October 24-28 this year is Media Literacy Week, created to highlight the importance of educating young people and the public about digital media literacy. This topic is vital especially in a democracy, where citizens need to be educated for intelligent civic participation, and is closely connected to information literacy education, a priority in General Education at Castleton.
The organizations promoting Media Literacy Week provide lots of resources for learning more about techniques for critical consumption of media, and for teaching media literacy. Take a look at United States Media Literacy Week from the National Association of Media Literacy Education, Media Smarts from Canada, and MediaWise from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
The library has a book exhibit up right now featuring related books. You can peruse the list of books included here. You can also see a plethora of resources on a guide created by your CU librarians, News Literacy: Resources for Citizens, Students and Educators
The Soundings program included a presentation this week, “Sorting the News from the Chaff” by Professor Mark Timney from Keene State College.
For students reading this: Do you feel that your K-12 education included enough content on media literacy? Click here to rate your education and share some thoughts.
Media Smarts Canada offers presentation slides and other materials on ways to tell if something is true online. Below is a poster they created, with the four basic steps they emphasize and teach students how to do in their lessons.
With all the resources available and the importance of these skills to us as individuals and as a society–we can all make a difference by gaining in media literacy skills!
