out that "online digital technology has empowered users in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago." Social media sites, for example, allow the average user to persuade and influence others on a global scale. The author argues that with this power comes the responsibility to apply a media literacy framework that will ensure that we are not perpetuating harmful media messages and ideas. The framework developed in 1987 by the Center for Media Literacy is still relevant in today's media landscape, and its five key concepts should serve as guidelines for all those currently engaged in online social networking.

This blog explains about the key concepts in social media and by reading this blog you understand Key Concepts explained further in this article. List of 5 key Concepts: All Media Messages Are "Constructed",Media Messages Shape Our Perceptions of Reality, Different Audience, Different Understanding of the Same Message,Media Messages Have Commercial Implications and Media Messages Embed Points of View

This article spells out the five key concepts of media literacy (created in 1987) in order to gain a critical understanding of social media. Now that we are creators and not just consumers of media we need to think more about what we are putting out there and the influence that has.

This article points out the significance and the approach to the digital writing in a dialogue style with Troy Hicks, an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University. He uses 'MAPS' heuristic -- mode (genre), media, audience, purpose, situation -- to help writers "intentionally" and "deliberately" think through composing digital texts. He also suggests teachers give themselves and students the opportunities and permission to play (and possibly fail) with the tools, as this can serve as a model of overcoming learning curves and digital writing process. This reminds me of the idea, 'dabble' with the tools, brought up by Jeff Utecht(2013).

This article, written by EDUDEMIC author, Jeff Dunn, offers 5 distinct reasons why schools need to move toward Digital Textbooks/ebooks as opposed to traditional paper books/texts. He begins by adding support to his stance by citing Ed Secretary, Arne Duncan's call to make "textbooks obsolete". Among Dunn's reasons and pertinent to our Media/Inform Literacy discussion are these ideas: Using digital texbooks or ebooks on line, allows for students to interact with the book. Some books have videos, highlighting/notetaking features, moveable models and interactive diagrams. In addition, such technological books are more immediate-they are simply accessed by the press of a button. Arne Duncan also remarked that the US is lagging behind other countries in converting to these computerized books. With states desiring a lead position in education in the US, and Obama's push (Connect Ed) campaign to have all schools connected (internet/computer/tech), this transition to Digital Text/ebooks seems a likely probability-and exciting one too. Though sitting back, especially in a beach chair, with a paper book still holds an appeal for me.

Great intro video clip to explain media literacy.  Covers lots of info and concerns.  The idea of "digital citizenship" and the believe that this must be taught at an early age.

This blog contains the first 3 steps (out of 7) for website evaluation.  The author is using letters to represent each step.  Thus far, he has A for author; B for bias; and C for currency.  Each step is explained and a poster is included for teachers to print and use in the classroom.  This is very important information for students in order to become responsible digital citizens.  Students need to think about who is writing, why they are writing, and when they are writing.  I am anxious to see what other steps the author will include.

Very useful resource for teaching information and digital literacy. The idea of A to G is brilliant and inspirational! I think the break-down steps of each aspect can be truly helpful for students to understand what exactly they're looking for in terms of author, bias, or currency (and soon more). For teachers, each aspect could be introduced and focused in each topic or project, and the posters can serve as visual prompt in classroom.

This article is about using Skype in the classroom for global education. I am categorizing it as media literacy because of the use of skype. Thousands of teachers are involved in a large variety of global educational projects. One of the partners in this program is NASA's Digital Learning center. Projects there are live so that students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for take off or for them to design something for the spacesuit. There are many other partners to this program.

This blog article has provided a wide range of tools for students from the elementary to the graduate research level. I think it's worth some time exploring the materials & tools suggested and find the ones that meet your purpose.

Google just recently released 10 classroom-ready lesson plans that teach students how to be responsible digital citizens and to protect themselves online. Lessons include information on media literacy and privacy.

This article discusses the disagreement between administrators and teachers regarding online safety taught at school.

Survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Microsoft revealed that students are not savvy in the area of being safe and ethical in cyberspace. Schools, teachers and administrators need to bridge the divide for students to not only be safe, but skillful digital information users.

Seeing as we "talked" a lot about blogging policy and digital ethics this week, I thought this was a perfect information literacy article.

Tips on how to avoid scams on facebook - written by Richard Byrne

This article talks about how companies use Web 2.0 media as an advertising agent, and how some of these are scams. Furthermore it suggests he Better Business Bureau as a tool to identify these scams. It relates to IML as students need to have the technological literacy to determine which posts are frauds and which are legitimate. Furthermore, the need to have the awareness and ability to check these scams out on a legitimate source

Great article providing a Better Business Bureau list of scam alerts which I found interesting. The article mentions Facebook in particular but I have faced these scams and schemes in emails and on other game sites. I don't trust these surveys either that are sent through emails where they promise you to enter you into a prize drawing etc. So many scams- its good to know there's someone trying to do something about it by making the public aware of these scams. Also teachings students how to use the Internet safely should be part of the curriculum and also digital citizenship. We need to make our students responsible internet users and contributors.

This blog emphasizes the importance of stressing being a "good citizen" when using the Internet with our students. A week was spent with the following learning objective: "A renewed focus on the choices we make and how they affect us, specifically about balance, responsibility and safety." Each day time was spent on some aspect of this objective. As a culminating activity, students were invited to an assembly where the theme was " Digital Citizenship mean..... to me" Students were able to share what they learned throughout the week.

Michele I had read this article when reviewing them for our assignment. It was great to see all of the topics touched upon, especially about balancing on and off line activities. Love that they stressed being a good digital citizen just as we stress being a good citizen in general. I think we forget to stress some of these points with our students and that they are important in our online life even outside of school. The kids and adults alike.

This article covers the challenges and opportunities of code switching in digital spaces, at home and at school with students today. At the end of the article, the writer provides some classroom strategies to help students adapt in this 'code switching'. One suggestion is the use of a tool called TodaysMeet (http://todaysmeet.com/about), which seemed like an interesting concept.

This site looks at information literacy and looks at the 5 different "minds". They relate them to ethical, disciplined, synthesizing, creative and respectful minds when talking about students using web 2.0 applications.

Interesting article that discusses how our brains change when using Web technologies. The term "partial attention" is explained as "a state of constantly scanning for information." Insightful description of how our world has changed significantly now that technology is here to stay.

This article from eLearn Magazine discusses how neuropsyhcologists are studying the effects of using new media and Web 2.0 tools on our brains. Their results show both positive and negative findings. Some of the benefits include certain areas of the brain being worked harder and making strong neural connections allowing us to process and evaluate large amounts of information quickly. A downside is that we are not retaining information for extended periods of time and we are losing the ability to communicate with feeling because we are not always in face-to-face contact with others. The article also discusses Psychologist Howard Gardner's "Five Minds of 2.0 Learners." These are higher order thinking skills he believes individuals need in order to be successful in the digital world. These include disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical minds. This is an interesting read and could start a great classroom discussion about technology use with your students.

digital natives- can we keep up?

Ensure quality of information by teaching retrieval practices that include alternative sources as well as Google. Using workshops and presentations is important, as it takes time for students to recognize the most valuable and up-to-date content.