Digital Literacy> Digital Illiteracy

Reflecting on my own digital literacy I sometimes can be careless with sniffing out what is real and what is fake on the internet. Just last week I was on Facebook marketplace and there was a seller who posted a fairly nice sectional couch for a steal of a price of $150. They had an excellent write up describing the details of the couch along with a valid reason for selling it at such a great price, I though I struck gold! I was so happy. I sent them a message asking about the details of the couch and if I could come take a look, they sent me a real address in my neighbourhood and then when I sent a time to come look at the couch that is when everything went silent. They were super responsive until this. That’s when I got suspicious and thought maybe this deal was too good to be true. I googled facebook marketplace couch scam and sure enough it was a way of scamming people. I reported the account immediately afterwards. I know for me sometimes I send money prematurely on Facebook marketplace to make sure I get the item I want because sometimes there is a lot of interest in an item especially something at a great price like this couch. I am happy that I didn’t send money too quickly this time.

Improving our digital literacy is the best way to combat fake news and scammers alike. Being a teacher in training I think educating on digital literacy is a great area to focus on to help students understand the dangers of spreading false information or creating false information. Being able to critically think is a valuable skill for students to learn, the National council of Teachers of English thinks so too. They recognize that “Building and utilizing connections between people, ideas, and information provides opportunities for them to be critical consumers of information, builds agency in their own work, and prepares them for the global world beyond the classroom.”  In other words they see the value of exposing students to a variety of sources with different perspectives to give the students an opportunity to engage in critical thought. I think that’s what I would do in my future classroom to help promote literacy— expose my students to different perspectives to let them grow in literacy. I enjoyed the in class activity we did when we went to different sites to determine if the website was fake or real. I think these sorts of activities would be fun to teach in the class and would get a lot of engagement out of the students. I think it is much needed to promote literacy in the classroom with many different examples of fake news in our media channels today, especially on the internet!