Pamela's Online Learning Journey (INF506)
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OLJ activity: privacy the digital divide and transliteracy
The following post is a response to the following two articles:
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century.
The digital divide is a topic that I am passionate about due to my experiences working in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Jenkins, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel’s acknolewdges acknowledge this in their identification of three core concerns regarding media education (p. 3):
- Participation gap (which encompasses the digital divide and a more concentrated focus on skills rather than technology)
- Transparency problem (critically evaluating the source and content of media)
- Ethics challenge (understanding the intricacies of producing, consuming and contributing within a digital world)
This article also highlighted the importance of a collaborative approach towards supporting students in developing these skills. It is important to work closely with other stakeholders to support ICT programs outside school hours. At my current place of work, I have worked with the Northern Territory Library and have assisted others staff members in providing iPads and training around content creation for after school programs. One of the key skills that students need to acquire to be effective digital citizens is negotiation, especially at my place of work where students operate across different cultures on a daily basis. While students learn some of these skills organically, it is a concept that should be embedded throughout the curriculum so students can participate in other cultures and share their own unique experiences.
The second article focused on the concept of privacy in light of the proliferation of archival records becoming available digitally. This is pertinent to remote communities where school literature production centres and community linguistics organisations share their Indigenous knowledge materials in a way that provides the correct level of access to individuals. The question of ownership is also raised when working with multimedia that captures cultural events. Relationships with traditional elders and the land council are vital in this situation to ensure that the traditional laws of the culture are respected.
From a schooling perspective, it is now a legal requirement that permission forms are signed by students’ caregivers is given before content featuring them is shared. I have also negotiated with a linguistics centre to use archival materials within the classroom with students. In this instance, they are keen to see archival footage used and remixed to capture the current culture for future generations.
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