MODULE IN BUILDING AND ENHANCING NEW LITERACIES ACROSS THE

CURRICULUM

PROF. ROGER P. DOMINGO

Second Semester 2020-2021
 Introduction to the Learner

Literacy, commonly considered the ability to read and write at a designated level of
proficiency. Literacy is more precisely defined as a technical capability to decode or reproduce
written or printed signs, symbols, or letters combined into words. Traditionally, literacy has
been closely associated with the alphabet and its role in written communication. Literacy has
also traditionally been contrasted with oral communication. However, it has become
increasingly common to refer to different forms of literacy, such as computer, mathematical, or
graphic literacy. Most experts believe that people need a combination of many different forms
of literacy to meet the demands of modern life.
I. Course Description: This course introduces the concepts of new literacies in the 21 st Century
as an evolving social phenomena and shared cultural practices across learning areas. The 21st
Century literacies shall include (a) globalization and multi-cultural literacy, (b) social literacy, (c)
media literacy, (d) financial literacy, (e) cyber literacy/ digital literacy, (f) eco-literacy , and (g)
arts and creativity literacy. Field based – interdisciplinary explorations and other teaching
strategies shall be used in this course.

Time Frame: 3 hours/week

Pre-requisite: None

Program Objectives (CMO 74, Series of 2017

In consonance with the mission statement of the Teacher Education Department, its
Bachelor in Secondary Education (BSED) and Bachelor in Elementary Education (BEED)
programs are designed to:

1. Provide quality instruction to produce teachers with sufficient knowledge and skills
necessary for immediate and gainful employment and to make them competent
professionals;
2. Expose students to varied learning activities and experiences that will enhance their
critical thinking so that they will be able to do their work well;
3. Involve students in research, extension, and production activities that will make them
knowledgeable, useful and productive citizens;
4. Instill in students values to make them better persons.

EED 101: Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
PROF. ROGER P. DOMINGO

Module 6, Lesson 6
Cyber/Digital Literacy

Introduction

We are now living in modern age wherein there are new technologies born and used by
people to make their life easier and comfortable. As the people use this technology, they must
be equipped with knowledge and skills in using and understanding the messages they convey.
These knowledge and skills refers to digital/cyber literacy which refers to the ability to find,
evaluate, and compose clear information through writing and other media on various digital
platforms.
Learning Objectives: This module you will be able to:
1. Develop working understanding of Digital/Cyber Literacy.
2. Appreciate the importance of developing Digital/Cyber Literacy both in ourselves
and one another in the information age.
3. Realize that practical steps must be taken to develop Digital/Cyber literacy early
in children and cannot wait “until they are older”.
Learning outcomes: upon completion of this module/lesson you must have:
1. Explain Digital/Cyber.
2. Understand the importance of developing Digital/Cyber Literacy both in ourselves
and one another in the information age.
3. Understand that practical steps must be taken to develop Digital/Cyber literacy
early in children and cannot wait “until they are older”.
.
Discussion

Digital Media Literacy

In the first chapter of this book, we read how Gee, Hull, and Lankshear (1996) noted how
literacy always has something to do with reading a text with understanding, and that there are
many kinds of texts, and each one requires a specific set of skills to understand and make
meanings out of them. Digital literacy(also called e-literacy, cyber literacy, and even
information literacy by some authors) is no different although now the “text” can actually be
images, sound, video, music, or a combination thereof.
Digital literacy can be defined as the ability to locate, evaluate, create, and communicate
information on various digital patforms. Put more broadly, it is the technical, cognitive, and
sociological skills needed to perform tasks and solve problems in digital environments ( Eshel-
Alkalai, 2004), it finds its origins in information and computer literacy (Bowden, 2001; Snavely
and Cooper, 1997; Behrens, 1994), so much so that the skills and competencies listed by
Shapiro and Huges (1996) in a curriculum they envisioned to promote literacy should very
familiar to readers today:
a. Tool literacy – competence in using hardware and software tools.
b. Resource literacy – understanding forms of and access to information recourses.
c. Social structural literacy – understanding the production and social significance
of information.
d. Research literacy – using IT tools for research and scholarship.
e. Publishing literacy – ability to communicate and publish information.
d. Emerging technologies literacy- understanding of new developments inIT.
f. Critical literacy – ability to evaluate the benefits of new technologies (Note: tthat
this literacy is not the same as “critical thinking.” Which is often regarded as a
component of information literacy)
It should also come as no surprise that digital literacy shares a great deal of overlap with
media literacy; so much that digital literacy can be seen as a subset of media literacy, dealing
particularly with media in digital form. The connection should be fairly obvious—if media
literacy is “the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they are
communicating,” then digital literacy can be seen as “media literacy applied to the digital
media,” albeit with a few adjustments.
The term “digital literacy” is not new; Lanham (1995), in one of the earliest examples of a
functional definition of the term described the “digitally literate person “as being skilled of
deciphering and understanding the meanings of images, sounds and the subtle uses of words
so that he/she could mathc the whom the intended audience is. Two years later, Paul Gilster
(1997) formally defined digital literacy as “the ability to understand and use information in
multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers,” explaining
that not only must a person acquire the skill of finding things, he/she must also acquire the
ability to use these things in life.
 Bowden (2008) collated the skills and competencies comprising digital literacy from
contemporary scholars on nthe matter into four groups;
1.Understandings – This refers to those skills and competencies that “support” or
“enable” everything else within digital literacy and computer/ICT literacy (i.e., the
ability to use computers in everyday life).
2. Background Knowledge – This largely refers to knowing where information on a
particular subject or topic, can be found, how information is kept, and how it is
disseminated—a skill taken for granted back in the day when information almost
exclusively resided in the form of printed text.
3. Central Competencies – These are the skills and competencies thaty a majority of
scholars agree on as being core to digital literacy today namely;
 Reading and understanding digital and non-digital formats.
 Creating and communicating digital information.
 Evaluation of information.
 Knowledge assembly.
 Information literacy.
 Media literacy.
4. Attitudes and Perspective – Bawden (2008) suggest that it is these attitudes and
perspectives that link digital literacy today with traditional literacy, saying “ it is
not enough to have skills and competencies, they must be grounded in same
moral framework, “specifically;
*Independent learning - the initiative and ability to learn whatever is needed for a
person’s specific situation.
*Moral/social literacy – an understanding of correct, acceptable, and sensible
behaviour in digital environment.

Information Literacy within Digital Literacy

Given the ease with which digital media (as opposed to traditional print media) can be
edited and manipulated, the ability to approach it with a healthy amount of skiptism has
become a “ survival skill” for media consumers, Eshet Alkalai, (2004) draws attention to
Information Literacy as a critical component of Digital Literacy as “ the cognitive skills that
consumers use to evaluate information in an educated and effective manner.” In effect,
information literacy acts as a filter by which consumers evaluate the veracity information lbeing
presented to them via digital media and thereupon sort the erroneous, errelevant, and biased
from what is demonstrably factual.
From the perspective part of the efforts of Digital Literacy Education should be toward
developing media consumers who think critical and are ready to doubt the quality of the
information they receive, even if said information come so called “authoritative sources.”
However, a majority of studies on Information Literacy seem to concentrate more on the ability
to search for information rather than its cognitive and pedagogical aspects (Eshel-Alkalai,
2004; Zinns, 2000; Brunett & Mackinley, 1998).

Challenges to Digital Literacy Education

Digital Literacy Education shares many of the same challenges to Media Literacy for
example: How should it be taught? How can it be measured and evaluated? Should it be
taught for the protection of students in their consumption of information or shouldit be to
develop their appreciation for digital media?
Brown (2017) also noted that the global acknowledgement that Digital Literacy Education is
a need, there is of yet no overarching model or framework for addressing all of the skills
deemed necessary. Put simply, there is no single and comprehensive plan anywhere for
teaching digital literacy the way it should be taught. Accordingly, he asked, “What
assumptions, theories, and research evidence underpin specific frameworks? Whose interest
are being served when particular frameworks are being promoted? Beyond efforts to produced
flashy and visually attractive models how might we reimagine digital literacies to promote
critical mindsets and active citizenry in order to reshape our societies for new ways of living,
learning and working for a better future for all.
 Despite the challenges posed by the broad and fluid nature of media (and therefor digital)
literacy, educators in the Philippines can spearhead literacy efforts by doubling down on those
concepts and principles of Media Literacy that are the utmost importance, namely, critical
thinking and the grounding of critical thought in a moral framework.
Teach media and digital literacy integrally, Any attempt to teach these principles must
first realize that they cannot be separated from context—meaning, they cannot be taught
separfately from other topics. Critical thinking something other than itself to think critically
about, and thus cannot develop in a vacuum. Semilarly, developing a moral framework
within students cannot be taught via merely talking about it. This moral framework develop
by practicing it, that is, basing our decisions on it, in the context of everything else we do in
our day-to-day lives. We therefore agree with Kaltay (2011) that the teaching of
fundamental principles of these and other literacies should be done interactively with other
subjects in school, however difficult the process might be. In other words, teach them in
mathematics, sciences, language, arts, social studies, and so on. Make them part of the
school curriculum and everyday life of the students. Anything else will be as misguided as
merely telling a plant to grow and expecting it to do so by the power of your words.
Master your subject matter. Whatever it is you teach, you must not only possess a
thorough understanding of your subject matter, you also understand why you are teaching
it, and why it is important to learn. As educators, we must not shy away from a student
genuinely asking us to explain why something we are teaching are important. After all,
teaching is in itself a kind of media the students are obliged to consume; it is only fair they
know why.
Think : multi-disciplinary.” How can educators integrate media and digital literacy in a
subject as abstract as Mathematics, for example, The answer lies in stepping-out of the
“pure mathematics” mindset and embracing communication as being just as important to
math as computation. Once communication is accepted as important, this opens-up new
venues where the new literacies can be exercised. For example, have a student create a
webpage detailing what system of linear equations are, why they are important, and the
techniques for solving them. Alternatively, they can create same strategies can be applied
to nearly a subject and any topic. It is just a matter of believing as educators, that how we
communicate is as important as what we communicate.
Explore motivation, not just messages. While it is very important that students learn
what is the message being communicated nby any media text, it is also important to
develop inn them a habit for asking why is the message being communicated in the first
place. In the case of information pamphlet warning against some infectious disease for
example, is there an outbreak we are being warned of. If not, could this then be an attempt
to sow panic and discord in the target populace? Why? Who stands to gain from doing
such things? The objective here is not so much to find the correct answer, but rather to
develop the habit of asking these questions.
Leverage skills that students already have. It is always surprising how much a person
can do when they are personally and affectively motivated to do so—in other words, a
person can do amazing things when they really want to. Students can produced
remarkable well researched output for things they are deeply interested in, even without
instruction. Harnessing this natural desire to explore whatever interests them will go long
way in improving media and digital literacy education inn your classroom.

Wrap Up

 Media Literacy is the ability to identify different types of media and understand the
messages they are communicating, including who is the intended audience and what is
the motivation behind the message.
 Information Literacy is a subset of media literacy; the ability to locate, access, and
evaluate information from variety of media sources.
Questions to Ponder

To better comprehend what each skill and competency requires and how educators are
to learn and teach them in class, it is useful to summarize each one as a set of questions for
discussion. Write your answer in extra sheet of paper.

1. Can I read and write? Do I know how to write and send emails, create documents and
simple spreadsheet, use a web browser, and make sense of the search results returned
by the search engine?
2. Do I know where to find information on local and national news, politics, and events? Do
I know where I am likely to find reliable, factual information on a given topic? Do I have
an understanding of the relationship between what the information is about and its
ability to make itself stand-out.

Assessment

Read the following questions and instructions carefully. Write your answer in a yellow
pad of paper.
1. In essay form explain Digital/Cyber literacy in five sentences. (10 points)
2. In essay form explain how critical thinking is important to Digital/Cyber literacy. (10
points)
3. In essay form explain the practical steps must be taken to develop media literacy
early in children.(10 points)

TO DO: Copy an article in any Digital/Cyber media and explain in your own words the
message of the article wanted to convey to the readers. (20 points)

References;
1. Elen Joy P. Alata & Elgen John T. Egnacio “Building and Enhancing New Literacies
Across the Curriculum”
2. Barton. D. (2007), Literacy: San Introduction to the ecology of written language.
Oxford UK: Blackwell
3. Nijhuis, M. (2015, August), The whistled language of Northern Turkey:
https://www,newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-whistked-language-of-
northern-turkey.
4. Mkandawire, S.B. (2018), Literacy versus language: Exploring their similarities and
differences. Journal of Lexicography and Terminology.
5. Richardson. W. (2014). New literacies nin the classroom.
https://wwwmoderslearners.com/new-literacies-in-ther-classroom