Rheingold's Media Literacies – A Critique
Howard Rheingold is an author and lecturer on topics of digital literacy. You can view his blog here. In his October 2010 article in EDUCAUSEReview he listed 5 social media "literacies". He calls them literacies, but I call them skills, because I see his list as a skillset that all learners, digital or otherwise need in all subjects and endeavors. The digital tools we now have access to so readily now show that some of them are more prevalently used. Let's take a look at how his opinions hold up almost 8 years later.
Literacy #1: Attention - How many times have we as teachers told our students either individually or collectively to pay attention? Digital tools allow for increased attention by making lessons interactive. I do this with my students by creating assignments, links, and polls in Google Classroom where students on their Chromebooks can interact with media AND me in real time both virtually and for realsies.
Rheingold says that multitasking, or "continuous partial attention" is not necessarily a bad alternative to focused attention. But my experience is a little different. See this infographic I created with Canva:
I have experienced this both as a student and as a teacher observing students. "Multitasking" sounds good in theory, but how much can you really pay attention to multiple things? I have several items open as I type this: source material to refer to, a sample of this post to proof, a YouTube video playing as background noise (but also relevant to what I'm working on), but how much attention am I really giving to any one of those items? I admit I switch between them all, but I can really only focus all of my attention on one of those items at a time, although something can always distract my eyes or ears depending on the moment. How many of you watch TV and try to have a conversation with your significant other not related to that show at the same time? Hard to focus on both simultaneously, right? In today's digital age, though, we can pause and/or rewind live TV to answer your spouse's pressing questions :)
Literacy #2: Participation - My example above does show that with proper channeling of attention, a teacher can guide participation. Students love to use devices - this is ever so clear when walking down the street and people's attention is on their device and not what they might be walking into. If you harness attention by making the activity on the device, you can guide participation and hopefully not have much in terms of distraction.
Literacy #3: Collaboration - We as humans are social creatures. Kids are no different. Can't exactly play a game outside at recess without other kids, can you? Makes it harder, anyway. The online environment certainly makes things more collaborative. Now students can start a team project in class and then when they go home they can each log in from separate locations and contribute to different parts of the same shared document, and not even have to be on the same page. This is done in several different apps from Google Docs to Scratch.
Teachers can also create documents and share with students from anywhere now, which is why there is such a rise in online for-degree education. I have completed 2 distance-learning GRADUATE degrees without ever leaving my home in suburban Chicago: I have a Graduate Certificate in Internet Programming from the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York, and I'm about to finish my second Masters from Dominican University in River Grove, Illinois in Educational Technology. I also teach online classes in computer science at Triton College in digital literacy, web design, and office applications using Blackboard. This kind of online delivery is also done at the K-12 level as well by sharing documents and assignments as well as communication through tools like Google Classroom.
Literacy #4: Network Awareness - This is one I believe all people need to work on. Another axiom for this is "know your audience", and all too often people are not aware of this. Rheingold points out that before the digital age social networking was limited by the amount of people who could actually hear the sound of your voice. These were people you could actually talk to at work or in your neighborhood face to face, or possibly on the phone. Now we have in-person networks, both professional and social, and digital networks, also professional and social. The "social" networks are usually friends, family, and closer acquaintances, possibly co-workers, and there are also professional networks that may include those used for educational purposes or for employment. In either case, knowing your audience is absolutely key when navigating these networks. See my other post about digital tattoos - unfortunately, if parties in either of these networks can see posts in the other, it could have negative repercussions in one or the other, and negative impressions can be a terrible thing to overcome in both the real and digital worlds.
Literacy #5: Critical Consumption - Caveat Emptor, or may the buyer beware... Although this common phrase of wisdom is more geared toward purchasing, I believe it also holds merit in the digital world: may the digital consumer beware. And when I say "consumer" I mean one who participates in the online community by literally consuming potential information, not just purchasing items online. See one of my favorite memes:
I like how Rheingold refers to being critical as "crap detection", because on the internet we have to be crap detectors. I tell my students all the time that the beauty of the internet is that anyone can contribute to the internet, but the problem with the internet is that ANYONE can "contribute" to the internet. And figuring out what is true and what is false is forever going to be a challenge. I like to demonstrate to my students how I change the Wikipedia article about George of the Jungle saying that he was the first President of the United States, and NOT George Washington (contrary to popular belief...)
We as teachers need to be teaching critical thinking skills in all subjects, not just digital literacy. Question all things, and verify whenever possible. And just because it looks professionally done doesn't necessarily mean it can be trusted, either. It helps, but just look at this famous hoax site for the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. I show this to my students all the time to try to get them to realize that just because its on the web doesn't necessarily mean it's true.
On reflection Rheingold has identified several things that are true about the internet today and how we as teachers need to foster these "literacies". I believe they are relevant to all subjects and disciplines, but being that we are in the digital age it just makes it more apparent how important these skills really are.
Literacy #1: Attention - How many times have we as teachers told our students either individually or collectively to pay attention? Digital tools allow for increased attention by making lessons interactive. I do this with my students by creating assignments, links, and polls in Google Classroom where students on their Chromebooks can interact with media AND me in real time both virtually and for realsies.
Rheingold says that multitasking, or "continuous partial attention" is not necessarily a bad alternative to focused attention. But my experience is a little different. See this infographic I created with Canva:
Canva presentation created by the author.
I have experienced this both as a student and as a teacher observing students. "Multitasking" sounds good in theory, but how much can you really pay attention to multiple things? I have several items open as I type this: source material to refer to, a sample of this post to proof, a YouTube video playing as background noise (but also relevant to what I'm working on), but how much attention am I really giving to any one of those items? I admit I switch between them all, but I can really only focus all of my attention on one of those items at a time, although something can always distract my eyes or ears depending on the moment. How many of you watch TV and try to have a conversation with your significant other not related to that show at the same time? Hard to focus on both simultaneously, right? In today's digital age, though, we can pause and/or rewind live TV to answer your spouse's pressing questions :)
Literacy #2: Participation - My example above does show that with proper channeling of attention, a teacher can guide participation. Students love to use devices - this is ever so clear when walking down the street and people's attention is on their device and not what they might be walking into. If you harness attention by making the activity on the device, you can guide participation and hopefully not have much in terms of distraction.
Literacy #3: Collaboration - We as humans are social creatures. Kids are no different. Can't exactly play a game outside at recess without other kids, can you? Makes it harder, anyway. The online environment certainly makes things more collaborative. Now students can start a team project in class and then when they go home they can each log in from separate locations and contribute to different parts of the same shared document, and not even have to be on the same page. This is done in several different apps from Google Docs to Scratch.
Teachers can also create documents and share with students from anywhere now, which is why there is such a rise in online for-degree education. I have completed 2 distance-learning GRADUATE degrees without ever leaving my home in suburban Chicago: I have a Graduate Certificate in Internet Programming from the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York, and I'm about to finish my second Masters from Dominican University in River Grove, Illinois in Educational Technology. I also teach online classes in computer science at Triton College in digital literacy, web design, and office applications using Blackboard. This kind of online delivery is also done at the K-12 level as well by sharing documents and assignments as well as communication through tools like Google Classroom.
Literacy #4: Network Awareness - This is one I believe all people need to work on. Another axiom for this is "know your audience", and all too often people are not aware of this. Rheingold points out that before the digital age social networking was limited by the amount of people who could actually hear the sound of your voice. These were people you could actually talk to at work or in your neighborhood face to face, or possibly on the phone. Now we have in-person networks, both professional and social, and digital networks, also professional and social. The "social" networks are usually friends, family, and closer acquaintances, possibly co-workers, and there are also professional networks that may include those used for educational purposes or for employment. In either case, knowing your audience is absolutely key when navigating these networks. See my other post about digital tattoos - unfortunately, if parties in either of these networks can see posts in the other, it could have negative repercussions in one or the other, and negative impressions can be a terrible thing to overcome in both the real and digital worlds.
Literacy #5: Critical Consumption - Caveat Emptor, or may the buyer beware... Although this common phrase of wisdom is more geared toward purchasing, I believe it also holds merit in the digital world: may the digital consumer beware. And when I say "consumer" I mean one who participates in the online community by literally consuming potential information, not just purchasing items online. See one of my favorite memes:
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| Image property of QuickMeme |
I like how Rheingold refers to being critical as "crap detection", because on the internet we have to be crap detectors. I tell my students all the time that the beauty of the internet is that anyone can contribute to the internet, but the problem with the internet is that ANYONE can "contribute" to the internet. And figuring out what is true and what is false is forever going to be a challenge. I like to demonstrate to my students how I change the Wikipedia article about George of the Jungle saying that he was the first President of the United States, and NOT George Washington (contrary to popular belief...)
We as teachers need to be teaching critical thinking skills in all subjects, not just digital literacy. Question all things, and verify whenever possible. And just because it looks professionally done doesn't necessarily mean it can be trusted, either. It helps, but just look at this famous hoax site for the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. I show this to my students all the time to try to get them to realize that just because its on the web doesn't necessarily mean it's true.
On reflection Rheingold has identified several things that are true about the internet today and how we as teachers need to foster these "literacies". I believe they are relevant to all subjects and disciplines, but being that we are in the digital age it just makes it more apparent how important these skills really are.
I dug the meme man! I agree about what you said about teaching critical thinking in all areas. So much of what we've emphasized about critical thinking online is true of all information and applications these days. I had a teacher in college who told me to think of myself less as a teacher and more as an information facilitator. I think this rings more and more true as constant access to information and misinformation becomes more prevalent for students of all ages.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to teaching technology, being a "facilitator" seems to be the current trend. The emphasis seems to be more on letting students be self guided and explore the tech on their own in order to solve problems. That is a good thing, but at the same time, especially in younger grades, students still need to be shown something in order to be able to perform the skills necessary to start exploring the tech tools. I come from the software training mindset where you guide step by step through a tech tool's features then let the students solve a problem using those skills.
DeleteScott, great post! I agree with your idea of gaining attention through using the technology device of choice in the classroom, which should then lead to great participation by the student. The challenge to this would be keeping their attention through an engaging activity without losing them to another application or web browser. I also appreciated your Wikipedia activity. Although I've talked to students about the dangers of Wikipedia, I've never actually SHOWN them how simple it is to change something. I believe that could make it more real, thanks for the idea!
ReplyDeleteI find with the younger kids if you break up the activities into about 10-15 minute chunks, where there's a feedback activity like a poll and then a discussion, then a software demo and then work time, it keeps them engaged. We also have Hapara software to monitor the Chromebooks while in class to ensure that students stay on task and not wander to game web sites :)
DeleteAs usual a solid post. It's interesting how we view Rheingold's work as "old" since it is from 2010 yet it is just as applicable today as it was then. As educators we are all aware that we need to spend many hours teaching about critical consumption but in today's world it gets harder to detect the "fakes"! Even adults are easily duped. On an unrelated note I always assumed your adjuncting was face-to-face on campus!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how anything more than about 2 years ago is considered "old" now when it comes to tech. I also find that when I'm Googling something that I don't trust the info if it isn't from at least 2016 or newer, because things can change so often AND updates and news is broadcast much quicker in today's digital media age than compared to newspapers and radio 100 years ago.
DeleteI teach both in-person and online-only classes at Triton. In both types I use Blackboard for weekly outlines and content and also as a recepticle for students to turn in and get graded, the same way you use Canvas :)