Have You Mastered The New Media Literacies?

The New Media Literacies Video

Media literacy is an evolving concept, but never more so than now, when we are no longer passive recipients of media messages.

Nowadays, we’re both consumers and producers of social media, and our children are often at the forefront of technological advances. 

My Son, The Social Media Producer

For example, just today, my son decided to protest the injustice of having to do chores on weekends.  He’s lobbying for work-free Saturdays and Sundays. 

Although he posted a sign on the front yard, he soon realized the futility of a banner posted in a sparse neighborhood.  Looking for a wider audience to support his cause, he’s working on taking his message online.

Right now, he’s crafting a slogan to add to the campaign that he’s planning to launch on his blog.

Nine-years-old, and already, he is developing the new social skills – community involvement based on collaboration and networking – necessary to thrive in the 21st Century.

Promoting Media Literacy

Project New Media Literacies (NML), a research initiative based within MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, is gathering researchers and teachers on the New Media Literacy Community Site to share:

…how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world.

I hope to see parents entering this discussion.  We are all either full-time or part-time homeschool educators.  Some of us are incredibly tech-savvy, and some are just now discovering the Internet.  Regardless, digital media is a fast moving industry, seemingly changing with each breath. 

Developing necessary media literacy skills is something that we can, and should, do together with our children.

NML has published a white paper, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century that I plan to revisit as it presents important concepts that I believe merit more discussion and analysis.

Discussing Media Literacy

Please consider reading this and discussing it with me as I tackle individual elements, but keep in mind the concerns posed in this essay’s conclusion:

• How do we ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, [Creative] and economic life?
• How do we guarantee that the rich opportunities afforded by the expanding media landscape are available to all?
• What can we do through schools, afterschool programs, and the home to give our youngest children a head start and allow our more mature youth the chance to develop and grow as effective participants and ethical communicators?

Are you and/or your children producers of social media?  If you’ve chatted on IM, posted on Facebook, shared Snapfish albums, then you’ve produced social media.  Anytime you share text, images, audio, or video online, you are a producer of social media. 

What kind of social media have you, or your children, produced?  Do you and your children collaborate on social media projects, or not?  Tell me, how is your family an online producer or consumer?  And, have you mastered the new media literacies?

Personal Disclaimer: I will admit right now that I have NOT mastered the new media literacies, but I’m getting on-the-job training.  I’d welcome your company on this learning journey!

Want more from On Living By Learning?

Follow me On Twitter or Facebook.

Sign up to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by Email. (Click this link. Fill out the form. Don’t forget to click on your verification Email. Look for this in your mailbox.) You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.

Tagged as: Digital Learning, Education K-12, media literacy, social media, Technology