(Yong Lee, Social Media Club) [...]What is it that we’re trying to teach in a formalized SM curriculum?
[...] From an applied level, one of the mission statements of Social Media Club is to expand media literacy. Media literacy, as it relates to social media, has three key components:
Consumption
There is an overwhelming amount of information available, and knowing what to listen to is difficult. Earlier this week, I saw the quote: “It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure.” A media-literate consumer of information will think critically about both the content and source of that information. As a new model of news distribution takes hold, this will be more crucial than ever before.Production
Adding to the community, supplying your own voice, is what separates social media from other forms of information distribution. There are many ways to do this, whether it’s through words, images, audio, or video. Knowing how to “produce your voice” and share it with others requires technical know-how, and an understanding of what medium would best serve a purpose.Search
It’s not just about adding, but using what’s already there. Search is not only thoughtful consumption, but knowing where/what to use to find specific information quickly and accurately.
There will be MANY aspects to the #SMCEDU curriculum, and there are teachers out there that teach some aspect of media literacy but don’t categorize themselves as social media teachers.
This is a new initiative and an emerging discipline that touches on many subjects that already exist — we would appreciate the help of any teachers that can cover one of the above topics. If you are, or know of, any teachers that fall in this group, please let them know about what we’re doing!
I can’t stress enough the importance of teacher contribution to this effort. One program we’d like to start is a regular online lecture series that features different educators doing what they do best. A collection of knowledge that’s available to all that want to learn would be a tremendous resource, and would help shape future classes in social media… Keep reading
