Comparing and unpacking two Mind Map deconstructions of DML to demonstrate deeper understanding and strengthen implementation
Initial Thoughts
Throughout this series of Discussion Board topics around Digital Media Literacy there have been a number of considerations, techniques, and mediums that we have investigated to better understand what constitutes as digital media and how our usage of it can improve our lives as learners and as citizens of the modern world. We explored the need for accountability and creativity in how we use them and engage with them in our daily lives and educational settings, and surfaced what it looks like to be literate with our consumption and construction of them. As we begin to wrap up this series, I will take the time to reflect on my first formal foray into this topic and the Mind Map we were asked to devise and draw back in Week 1 of this quarter. We'll compare and contrast the components of that first version with a revised one, separated by several weeks and several readings and resources, and summarize the major takeaways and shifts I've made in my understanding.
In that first week, I had felt somewhat confident about my interpretation of what Digital Media Literacy entailed. I studied as a double-major in my undergraduate days about a decade ago in both visual anthropology and cinema studies / film criticism, and because I was confident in my own abilities to unpack and deconstruct imagery, sounds, and messages thought that to be a practitioner of DML meant being somewhere between a critic and philosopher / historian. Though this isn't too far from the truth, I've come to learn that there are so many more aspects of this needed to engage with them meaningfully as an educator. One of the most prominent shifts I've made in my understanding is a reduced focus on the whats of DML to additionally focus on the hows and the whys, with perhaps more noticing of the whos that are involved as well. Especially in the context of teaching and learning, DML is invested in developing a practice and skill of decoding media and their embedded messages and not simply on the presentation of those messages. Indeed, Rogow & Scheibe note this early in their book on what DML involves:
"We accept a degree of "fuzziness" in defining media because media literacy education is not about excluding or privileging some forms of media over others. Instead, it is about equipping students to successfully navigate their world and to think for themselves. If something does not exactly fit the definition of media but analyzing or creating it enhances media literacy skills, then teachers should include it in the scope of their work. Both in practice and in definition, the focus is on media messages - the content of the medium - rather than the technology or "channel" through which that message is delivered" (Scheibe & Rogow, 2012, p15).
Observations
In revisiting the Week 1 Mind Map, I can see that a dominant part of my thinking around DML was on the technologies that are used to access messages and narratives, rather than on the messages themselves. I'd pivoted literacy as being capable of navigating these kinds of tools and the platforms that compose them, like the operating software on a computer or the file types that dictate the format of a message and its presentation. Under the Tools section of my map, I listed things like arduinos, computers, PDFs, etc. Looking back, I likely imagined literacy as having more to do with older people than younger people - since children often become proficient in maneuvering through iPads or computers with ease after just a short time; so literacy was more to do with establishing foundational or baseline skills to be able to coexist in a modern digital landscape like we have had since Web 2.0 began in the late-90s and through the 2000s. Literacy wasn't the ends of learning, but the means to get there; it was a tool for engagement and not the content focus.
Because we were instructed to self-impose a time limit for these Mind Maps, I sought to identify some major areas of what I thought DML involved in that first week. Tools, as mentioned, was one of them. The others were Processes, Organization, and lastly Platforms. Using today's eyes to look at what I had written then, it is clear that my interpretation of literacy was fixated on just a few strands of what it actually is overall.
Shifts & Takeaways
To construct a revised version of the Mind Map, I attempted to keep some aspects of the design the same. I did this to maintain some consistency between the two artifacts, but also out of curiosity to try and summarize what new containers I thought needed to be included for a summarization of this topic area. I shifted from identifying TOOLS, PLATFORMS, PROCESSES, and ORGANIZATION as the major arenas of DML to DISPOSITIONS & ATTITUDES, CREATIVITY & CONSTRUCTION, ECOLOGIES & SYSTEMS, and LITERACY & CRITICAL ANALYSIS. To me, the biggest difference between these interrelated areas reflects a shift in who I think DML is for - from adult learners almost exclusively to any learner within most contexts of learning. Another shift is in how I now see DML as both a rich subject on its own but also as a way to inform the design and uplift the content and curriculum of other subjects. Ironically, my revised and improved interpretation brings things closer to the subjects of film criticism and anthropology than my initial take did, as there is more focus on how messages are made more powerful with use of digital media's ability to code them as a writerly foray wrapped in all kinds of interactive and sensory trappings.
My revised Mind Map also has an additional portion that was not present in the first iteration. Alongside each of the four major containers for DML, each line also has sub-sections that highlight aspects of that trait. Within Literacy & Critical Analysis, there is decoding and discerning, which is connected with the aforementioned skills of syntactical deconstruction. Within Dispositions & Attitudes there are Civic Engagement and Etiquette in Virtual Spaces, both of which are more to do with the behavioral and psychological impacts of developing literacy. Some concerns, like authorship, meaning-making, industry tropes on media production, and the communalism of online spaces are present in both versions.
Food for Thought
Is something missing from either or both versions of my Mind Map? What would you add? What needs clarification?
If you were to make a Mind Map now and again in six weeks, what changes do you anticipate? What changes would you anticipate if the revised version was to be made six months from now? Six years?
Scheibe, C. & Rogow, F. (2012). The teacher’s guide to media literacy: Critical thinking in a multimedia world. Corwin.
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