From the book: Media Literacy Education in Action: Theoretical and pedagogical perspectives, Edited by Belinha S. De Abreu and Paul Mihailidis, Routledge
Emerging from K12 Future Shock: How to blend digital and media literacy into the Common Core Standards. by Rhys Daunic
"21st Century Education" is 13 years old an era forecast to transform the way we teach and learn thanks to the democratization of limitless information and mass access to tools and channels of global communication. Amidst the global swell of digital tools and culture during this period, however, K12 public schools in New York City (NYC) have struggled to keep up with the rest of society’s immersion into the digital revolution. In fact, to date, NYC schools have no clear measures or guidelines for preparing digital and media literate citizens for an increasingly digital and mediated world. This is understandable considering that NYC schools have been absorbing an influx of mandated educational programming1 from the federal, state, and local levels while mass digital culture outside schools has proliferated and grown in complexity. Responding to a national paradigm shift in education, schools have been required to rethink and restructure teaching practices according to pedagogical
strategies like higher order thinking, universal designs for learning, differentiation, data driven instruction and assessment, and broadening measures of teacher effectiveness (New York City Department of Education, 2012). The most recent and significant challenge has been the mandate to reconfigure entire curricula to align with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by 2014 (IBID)). Simultaneously, schools have also made efforts to comply with an indistinct but consistent encouragement during this period to “integrate technology” (New York City Department of Education, 2012) (U.S. Department of Education 2004, 2010). School leaders have hustled to develop infrastructure around selecting, funding, situating, connecting, updating, repairing, and replacing a stream of rapidly obsolete resources in their often limited space. Teachers have developed strategies for organizing and managing new classroom resources, and have explored methods for teaching with and about the moving target of digital tools and culture they and their students have experienced outside of school. Experimenting with these suggested adaptations on top of the aforementioned mandated school initiatives has resulted in fatigue, and feels to many educators, like too much too quickly. Today’s educator seems to be feeling a bit of what Alvin Tofler in 1970 would have called “Future Shock” the state of being overwhelmed by too much change in too short a period of time (Tofler, 1970). Fortunately, the efforts of
leadingedge K12 educators and ongoing scholarship and field work by the national digital and media literacy (DML) community during this era have resulted in guidelines and models that can help simplify the adaptation of curricula to meet the exponential surge of digital tools and media that has come, and is sure to continue.
The antidote to Future Shock: Simplify Tofler's suggested antidote to Future Shock was to “simplify the world in ways that confirm our biases,” even as the world around us becomes increasingly complex (Silver, 2012). The following recommendations are an attempt at simplifying school innovation (and promoting educator sanity) in the coming years:
1. Identify your school’s “pedagogical bias” your philosophical approach to curriculum development and instructional practice. 2. Identify and internalize within your school culture broadly applicable digital skills and “media literacy3” concepts necessary for 21st century citizenship, identity, and the workforce. 3. Build curricula informed by the above that expands and enhances the CCSS with new tools and modes of communication that are open to continuing cultural shifts.
Applying Digital and Media Literacy (DML) to the Common Core (CCSS). "Students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas... to analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and new. The need to conduct research and to produce and consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum.” (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010)
The CCSS have established a nationalized education policy that calls for a blending of old and new media across discipline, which implies that DML should be a fundamental element of modern curriculum development (Aspen, 2010). However, where CCSS K12 English Language Arts standards are spelled out, skillbyskill, yeartoyear, it is left to schools to determine when, how, and what specific DML skills and concepts are taught. For example: When should students learn to type, or incorporate mixed media into research or the writing process? When are students capable of determining the validity of an Internet source, identifying authorial intention in a video, or reflecting on their relationship to digital
culture? Should they be introduced to programming, and where do related skills intersect with standardsbased math? To simplify the approach to answering questions like this, school leaders should refer to guidelines laid out by pioneers in digital and media literacy education (DMLE)2. Their work has synthesized K12 experience and research into guiding principles for developing students': 1) digital literacy; fundamental digital skill acquisition, and 2) media literacy; the extension of literacy to include “reading,” “writing,” and critical thinking around emerging modes of communication3. Informed by a strong understanding of DMLE competencies, schools can begin developing a scope and sequence of related skills and concepts into CCSS K12 standardsbased curricula. Below I will flesh out promising practices towards these ends that I have witnessed over the past eleven years as a freelance DML curriculum developer, project designer, and collaborator in K12 schools throughout the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE). In doing so I will operate on the assumption that regardless of one’s bias about how new media and technological trends have affected society for better or worse there is a consensus (Aspen, 2010) that schools must accept and adapt to changes in the nature of: 1. Citizenship: New modes of cultural exchange, commerce and the
means of informing oneself, especially vital to democracy have resulted in a new “Digital Citizenship” 2. Identity: Sense of self is cultivated through a combination of interpersonal and online interaction increasingly broadcast and archived in the public sphere. 3. Work: Basic digital operational and communication skills are required throughout most levels of the modern workforce.
DMLE Success stories, strategies, and common challenges. Best practices in DMLE emerge among a range of environments, staff profiles, available resources, and student needs and backgrounds. Over the past dozen years schools have generally pushed to acquire more digital tools and connectivity, and there has been a growing national recognition of the need for student development of DML (Aspen, 2010). By reporting some lessons learned during this buildup, my intention is for curriculum developers, teachers and school administrators to locate their schools within the array of pedagogical priorities (biases) and environments described. In doing so, they may gain insight into how their current developmental goals might intersect with DMLE basics and the CCSS and address the challenges listed below.
My bias: Use Projectbased Units to blend DMLE with CCSS and scaffold basic tech skills. To simplify the infusion of DMLE within complex NYCDOE environments, my own bias has been towards what I call “productionbased media literacy,” which recommends that schools: 1. Engage new media resources (“technology”), ways of communicating, and digital literacy skills through contentdriven student productions, and 2. Layer core competencies of media literacy4 onto existing learning objectives during the production process.
Each year students arrive at schools with greater operational capacity for working with digital tools. Nonetheless, schools must develop and refine a simple scope and sequence5 for assessing the acquisition of basic skills to lower the cost of entry for classroom digital production over time. This should be designed to minimize instructional time spent introducing and reinforcing operational skills that students will acquire fluency in through use within academic productions. The goal, in my opinion, should be to scaffold the most transferrable skills possible to allow
them to eventually independently adapt to new tools as they emerge.
Common Challenges: Lack of Time and Tech Support. Even in schools most enthusiastic about DML, lack of time is an inevitable obstacle in this process. As simple and efficient as a framework for DMLE development can be, schools have to make room for additional administrative, planning and instructional time, and account for technical support issues. This will take less time as staff internalize media literacy concepts, become more fluent with digital tools (along with students), and get comfortable matching those tools and concepts with their accumulating familiarity with the CCSS. Meanwhile, schools have to account for and address the following common questions to move towards efficiency: 1. How and when will professional development occur to raise staff digital literacy to meet new and emerging digital classroom resources? Who will lead that process? 2. How and when will professional development occur to help staff layer digital and media literacy onto CCSScurricula? Who will lead that process? 3. What is the scope and sequence for developing student
digital literacy skills alongside traditional literacy skills? Who will teach those skills, how will they be assessed, and where will it fit into your program schedule? 4. Who will keep technology resources working and make purchasing decisions to enable all of the above6? Promising Practice: Increase staff DMLE capacity by engaging their professional creativity. Molly Cutler, an EdD candidate in the Curriculum and Teaching program at Columbia Teachers College and former 3rd grade teacher, believes encouraging teachers to take creative ownership of the adaptation of their practice is key to innovative curriculum design. In 2009, Cutler used studentproduced public service announcement (PSA) videos within a unit of study that bridged NYCDOE social studies content and CCSSbased persuasive writing with DMLE fundamentals. Her school environment allowed the freedom to pioneer innovative practices with the support of a DMLE consultant opportunities Cutler feels heightened her engagement in the development of new practices. The resulting unit extended students' critical analysis of traditional texts to the deconstruction of multimedia texts, had them adapt persuasive essays into video scripts, and increased Cutler’s confidence leading a productionready classroom. The unit is now a staple of her former school’s 3rd grade curriculum, and her students’ videos
and her unit plan have been shared as models for teachers nationally7. Brooklyn School of Inquiry (BSI) is building DMLE capacity school wide by fostering the type of flexible and creative atmosphere throughout their staff that allowed Cutler to thrive. BSI’s pedagogical bias is to encourage collaboration to create custom units of study that emphasize critical thinking, differentiation, realworld relevance, media literacy and projectbased learning “shaped by” the CCSS (Brooklyn School of Inquiry, 2012). To insure that DML is integrated in ways that resonate with instructional staff, Principal Donna Taylor and Assistant Principal Nicole Nelson have programmed biannual professional development (PD) workshops where teachers work with a DMLE consultant to locate where critical analysis of media and digital production can authentically extend their existing objectives. These sessions have resulted in projects or activities emerging from teacher or student interests that are then “backwardsplanned” to align with the CCSS and supported by in class PD as needed from their consultant. The BSI approach to organic parallel development of staff and student digital and media literacy is a promising practice, but does not deliver immediate, comprehensive schoolwide infusion of DMLE. However, over time, BSI is amassing model units of study that, like Cutler’s PSA unit, layer core concepts of DMLE onto CCSS that teachers will draw from more routinely and with increasing confidence and clarity.
Promising Practice: Build staff digital literacy while serving practical needs. Often what stymies DMLE fluidity in schools is a lack of teacher fluency with the tools of digital production. Concurrently to their DMLE unit planning, BSI administrators are fostering a baseline of “digital literacy” among the staff by committing to school wide practical use of online tools for communication and collaboration. Streamlining existing goals for collaborative planning and homeschool communication, BSI teachers plan curricula using shared cloudbased documents, and manage class websites featuring multimedia student work and resources for parents. As a result, they are not only able to access and archive their work more efficiently than before, but are also becoming better equipped to support students in digital classrooms. Promising Practice: Spiral interdisciplinary classroom goals with student production in DMLE "labs". Whether through a roaming specialist with a rolling cart of laptops, or in a designated “lab” of consolidated digital resources, some schools have programmed DML, or more commonly, “technology,” as a separate program within their curriculum. This idea arrived early in the buildup to 21st century education, but as emphasis on integrating new media across content areas has grown, technology
resources have often been redistributed to classrooms. However, as more schools become able to digitally equip both labs and classrooms, some have developed overlapping units of study that elegantly connect DML development in the lab with enhanced core content and CCSSbased objectives in the classroom. Spiraling DML and traditional objectives through a labclassroom relationship requires classroom teachers to work with their lab teacher to align student digital skill and media literacy concept acquisition with parallel traditional literacy fundamentals and core content. This enables focus on expanded learning opportunities in the classroom such as critical analysis of new and old media texts without using up instructional time supporting technical skill development, which most teachers have not been adequately trained to do. In the lab, the digital media specialist can support critical thinking around media use and digital citizenship while working with classroomaligned content to drive relevant productions designed to teach digital skills. For example, DML lab teacher Garin Kaligian and fourth grade classroom teacher Elisabeth AustinPage at P.S. 9 in Manhattan have coordinated cloudbased multimedia productions using Voicethread.com to allow students to explain problem solving strategies using pictures, numbers and words a gradelevel math objective. Students bring written work to the lab and demonstrate and reinforce mastery of math goals by making critical decisions
about what digital media can be combined to help an audience understand their thinking and process. This metacognitive activity is also a great way to get students thinking about the communication value of various media in this context while also building the technical skills to wield them for an academic purpose. On both fronts, this project aligns with fourth grade CCSS ELA Standards for Speaking and Listening including: following agreedupon rules for discussion, engaging effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade four topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly, and adding audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). To solidify the coordination and academic rigor of the lab work, administrators freed up AustinPage and her grade level colleagues to observe the production process and student performance, familiarize themselves with the software, and compare notes with Kaligian. The productions are available immediately to be replayed from the cloud and analyzed by the teacher or students in the classroom or at home for analysis or review and is archived as a model project blending DMLE and CCSS. Creating collaborative planning time for the lab teacher to coordinate with all grade level teachers is an obstacle for this approach to school wide DMLE. However, the potential for layering multiple CCSS standards, specific content and
DMLE objectives in an efficient interdisciplinary unit of study makes this a programming challenge worth facing.
Promising Practice: Merge DMLE with an established schoolwide initiative. At Soundview Academy (SVA), a middle school in the South Bronx, Principal William Frackelton is leading an effort to leverage students’ DML skills acquired in their grade 68 filmmaking program to enhance the schoolwide initiative of building “accountable talk” into students’ academic interactions. Filmmaking teacher, Kevin Lopez, is piloting a model for a schoolwide network of blogs that will allow students to publish multimedia "posts" and "comments" using contentspecific protocols for constructing arguments and critiquing work. The goal is for teachers to observe and interact with students as digital citizens in an academic setting demonstrating an elegant blend of CCSSbased competencies (asking questions, making inferences, supporting arguments with textbased evidence), and DML critical thinking skills (critiquing effectiveness of each other's media messages, reflectively tailoring production decisions to reach authentic audiences). Frackelton's vision for the accountable talk network is to create a real world environment to leverage student enthusiasm for digital media and participatory culture, while engaging core content, assessing and polishing DML competencies, and expanding the potential of SVA academic initiatives.
SVA's logistical challenge will be to find time to train the instructional staff beyond Lopez accommodating a range of digital literacy among them on the effective use and moderation of these blogs. The approach will be to roll out content area blogs one academic department at a time, and train them using experienced SVA staff and students. They will start with the most technicallyproficient content teams, and build towards a critical mass of inhouse proficiency. The potential of extending middle school student engagement with digital communication to core content areas through this initiative makes it a worthy outlay of PD time towards further modernization of their CCSSbased curriculum.
Next steps: Simplify your approach, trail blaze, synthesize, transform. We can expect (or hope) that future revisions of the CCSS will more clearly situate DMLE within the scope and sequence of student development. Until then, it is left to K12 educators, with the help of DMLE practitioners and researchers, to continue trailblazing according to their vision and values and sharing the knowledge that emerges. Perhaps by attempting to simplify criteria for DMLE inclusion in the current K12 environment based on synthesis of best practices shared from the field8, we can minimize pedagogical Future Shock along the way. In doing so, we may move closer to the promise of 21st Century Education: the transformation of educational practice to produce college and career ready citizens
on the path to lifelong learning and selfawareness that can keep up with our increasingly complex world.
REFERENCES Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, The. (2010). Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute. Brooklyn School of Inquiry. Curriculum. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://brooklynschoolofinquiry.org/about/curriculum/ National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC: Authors. National Association for Media Literacy Education. (2007, November). Core principles of media literacy education in the United States. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://namle.net/wpcontent/uploads/2009/09/NAMLECPMLEwquestions2.pd f National Association for Media Literacy Education. Media Literacy Defined. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://namle.net/publications/medialiteracydefinitions/ New York City Department of Education. Implementation Guidance for the 201213 Citywide Instructional Expectations. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/849A47E38E4B40C39DDE6FB739A4
CDC7/0/CIE_guidance.pdf New York City Department of Education. Educational Technology. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/resources/technology/default.htm Silver, Nate. The signal and the noise : why so many predictionsfail but some don't. New York: Penguin Press, 2012. Toffler, A. (1970). Future Shock. New York, NY: Random House. U.S. Department of Education. National Education Technology Plan 2004; Seven Major Action Steps and Recommendations . Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/plan/2004/plan_pg14.html#ste ps U.S. Department of Education. National Educational Technology Plan 2010. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp2010 FOOTNOTES 1
While unpacking the federal program No Child Left Behind, followed by Race to the Top, schools also worked at absorbing and complying with updated NYCDOE Citywide Instructional Expectations. 2
I recommend schools inform their approach to DMLE through the National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Core Principles of Media Literacy Education. Also see The Aspen Institute’s Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards, and the Partnership for 21st Century Education’s Route 21. 3
The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) defines media literacy as follows: “Within North America, media literacy is seen to consist of a series of communication competencies, including the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and COMMUNICATE information in a variety of forms, including print and nonprint messages.” (National Association for Media Literacy Education, 2012)
4
See The Aspen Institute’s Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action for a complete definition of DML and a list of DML competencies. 5
See examples of K12 Digital Literacy Scope and Seqences at TheMediaSpot.org 6
Related to time, the total cost of ownership of computers has been wildly underestimated in the run up to digitizing schools. More digital resources in schools can bring more access to information, and thoughtful handson student projects if they work. Certain metrics, including the Consortium for School Networking (cosn.org), recommend one full time tech support person for every 60 computers this is rarely accounted for in school budgets. Considering how basic digital tools get updated, connected, and fixed is a crucial piece of DMLE development. Part of teacher and student digital literacy empowerment will include dealing with routine operational issues, but more teacher time troubleshooting technical issues equals less development and instructional time. 7
Cutler’s students’ PSAs were viewed at the 2010 National Council of Teachers of English national conference. Watch the PSAs and see a breakdown of the process at TheMediaSpot.org 8
Stories of educator experiences with DMLE in K12 and related support resources can be found on the National Association for Media Literacy Education Resource Hub (http://namle.net/resources), and The Media Spot (http://themediaspot.org), and other social networks related to media literacy.
