The document discusses the integration of media education and literacy into formal schooling, emphasizing the need for students to critically engage with media rather than just learn technical skills. It outlines the importance of combining media and information literacy, including making students aware of the social contexts of media use and addressing ideological interests surrounding digital technologies. The analysis also calls for innovative teaching practices in English language education to equip students with diverse literacy skills for the digital age.

1. MEDIA EDUCATION,
MEDIA LITERACY AND
DIGITAL COMPETENCE
Yamith José Fandiño
La Salle University
Bogotá, Colombia

2. INTRODUCTION

3. INTRODUCTION (Gutiérrez & Tyner, 2012, p. 32)
 The pervasive access, ubiquity and daily reliance on multimedia devices are the «new
normal».
 However, the education sector lags in its comparative response to ICTs.
 When the number and types of literacy devices used by students outside of school are
compared with the literacy tools and texts used in formal education, it is obvious that
young people must unplug to participate in the classroom.
 With the dominance of high-stakes standardized testing in formal schooling, it remains
to be seen how schools can transform widespread content delivery modes into critical,
participatory designs for the learning environment.
 Efforts to reconnect and support contemporary literacy practices in formal schooling
should go beyond competencies with digital devices and networks. It is also important
that formal education incorporates skills and practices that support students’ critical
autonomy and awareness of the relevant contexts of their media use.

4. Integrating media into the curriculum (Gutiérrez & Tyner,
2012, pp. 33-34)
 Historically, as each new medium is adopted in society, schools have attempted to
integrate them into the classroom curricula.
 It is not enough to simply teach and learn «with» media, but that a comprehensive
educational environment also requires that students study «about» media in order to
analyze the world of new texts, technologies and their relevant contexts.
 As media and digital literacies are often approached from a technical perspective, media
education is often associated with simply attaining applied skills needed to navigate
computer networks, virtual worlds, software platforms, social networks or media
production tools and editing devices.
 The rapid adoption of digital networks and ICTs substantially modifies media forms and
content, as well as users’ relationship with information.
 Many terms have been used to describe the skills and knowledge needed to navigate in
the converged, digital media environment of contemporary society. They include
«multiliteracies»; «multimedia literacy»; «new media literacy»; «media and information
literacy»; and «media literacy education».

5. Integrating media into the curriculum (Gutiérrez & Tyner,
2012, pp. 33-34)
 Information literacy and media literacy. On the one hand, information literacy is a set of abilities to
locate, evaluate, and use information effectively. On the other hand, media literacy has to with how
to access, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the
Internet..
 UNESCO bridges these two concepts with the term «media and information literacy». By
integrating the two concepts, UNESCO seeks to acknowledge the compendium of skills,
competencies and attitudes needed to function and thrive in a digital society.
 The UNESCO term, «media and information literacy», also diverges into two concepts that we must
include here for purposes of discussion. These are:
- Critical Literacy: Using reflective or analytical approaches to media education.
- Functional literacy: Being able to use reading, writing and calculation for one’s own development
and that of one’s community.
 We will characterize various literacies and multiliteracies as different, complementary dimensions
of a multiple, global literacy. In this regard, instead of «new literacies» it may be more convenient
to discuss new dimensions of literacy.

6. Media Literacy and digital competence (Gutiérrez & Tyner,
2012, pp. 35-36)
 Literacy
- In the beginning, the basic competencies for print literacy was to decode written text (to read) and to
produce alphabetic and numeric texts (to write).
- Since the second half of the last century, this decoding and encoding process also included audiovisual
codes and languages.
- The current development of ICTs demonstrates that form and content involve the new forms of encoding
of information and the more complex structuring of knowledge.
 Media education provides a more balanced concept for media and information literacy that supports
both critical reception and critical production of media products. It revolves around «5Cs»:
Comprehension, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Cross-Cultural Awareness, and Citizenship.
 Media literacy involves the ability to understand and critically evaluate various aspects of different
media and information received through a torrent of data and images.
 Information processing and digital competencies encompass the ability to seek, obtain, process and
communicate information which can then be transformed into the creation of digitalized knowledge.

7. Media Literacy and digital competence (Gutiérrez & Tyner,
2012, pp. 36-37)
 A reductionist view of media literacy is spreading, due mainly to the proliferation and spread of
digital technologies, but also to the instrumental approach that educational bureaucrats and
policymakers use.
 Priorities are given to content that supports the «know how» of technology used for information
management.
 It promotes a technical and applied approaches to media education, focused on the uses and
manipulation of equipment.
 It is appropriate for critical media literacy to address the major ideological and economic interests
around ICTs and to support the critically analysis of the political economies of media business and
the role of audiences as «prosumers» (a person who buys electronic goods that are of a standard
between those aimed at consumers and professionals).
 Two risks with limiting the complex subject of literacy to a narrow set of skills that:
1) reduce media education to the development of digital competencies, and
2) focus digital competencies to the expertise needed to navigate hardware and software.

8. Incorporating technology in EFL (Fandiño, 2013, p. 201)
 What is the role of language teaching in the information technology society?
 English language educators need to develop activities that engage learners in the authentic ,
problem solving tasks they will actually need in the future.
 Such engagement can be achieved by having students carry out complex project work involving
negotiation, collaboration, goal-setting, meaningful communication, and the development of
challenging products.
 As a result, students need to learn to develop a whole new range of English language literacies,
which involve emerging forms of communication, reading, and writing using online technologies.
 Concretely, English teachers need to use learner-centered collaborative projects, in which students
work together with their classmates and with other around the world, using a variety of
technological means.
 These projects should allow English language learners to carry out activities based on new
technological tools and semiotic forms. Such activities should involve multimodal practices such as
instant messaging, social networks, digital storytelling and media redesigning.

9. Incorporating technology in EFL (Fandiño, 2013, p. 203)
Multiliteracy
Knowing how to use
different kinds of texts,
including interactive,
linear and nonlinear texts,
texts being delivered on
paper, screens, or live,
and texts that comprise
one or more semiotic
systems.
Multimodal Communicative
Competence
The knowledge and use of
language concerning the
visual, gestural, audio and
spatial dimensions of
communication, including
computer mediated-
communication.

10. Incorporating technology in EFL (Fandiño, 2013, pp. 203-204)
…. EFL classrooms need to be filled with meaningful and intellectually stimulating
activities, practices, and processes that allow students to not just articulate thoughts
and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication, but to also
understand complex perspectives, use multiple media and technologies, make
judgments and decisions, and work creatively with others.

11. References
 Gutiérrez, A., & Tyner, K. (2012). Media education, media literacy and digital
competence. Comunicar: Scientific journal of media education, 0(38), 31-39.
 Fandiño, Y. (2013). 21st Century Skills and the English Foreign Language Classroom:
A Call for More Awareness in Colombia. Gist Education and Learning Research
Journal, 0(7), 190-208.