Media Literacy Starts with Everyone, Report Says

The article appeared in School Library Journal on November 16, 2010.

Tossing money at technology in K-12 schools is hardly the answer to promoting students’ media and digital literacy. So says a new report from the Aspen Institute, “Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action,” written by Renee Hobbs, a professor at Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater.

The study found that students need a deep, thorough program in digital literacy, and that must start with developing competency among educators themselves.

Hobbs says that education budgets often allocate 85 percent of funding to technology with a small amount to training. “Nothing is going to mindware, and we’ve got to reverse those numbers. We are struggling with this,” she says.

The many teachers and school librarians who are already crafting best practices in teaching media literacy should be leading this training, according to Hobbs.

“Librarians are at the heart of that enterprise,” says Hobbs. “And they’re at risk. I recognize [their role] is something that gets knocked off the policy agendas and gets trivialized at higher levels of decision-making.”

Read more at School Library Journal