A version of this article appeared on ISTE's Digital Citizenship blog in March!
The reason our instruction isn't making an impact when it comes to media literacy and digital citizenship is because we're teaching skills in a lab with artificial conditions. There's a big difference in showing something to a student and saying, "Is this a good source?" or "Should you post this?" and actually having students regularly think like that in their own digital networks. The key to making this happen is to build our instruction around student interests.
Schools that have built curriculum around media literacy and digital citizenship are ahead of the curve; they're doing essential work for the next generation and should continue to do so. But that instruction will not make a significant impact outside the classroom until we mentor our students online in their spaces and allow them to pursue their interests. This will hook students as we build practical instruction with real-world application. Only then will media literacy and digital citizenship instruction truly be internalized and lived by our students. Finally, with anything we teach, we have to practice what we preach; we have to model and show what it means to be a media literate, digital citizen.
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Of course, we should graduate students trained to resist digital distraction and addiction, reject propaganda and misinformation, stand against cyberbullying, and avoid oversharing personal data. But ascribing a bunch of negatives to technology will turn our students off; they'll figure adults don't "get it" and move on. Instead we should frame our instruction around positives. We have to want to listen as much as we want to teach. So let's discuss, together, the power of technology as well as the agency we have as learners (aka media consumers) and teachers (aka media producers) in the digital world. Let's teach students to navigate that space as skeptical and discerning critical thinkers who seek evidence and understand bias. Let's empower a generation of informed, responsive, digital citizens.
2) Beyond Just Skills
Currently, educators are teaching media literacy and digital citizenship skills in the classroom; we should also be cultivating a state of mind beyond the classroom. Misinformation/propaganda, bullying/trolling, and addiction lurks everywhere online. Taking an example offline, like a piece of fake news or an example of bullying, for a class--while good--won't resonate with our students. Teaching skills on how to fact check, or how to be an upstander in a classroom--while good--will not ensure students use these skills when they get online. That's because most students will assume that these negatives happen elsewhere, not in their networks, and they'll associate the skills taught with school assignments and schoolwork and won't use them elsewhere.Therefore, in order to solve these problems we need to work in spaces and networks where our students live, and we need to create in our students a state of mind and a series of meaningful experiences (built off the positive terminology, employing media literacy and digital citizenship skills).
3) Beyond Just Teaching
Talented teachers know that two successful techniques to solicit engagement and learning in the classroom is to personalize (or differentiate) the instruction and assignments and imbue them with "real-world" application. The best tech tool to achieve these goals is social media. Consider: Our students choose something they love, then follow experts and organizations on social media that produce quality content related to that interest. They use that account to learn, curate, collaborate/network and eventually to contribute to this information network. If every student built a strong enough network of quality feeds, we wouldn't need to worry so much about media literacy and digital citizenship because that would become second nature in this network of professionals. While this practice requires creating a new social media account that's focused on an interest, the lessons learned in that space will bleed into a student's social space, and that impact will be multiplied as we hook more students.
For example, a student that loves math and is interested data analytics should follow influential organizations and thinkers on Twitter, like: FiveThirtyEight, Data & Society, Pew, IBM analytics, Vala Afshar, Max Roser, Nathan Yau, and Randy Olsen. A student interested in film should learn from YouTube accounts like: SundanceTV, FilmBuff, Every Frame a Painting, Chris Stuckmann, Alice Malone, and Jeremy Jahns. And a photography student will find inspiration through Instagram accounts like: US Interior, Elena Kalis, Vadim Makhorov, Simone Bramante, Joshua Lott, and Humza Deas.
Of course, a student can't build this network on his or her own. We as educators need to move beyond someone who teaches media literacy and digital citizenship skills, to a mentor that helps students live those skills in their spaces. A mentor helps students discover their passions and then makes some suggestions about where to start learning about those passions. From there, students begins to build their learning networks. Next, a mentor helps students understand the professional landscape around their passions by encouraging them to interact with leading thinkers and practitioners in their areas of interest. If we get this right, our students will get online to learn about their passions and to connect with professionals around the globe. Not only will this learning help with career readiness, but it will also help improve the learning in our classrooms because students will be more informed about areas of interest to them.
Finally, we as educators have to practice what we preach. If we want our students to use their time online more meaningfully, learning and collaborating with professionals about interests they care about, we need to do the same thing. And we have to share that with our students.
It's no secret that schools are struggling to teach media literacy and digital citizenship in an already crowded curriculum. We aren't going to make a difference if all we're doing is penalizing students for poor sources on essays or discipling students for inappropriate posts online. We also won't succeed by just adding an "info lit" or "digital lit" class for one semester. We have to 1) embrace the positives associated with social media 2) help students engage in a different mindset, and 3) mentor students in their space. All of this begins with allowing students to follow a genuine passion online in their space. Because only when our student experience what it's like to be a media literate digital citizen and live its benefits, will we truly have taught the skills we need to teach this next generation.
