LESSON 12: CYBER/DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS

At end of the lesson the students will be able to:

* Examine the ethical considerations of using digital media
* Demonstrate skills in the positive use of ICT
* Evaluate cyber threats, cases and media

Introduction:

In the twenty-first century, literacy skills increasingly reflect technology use and
the abilities necessary to problem-solve, collaborate, and present information through
multimedia (Pilgrim, 2013).

Digital literacy involves more than the mere ability to use software or operate a
digital device; it includes a large variety of complex cognitive, motor, sociological, and
emotional skills, which users need in order to function effectively in digital
environments. The tasks required in this context include, for example, “reading”
instructions from graphical displays in user interfaces; using digital reproduction to
create new, meaningful materials from existing ones; constructing knowledge from a
nonlinear, hypertextual navigation;evaluating the quality and validity of information;
and have amature and realistic understanding of the “rules” that prevail in the
cyberspace (Eshet-Alkalai, 2004).

However, it is the so-called old literaciess that will serve us just as faithfully in the
new contexts we find ourselves today as they have done in the past. To begin our
investigation, we must first understand the relationship between Media Literacy and
Cyber/Digital Literacy (Alata, et al, 2020).

Preliminary Questions:
* How does media affect the lives of people nowadays?
* Is it necessary to be digitally literate? Why?

I. CAPTIVATE

* Watch the video clip https://youtu.be/8o96ey4jCgE.

* How does media constantly transforming the way we live, learn, and interact with
each other?
 II. CONNECT

A. MEDIA LITERACY ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and CREATE

messages across a variety of contexts” (USA's 1992 National Leadership Conference
on Media Literacy as cited by Christ & Potter, 1998) .

In its simplest terms, media literacy builds upon the foundation of traditional
literacy and offers new forms of reading and writing. Media literacy empowers people
to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators and active citizens
(https://namle.net/publications/media-literacy-definitions/).

The term “media literacy” is often used interchangeably with other terms related
to media and media technologies. To clarify the meaning of media literacy,
NAMLE offers these definitions:

o Media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to
transmit messages.
o Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and to synthesize and
analyze messages.
o Media literacy is the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via
media and the ability to synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages.
o Media education is the study of media, including ‘hands on’ experiences and
media production.
o Media literacy education is the educational field dedicated to teaching the skills
associated with media literacy.

Digital Literacy is the awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to

appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate,
evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge,
create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific
life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this
process. (Martin, 2006)

1. To guide your exploration of the media that surround you, the Center for
Media Literacy developed these five core concepts
(https://yali.state.gov/media-literacy-five-core-concepts/):

a. All media messages are constructed.

b. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own
rules.
c. Different people experience the same media message differently.
d. Media have embedded values and points of view.
e. Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.

By considering the core concepts behind every media message, you equip
yourself with an ability to analyze and interpret a message — and to accept or
reject its legitimacy.
 2. Challenges to Media Literacy Education

a. The school and the family share the responsibility of preparing the young
person for living in a world of powerful images, words and sounds. Children and
adults need to be literate in all three of these symbolic systems, and this will
require some reassessment of educational priorities
(https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/challenge-media-education-grunwald-
document).
b. Competent authorities must:

* Initiate and support comprehensive media education programs -

from pre-school to university level, and in adult education
* Develop training courses for teachers and intermediaries both to
increase their knowledge and understanding of the media and train
them in appropriate teaching methods, which would take into
account the already considerable but fragmented acquaintance with
media already possessed by many students.
* Stimulate research and development activities for the benefit of media
education, from such domains as psychology, sociology, and
communication science.
c. Livingstone and van der Graaf, (2011).
* One challenge is then how to reach people, to promote media literacy
underpinning the skills andknowledge for a flexible, engaged,
participatory and competitive society, especially for adults no longer
in the formal education system.
* Another challenge is how to measure media literacy and evaluate the
success of media literacy initiatives.

B. DIGITAL LITERACY the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound, images),
to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and
apply new knowledge gained from digital environments” (Jones-Kavalier &
Flannigan,2008).

1. Seven dimensions of literacy can be identified:

a. Tool literacy, or the ability to understand and use the practical and
conceptual tools of current information technology, including software, hardware
and multimedia, that are relevant to education and the areas of work and
professional life that the individual expects to inhabit.
b. Resource literacy, or the ability to understand the form, format, location and
access methods of information resources, especially daily expanding networked
information resources.
c. Social-structural literacy, or knowing that and how information is socially
situated and produced.
d. Research literacy, or the ability to understand and use the IT-based tools
relevant to the work of today's researcher and scholar.
e. Publishing literacy, or the ability to format and publish research and ideas
electronically, in textual and multimedia forms (including via World Wide Web,
electronic mail and distribution lists, and CD-ROMs), to introduce them into the
electronic public realm and the electronic community of scholars.
f. Emerging technology literacy, or the ability to ongoingly adapt to,
understand, evaluate and make use of the continually emerging innovations in
information technology so as not to be a prisoner of prior tools and resources.
g. Critical literacy, or the ability to evaluate critically the intellectual, human
and social strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limits, benefits and costs of
information technologies.
 2. Bawden (2008) as cited by Tang and Chaw (2016) explains that the
CONCEPT OF DIGITAL LITERACY is very broad and can include very
specific skills and competencies to general awareness and perspectives. He
distinguishes four components of digital literacy:
(a) underpinnings ‐ the ability to read and write as well as to use
software packages and computers;
(b) background knowledge ‐ an understanding of how digital and non‐digital
information is created from various forms of
resources and communicated;
(c) central competencies ‐ the ability to assemble knowledge from
multiple sources; and
(d) attitudes and perspectives ‐ the ability to learn independently as well as
to exhibit good behaviour in a digital
environment

3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK for the CONCEPTS of DIGITAL LITERACY

Eshet-Alkalai (2004) proposes a new Conceptual Framework for the

Concept of Digital Literacy, incorporating five types of literacy:
(a) photo-visual literacy;
(b) reproduction literacy;
(c) information literacy;
(d) branching literacy; and
(e) socio-emotional literacy.

Development of a more clear-cut conceptual framework may improve the

understanding of the skills encompassed by the term “digital literacy,”and provide
designers of digital environments with more precise guidelines for effective
planning of learner-oriented digital work environments (Hamburger, 2002).

Review of the literature and observation of users at work, as well as many

years of experience in planning digital environments for children and adults, in
both industry and academia, indicates that these types of digital literacy
encompass most of the cognitive skills applied when using digital environments.
Accordingly, this conceptual framework may enhance the understanding of how
users perform with tasks that require the utilization of different types of digital skills
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250721430_Digital_Literacy_A_Conceptua
l_Framework_for_Survival_Skills_in_the_Digital_Era).

4. DIGITAL LEARNERS
Rapetti and Cantoni (2010) coined a new term “Learners of Digital Era” (LoDE)
and suggest that age is not the sole factor to be considered. The LoDE perspective
is summarized by the following four facets:

• The focus is on persons, so the first word refers to them.

• The perspective is anthropological-pedagogical, so the chosen word is
“learning”.
• Not only young people learn through ICTs in the Knowledge Society.
• The lesson learnt from the “Digital Natives” label: the pervasion of digital
technologies in everyday life has a great impact on learning experiences, but
we should refuse to apply the “digital” adjective to people and imply
generational divides.
 Furthermore, Rapetti and Cantoni (2010) formulated the following Characteristics
of the “Digital Learner”.

a) focuses on “learners” rather than “persons”, who should realize the possibilities
and potentials
of digital technologies in their environments and recognize the value of
technology and the opportunity it presents the learner in his/her daily life;
b) argues that learners are not merely users or consumers of technology;
c) highlights the complexities of learner’s technology experiences;
d) rejects the generational boundary and any chronological generations that
exclude other types of actors who share similar practices (accept all learners);
e) does not assume any pre-defined learner characteristics; and
f) adopts a socio-cultural, anthropological, communicational and pedagogical
approach from the learners’ perspective.

5. CHALLENGES to DIGITAL LITERACY EDUCATION

https://www.slideshare.net/ftsaez/the-challeges-of-digital-education-nowadays

6. PRINCIPLES OF MEDIA LITERACY

https://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/default/files/AMLA-Core-Princ-MLE_0.pdf
a. Media Literacy Education requires active inquiry and critical thinking about
the messages we receive and create.
b. Media Literacy Education expands the concept of literacy to include all
forms of media (i.e., reading and writing).
c. Media Literacy Education builds and reinforces skills for learners of all ages.
Like print literacy, those skills necessitate integrated, interactive, and
repeated practice.
d. Media Literacy Education develops informed, reflective and engaged
participants essential for a democratic society.
e. Media Literacy Education recognizes that media are a part of culture and
function as agents of socialization.
f. Media Literacy Education affirms that people use their individual skills,
beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media
messages.

III. COLLABORATE

Ponder on these questions. Then, share your points of view or expertise with
your classmates via Zoom or Googlemeet.

1. Do I know how to write and send e-mails; create documents and simple
spreadsheeets, use a web browser, and make sense of the search result returned by
the search engine?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

2. Do I know how to find reliable and factual information on a given topic? Do I

know how to evaluate if a particular information source if factual/true of trustworthy?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
 3. Do I have the ability to understand videoclips, vlogs, online advertisements,
and even animations and the like?

IV. CREATE

Answer the following questions concisely in three sentences only.

1. Can you explain to a classmate how Media Literacy and Digital Literacy are
related? Present your ideas in a Two-Circle Venn. Click the link
https://graphicorganizer.net/.

2. Choose a topic of your own preference. Look for a video clip that best supports the
significant details of the topic.
a. Attach the link
b. Critique the video based on the following:
* What is the message?
_____________________________________________________________
* What are the values have you clarified?
____________________________________________________________
* What persona experiences can you relate?
_____________________________________________________________
* How does it impact your way of life?
_____________________________________________________________

V. ASSIGNMENT

* Watch a TED Talk online on a topic that is completely new to you. Create a
mind map of the speakers’ lecture, using only what you have understood from the
video. Then, ask yourself the following questions:
a. How many times do I have to watch the video? Why?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

b. Can I summarize the speaker’s lecture in a paragraph of written text? Why?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
c. At any point in the lecture, did the speaker say anything that made me doubt
the trustworthiness of what s/he said?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
REFERENCES:

1) Alata, Elen Joy & Ignacio, Elgen John (2020). Building & Enhancing New
Literacies Across the Curriculum. Cubao, Quezon City: Lorimar Publishing, Inc.

2) Bhatt, Rajeshkumar I, (2017). Challenges of digital literacy in higher education.

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, Volume 4;
Issue 4; April 2017; Page No. 324-325. Online ISSN: 2349-4182, Print ISSN: 2349-
5979.

3) Koltay, Tibor (2011).

https://www.academia.edu/3344639/The_media_and_the_literacies_media_literacy_i
nformation_literacy_digital_literacy

4) Livingstone, Sonia and Shenja van der Graaf (2010).

https://www.academia.edu/283818/Media_Literacy

5) Sáez, Fernando Trujillo. The challenges of digital education nowadays.

https://www.slideshare.net/ftsaez/the-challeges-of-digital-education-nowadays

6) https://teaching.uncc.edu/sites/teaching.uncc.edu/files/media/article-
books/InformationLiteracy.pdf

7)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318508429_Digital_Literacy_for_the_21st_Cent
ury