Information and Media Literacy

Information literacy is the ability to read and decode information to understand the concept.  In a traditional classroom, this equates to the ability to read a textbook or a handout and understand the concept being taught.  However, since most of the educational world has shifted to using digital tools, the ability to read and understand information has changed due to media literacy.  Media literacy is the ability to understand content in the context of some type of digital platform.  Learners are exposed to different digital tools which act as either an online classroom or interactive activities.  Even though the content is available and ready to be absorbed by the learner, the learner still needs to be able to sift through the digital platform.  For example, if it takes the learner too many clicks to get to the information, they may not even get to the content they are intended to learn.  If the instructor makes it easier to directly access the content, the learner has a better chance of obtaining the information.  According to Suwarto et al. (2022), the protectionist approach is allowing students to use media in a way that has been initially taught to the students.  The students use a specific site to search for information or to access content.  This gives the students the ability to use media in a predetermined and hopefully safe way.  I think that my district has helped to keep students safe in their media usage by blocking or not allowing certain access to specific sites.