Digital literacy is defined as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”
How digital literacy helps to combat fake news?
Digital literacy helps combat fake news by promoting critical thinking in what we see and hear on the internet. What this means is having the ability to evaluate sources, have the ability to fact check, and seeing bias. The ability to evaluate sources is crucial for all people to have in today’s day and age. This allows people to determine what type of media they are reading. I’m a big sports fan and an example that I can think of is real vs. fake insiders. There are people that create a page just to tell lies to try and trick people into believing something happened (like a trade). The ability for people to evaluate the source is very important. This was just a surface level example. When you consider that people can spread fake news it is very important that everyone has the ability to evaluate the source. This leads into fact-checking and the tools available for people to use. We talk about how AI is able to create images, if people think those images are real it can have a huge consequence depending on what the image shows. Lastly, seeing bias is also a crucial skill for people to have. For example, when looking at a blog which is a more personal form of media there is bound to see bias. People can add one topic which supports their opinion but leave out a topic that doesn’t support their opinion.
How can this tie to the curriculum and Teaching?
The big thing that I think of when tying digital literacy to the Saskatchewan Curriculum is the overall goal throughout school to build critical thinkers. Digital literacy is exactly that when observing and interacting with all forms of media. I would also add the overall subjects of social studies and health. I think that when looking at the Power and Authority part of the curriculum you can bring in sources into the lessons that students can use their digital literacy. The same goes for health in the Understanding, Skills, and Confidence section of the curriculum. Online sources have a huge influence on today’s youth so having the skills of Digital Literacy would benefit all young people’s mental health.
How I can incorporate the goals of the NCTE framework?
I think one way that I can incorporate the goals of the NCTE is to allow the students to use a variety of media in which they can build skills of digital literacy to enhance their own school work. This will take a lot of work to allow the students to be prepared enough to handle such tasks so I believe as an educator I need to explicitly teach the skills and strategies needed. I also feel as though we (educators) need to model this for our students then allow them to join in once ready. We do these practices for all subjects, like math and literacy. This is how students learn and we can’t expect them to just figure it out.