The Impor­tance of
Media Lit­er­acy

By Paul Taillefer

Media exert a pow­er­ful influ­ence on youth. The media mes­sages kids absorb help to shape their per­cep­tions of what is nor­mal and impor­tant, cool and fun, or scary and unap­peal­ing. Teach­ers are enthu­si­as­tic about help­ing stu­dents become media savvy and they are open to new strate­gies, skills, and ideas to accom­plish this goal. Our provin­cial, ter­ri­to­r­ial, and fed­eral gov­ern­ments can play a key role in ensur­ing that media edu­ca­tion is taught in class­rooms, by pro­vid­ing pro­gram fund­ing, sup­port­ing cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment, and cre­at­ing poli­cies that rec­og­nize and pri­or­i­tize a student-centred learn­ing process like media education.

Seven years ago, CTF and the Media Aware­ness Net­work part­nered to hold the annual Media Lit­er­acy Week (MLW). Our goal was to build national aware­ness about the impor­tance of media edu­ca­tion in Canada. Since then more than 60 col­lab­o­ra­tors and spon­sors have added their sup­port – includ­ing many CTF mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions: ETFO, the Asso­ci­a­tion des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, the Man­i­toba Teach­ers’ Soci­ety, the Ontario Eng­lish Catholic Teach­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion, the New­found­land and Labrador Teach­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion, the Alberta Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, the Nova Sco­tia Teach­ers Union, and the Asso­ci­a­tion des enseignantes et des enseignants du Nou­veau Brunswick.

In the past seven years, the growth of social media has been noth­ing short of phe­nom­e­nal, giv­ing rise to a wide range of net­work­ing sites such as Twit­ter, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr and Google+. This is why we decided to make “Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zen­ship” the theme of this year’s Media Lit­er­acy Week and to call on Cana­di­ans to encour­age young peo­ple to think about their rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties as they nav­i­gate the dig­i­tal world. CTF offered sub­si­dies through our Imag­ine­ac­tion pro­gram to sup­port teach­ers who wanted to help their stu­dents become active and respon­si­ble cit­i­zens in an increas­ingly com­plex world.

I was very proud to join ETFO mem­bers at the Tril­lium Ele­men­tary School in Orleans on Novem­ber 7 for the offi­cial launch of Media Lit­er­acy Week. Short ani­mated videos about char­ac­ter build­ing and dig­i­tal cit­i­zen­ship pro­duced by grade 3 and grade 6 stu­dents were pre­sented to the school, school board rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and their fed­eral MP.

CTF’s efforts to pro­mote respon­si­ble behav­iour online include edu­ca­tion about cyber-bullying. Respond­ing to a grow­ing num­ber of inci­dents of cyber-bullying toward teach­ers and stu­dents, CTF pro­duced the brochure “Cyber­tips for Teach­ers.” The brochure, which urges teach­ers to be pro­fes­sional and pru­dent while online, has turned out to be extremely pop­u­lar – nearly 110,000 have been dis­trib­uted across Canada. CTF has now updated the brochure to include social media content.

We know that social net­work­ing sites can be tremen­dously ben­e­fi­cial in teach­ers’ pro­fes­sional learn­ing but they can also present pit­falls. As edu­ca­tors, we have a pro­fes­sional image to uphold; our con­duct online is no excep­tion. The revised brochure pro­vides prac­ti­cal tips so that teach­ers can take advan­tage of the edu­ca­tional ben­e­fits pro­vided by social net­work­ing sites with­out putting at risk the safety of any stu­dent or mem­ber of the school com­mu­nity. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact us at info@ctf-fce.ca

I want to take this oppor­tu­nity to wish you and yours all the very best in this Hol­i­day Season!

Paul Taille­fer is CTF pres­i­dent for 2011–13. He is a for­mer pres­i­dent of L’association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO).