Assessment and digital media literacy can be overwhelming when first mentioned. How do we use this way of differentiating instruction for an age of technology to evaluate our teaching and evaluate the skills that students are learning? Assessment is data collection, it requires teachers to use standards and identify markers of success  on those standards. The school I currently work at assesses students using a standards-based grading system that is on a 1-4 scale. When students receive a four on an assessment it means that they went above and beyond on their assessment and that they exceeded expectations and displayed an exemplary level of proficiency. When students receive a three on an assessment it means that they met the expectations for the assessment and that they displayed proficiency on the standards that they were assessed on. When students receive a two on an assessment it means that they were approaching the expectations and displayed basic proficiency on the given standard. When students receive a one on an assessment it means that they have displayed limited proficiency on the standard assessed and are in need of significant support. Using this grading system has made it easier to be clear and transparent about what work production looks like within each score.

When it comes to assessing students on their digital literacy, things can become a bit more complex. For example, having to grade students on the quality of the videos they make as a presentation can be difficult because what is said in the video needs to be paid attention to, how the information is presented, and the amount of effort could be considered subjective. It is really important that teachers are clear about how they are going to assess their students and how they will be graded. Students then have the autonomy to perform in a unique way while also hitting markers of success. Although it can be more comfortable and easier to assess a student’s writing rather than a video they create it is important that we get out of our comfort zone to give students opportunities to show their knowledge in these different ways. After all, they are immersed in technology and there is no reason they shouldn’t be while they learn important skills. Learning these skills and engaging with technology can happen simultaneously, we just have to venture to try and adapt to a new way of grading. Jonathan Ostenson provides empathy for the anxiety that comes from assessing students digitally in his English classroom through his article Connecting Assessment and Instruction to Help Students Become More Critical Producers of Multimedia. He states;

“While I feel competent assessing a traditional piece of writing, by moving my students into composing with different media, I have also moved out of my own assessment comfort zone” (Ostenson 2012).

The four point grading scale lends itself for teachers to readily grade students on their efforts rather than the quality of the assessment. This is another tricky area with digital media products, which Ostenson brings up in his article as well;

“What I often did when evaluating these digital projects was to give a grade that probably did more to reward students for their effort rather than to evaluate the quality of what they had done” (Ostenson 2012).

He does offer solutions which derive from questions teachers can use and ask students about purpose and audience.

“DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl, and Hicks (2010) suggest two questions that we can use in assessing students’ digital writing in this way: ‘Does the piece achieve its intended purpose?” and “Does it resonate with an audience?’(106)”  (Ostenson 2012).

Using audience and purpose to guide the way that we create rubrics can make the process of assessing students easier. It assists students in their thought processes and makes it clear what kind of objective they should have for their assessment product. Using focal points like audience, purpose, and the language offered by a grading system can help teachers adapt their rubrics for a digital environment.

Another resource I found useful is G20 Insights. They are a company focused on policy proposals, but more importantly to me, they have resources on how to assess digital literacy. More specifically, they offer ways to bridge digital divides, and although their message may not be targeted at young adults it can be adapted and relevant. Krish Chetty offers insights in the video below on the various domains of digital literacy and the ways in which we can view proficiency. These domains are cognitive, technical, and ethical and the are further categorized by information, computer, media, communication, and technology. You can view their sub-skills in each area in the graph below. The terms are reminiscent of the terminology used in Bloom’s taxonomy which makes it easier for teachers to adapt as well.

Using ISTE’s standards for digital media literacy as well as the resources I’ve shared above should make the task of assessing students on these skill somewhat easier. What I would like to know from you, readers, is what categories or focal points will you use to assess your students in your content and your units? What do your rubrics look like or what do you think they should include? How can we ensure that we are not just assessing a student on the effort level they put into a project but also the quality of the project as a whole?

Sources:

4 point grading rubric. (2017). [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://www.stockbridgevalley.org/Page/1214

Ostenson, J. (2012). Connecting assessment and instruction to help students become more critical producers of multimedia. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 4(2). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jmle/vol4/iss2/7

Ostling, A. (2018) Media literacy going digital. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://cmpf.eui.eu/media-literacy-going-digital/

Tiel Institute for the World Economy. (2017, May 29). T20 recommendation- K. Chetty on digitalization. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/0HDE8fkJyog

Chetty, K., Shenglin, B., Josie, J., Nozibele, G., Liu, Q., Li, W., (2018).Simplified representation of the digital literacy dimensions and perspectives. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from https://www.g20-insights.org/policy_briefs/bridging-digital-divide-measuring-digital-literacy/

A huge issue with digital media and technology trickling into our classrooms and education settings is Fake News. Something that piqued my interest to this was a podcast posted by NPR titled; Troll Watch: Study Shows Older Americans Share The Most Fake News. In this podcast “Sarah McCammon speaks with Andy Guess of Princeton University about a new study that finds that older Americans are more likely to share fake news than their younger counterparts.” (McCammon 2019) This interested me because I cannot deny that some of the older members of my family will occasionally share things on Facebook that make me raise my eyebrows on where they could have found the information. I secretly fact check them and find out that a lot of the information is incorrect. I was glad to see that a study was done about this because it confirmed a process I had been going through personally with my newsfeed.

The NPR podcast discusses digital media literacy and the possibility that growing up with the internet may have an impact on the sharing of “fake news”.

“So there’s been a lot of talk about digital media literacy. And there have been a number of efforts around the world to try and boost the teaching of digital literacy skills, especially in schools. So we’ve seen efforts like that, for example, in France. Especially in the past couple of years, as concerns over online misinformation have grown, I think our findings suggest that really a lot of the action is going on not among students and teenagers in schools but among people who are at the other end of the age scale.” (McCammon 2019)

So, there is a general consensus that digital media literacy needs to be addressed. But, it isn’t clear whether students and teenagers are the ones who are fully impacted. Due to students and teenagers being surrounded by technology from a young age, it would appear that they have adapted to this new-ish way of acquiring news. However, from an educator’s standpoint, it is still our responsibility to ensure that they can navigate reliable sources as we ask them to interact with them. So how do we address digital literacy and “Fake News” effectively?

The New York Times addresses the need for students to learn to decipher the real from the fake at the middle school level. The importance, the article claims, being that “Fake News” can be more readily accessed and shared with the general public. This new way of acquiring news for younger people needs to be addressed.

“Facebook and Twitter reshaped the media landscape and made it easier than ever to spread fake news. A concern is that teenagers who have never known anything but a smartphone as a source for news need to learn to separate fiction from fact as they work their way around the web” (Barron 2017).

The rise in outlets in which people can share fake news makes it more crucial that students learn how to find reliable sources. Despite the fact that Princeton University has found that older generations are the ones sharing the “Fake News”, it is important that students are exposed to a foundational knowledge that not everything on the internet can be trusted.

One way that Ms. Solano (a teacher who is discussed in The New York Times article) introduces her students to a habit of analyzing for factuality is by showing them a video of what appears to be “a parachutist jumping from a single-engine plane, landing on a trampoline and surviving. The video looked like a news report. It went viral when it was released in 2014” (Barron 2017). Through analysis and questions posed by their teacher, they are able to determine that the video is fake and was used to promote a trampoline park. I found this to be a fun way to engage students in critical thinking on whether the videos and news that they are exposed to are authentic.

“It is also imperative that we, as educators, prepare young people for the important job of responsible and informed citizenship” (Hertz 2016).

In my last blog post, I talked about a system for detecting “Fake News” called CRAAP, an acronym which stands for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. Along with these terms comes a series of questions that students should be asking themselves when they encounter news or videos that they wish to cite as credible sources. Edutopia offers resources for teachers who venture to teach digital literacy with the CRAP detection system. Some of these resources include snopes.com and politifact.com. You can find the article from Edutopia cited below in the sources section of this blog post. Before we depart, I want to leave you with some questions to consider. Where can you fit a lesson on the CRAP detection system into a content that interests you? For example, if you don’t teach but are interested in teaching English, math or science where can you fit this into one of those curriculums? What type of source would you have students evaluate? For example, a video or an article?

Sources:

McCammon, S. (National Public Radio). 2019, January 13. Troll watch: Study shows older Americans share the most fake news [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/01/13/684994772/troll-watch-study-shows-older-americans-share-the-most-fake-news

Hertz, M. (2016). Battling fake news in the classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/battling-fake-news-classroom-mary-beth-hertz

Barron, J. (2017). In an era of fake news, teaching students to parse fact from fiction. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/nyregion/fake-news-brooklyn-middle-school.html

Image Sources:

You are fake news: Fake news gif [Digital Image]. (2017). Retrieved from https://tenor.com/view/fake-news-news-donald-donald-trump-trump-gif-7676808

Paskova, Y. (Photograph). Students around news literacy posters [Digital Image]. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/nyregion/fake-news-brooklyn-middle-school.html

Faketube [Digital Image]. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.maketecheasier.com/avoid-fake-bad-videos-youtube/

Facts over fiction [Digital Image]. 2017. Retrieved from https://liceclinicsmiami.com/head-lice-myths-vs-facts/

As a teacher in 2019, teaching digital media and literacy skills is definitely my responsibility. The internet is an enormous source of information. There is no way that one can make it through today’s academic discourse without some familiarity with the internet and what it has to offer. As a special education teacher, I find it even more important that I am offering my students opportunities to deconstruct media. The traditional ways of engaging students in content is no longer an option.

My phone tracks the amount of internet usage I use on a daily. This week it counted two hours a day and this doesn’t count the time spent on my computer, in front of the tv, or playing video games. “Teens (13-18-year-olds), documented that outside of school and homework, tweens spend almost six hours per day (5:55 hrs.) and tweens spend almost nine hours per day (8:56 hrs.) using media, including watching TV, playing video games, using social media, using the internet, reading and listening to music.” (Felt & Robb 2016) It is important for me to know how to take in this influx of information via technology, just as it is important for all my students who are doing the same if not more.

The issues and challenges that we face when teaching these skills are choosing the right types and the ones that offer the most credible information. It is important that students know the purposes of the material that is available to them. Everything that they interact with is posted with a purpose and most of the time it is to convince them one way or the other that their viewpoints are the correct ones. “In modern society, the persuasive power of the mass media is well known. Governments, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and political campaigns rely on both new and old media to create messages and to send them to the general public. The comparatively unregulated nature of U.S. media has made, for better or worse, a society in which the tools of public persuasion are available to everyone.” (University of Minnesota Publishing) Therefore it is very important for young adults to acknowledge that most everything they read is one-sided and out to convince them of one thing as opposed to another. This needs to be taught explicitly.

Infographics and images are two types of media that I have incorporated into my curriculum. While reading the text Catcher in the Rye I have had students create infographics with quotes from the text describing who Holden Caulfield is as a character. Every text that we read in class could be accompanied by media for students to deconstruct. This makes the text more interesting and comes alive.

Everyone has a project that they vividly remember enjoying while in school and a lot of times it is because the teacher offered more than just a written paper or multiple choice quiz. When I was in elementary school I remember working on a marine animal project, we were assigned the beluga whale. I remember being very serious and concerned with what images we were going to present of the beluga whale. When we finished the project I was very pleased with the visual appeal the project had. To this day I remember the feeling of researching and looking at pictures. What I want to know from you is what is a media-related project that you vividly remember working on while in school? What is one that you were particularly proud of and remember spending a lot of time on? What about this project being media related do you think imprinted on you?

Sources:

Felt, L. Robb, M. (2016). Executive summary May 2016: Technology addiction: Concern, controversy, and finding balance. Common Sense. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/2016_csm_technology_addiction_executive_summary.pdf

University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. (2010). Understanding media and culture: An introduction to mass communication. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.24926/8668.2601

Catcher in the rye meme #4 [Digital Image]. (2016). Retrieved from https://memecrunch.com/meme/BG3HE/catcher-and-the-rye-meme-4

Screenagers [Digital Image]. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.winchesterpd.org/2016/teen-technology-use-a-whs-class-of-2019-winchester-coalition-for-a-safer-community-sponsored-event

Beestrum, M. (2018). Evaluating my sources with CRAAP [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://researchguides.waketech.edu/fakenews