Digital Media and Research Skills

Because STEM learning utilizes technology and many online sites and resources, students must become adept at navigating and utilizing credible information from a variety of sources on the Web. As a result, a curricular component that must be addressed before, during, and after the culmination of a project is digital media literacy.

Literacy as it relates to digital media incorporates the analysis of media to understand its messages but also to produce content using media, which is often the platform for final projects. If students learn to interpret content online or in images or data sets, they are better able to reproduce content that is multimodal and effectively communicates their purposes and outcomes. These resources provide the theoretical framework for media literacy curriculum, as well as content to develop meaningful activities within the classroom. 

Digital Media Theory Resources

Buckingham, David. "Digital Media Literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the Internet." Research in Comparative and International Education 2.1 (2007): 43-55. Print.

Handa, Carolyn. "Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World." Intertexts: Reading Pedagogy in College Classrooms. Ed. Marguerite Helmers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. 107-130.

Taylor, Mark L. "Generation Next Comes to College: 2006 Updates and Emerging Issues." The Future-Focused Organization: Focusing on the Needs and Expectations of Constituents. The Higher Learning Commission. 2006. Print.

Trend, David. "Politics, Technology, and School." Welcome to Cyberschool: Education at the Crossroads in the Information Age. Rowman and Littlefield. 2001. Print.

Digital Media Curricular Resources

Jenkins, Henry, et al. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century." MacArthur Foundation. 2009. Print.

Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press. 2012. Print.

Thoman, Elizabeth, and Tessa Jolls. "Literacy for the 21st Century:  Part 1, Theory." Center for Media Literacy. MediaLit.org. 2003. Print.