Reflection #1
In the summer of 1996, between grades four and five, I attend a week long “Sports and Computers” day camp at my elementary school. There I learned how to properly prompt Ask Jeeves to get the best possible results from an internet search engine. I credit this camp, put on by my amazing elementary school librarian and gym teacher, Jim Graham, for my solid “Google-fu” skills. My journey into the world wide web started with primarily only believable sources, since information couldn’t be uploaded to the infant internet by just anybody. Nowadays, that is far from the truth and even what would have been deemed a “legitimate source”, such as a news organization or a government body, can’t necessarily be trusted to post reliable information.
Resources:
Davos 2019 – Press Conference The Value of Digital Identity for the Global Economy and Society (2019)
The Government of Canada to test cutting-edge technologies to support secure and seamless global travel for air passengers (Jan 2018)
Digital Media and Society – Trailer from World Economic Forum (2016)
Jessie Miller‘s discussion about misinformation and digital citizenship gave me words for what I have seen happening online for the 30 or so years I have been engaging with online spaces. The internet has provided a lot of incredible opportunities for people, especially those stuck in geographic areas where they are a minority and without access to resources locally. However, it has also become a place where opinion is as “important” as fact and a hunting group for trolls and abusers hiding behind relative anonymity.
Mike Caulfield‘s talk on the SIFT Method and Critical Consumption added further context on what has been happening behind the scenes online to create this miasma of “information”, particularly highlighting that Google started indexing blogs in 2010.
I am often a strong voice against AI for a lot of things and this talk provided me some factual backing to a lot of things I had only “felt” were wrong with generative AI. It did also debunk some of opinions so I am glad to have that to work with as well.
Resources:
Toulminator AI tool
Both of these talks emphasize the importance of a Digital Literacy Framework. I do work for a school district and many of my family and friends are teachers, and many of those are attending/have attended post-secondary in recent years. The vast range of knowledge and experience when it comes to digital literacy amongst educators is truly mind boggling and does have me concerned with the type of education students are receiving. I think BC’s Digital Literacy Frameworks for K-12 and Post-Secondary are integral to not just learner success, but community success; however, they are not being sufficiently implemented.
Photo by Christa Mitchell CC BY-NC-ND 4.0