3 Ways to Teach Media Literacy

Media literacy refers to 21st century learning competencies that enable students to analyze and evaluate information during research. Students create messages in a wide variety of media modes, formats, and genres and need to know how to access, analyze, evaluate, and create using all communication tools available to them. Being an informed digital citizen requires media literacy skills. It is important to encourage students to consider the following questions when accessing online information. What is the message? Who is the message for? What is the purpose of the message? Whose point of view is presented? Are credible sources linked? When was it published? What have I learned about the topic?

Teach students how search works.

Teaching students how to search online is a critical component toward becoming a strong digital citizen. There are many search engines, meta-search engines (a query that uses many search engines) and directories on the Internet, which can seem a little overwhelming.  Not all search engines populate or rank results tin the same manner. Encourage your students to utilize a variety of search engines. 

Kiddle is a search engine designed to afford elementary classrooms safe search results to include web, images, news, and video that "satisfy family-friendly and privacy" requirements. Search results populate with a larger easier to read font along with language tailored to students under the age of 10.

Partner with your Campus Librarian and Digital Learning Specialist. 

Your campus librarians and digital learning specialists are a great resource and can assist teachers toward selecting the best resource to fit a targeted need. Check out our elementary library resources to assist in preparing your students toward becoming media literate.

Encourage students to think like an author and create media.

When creating their own media, students should apply the same set of questions mentioned above to understand how others might view their message. When curating content, teach students to follow copyright and fair use guidelines and encourage the use of the creative commons meta search engine for curation purposes.