New Media Literacies Research Articles

Waldorf inspired hyper-imaginative learning trajectories: developing new media literacies in elementary education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this pilot study is to identify how Waldorf-inspired imaginative teaching methods, and low-technology prototyping promote New Media Literacies (NMLs) development at upper elementary school students. Particularly, the aim is twofold: firstly, to test the feasibility of the research design and validate the research instruments; secondly, to explore the relationship among Waldorf-inspired teaching methods, low-technology prototyping and NMLs development. The study was conducted following mixed methods-grounded theory (MM-GT) methodology by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting qualitative and quantitative data from 104 participants. Specific learning trajectories are traced facilitating students to develop NMLs. Waldorf-inspired hyper-imaginative learning trajectories are unfolded within a six-phases learning process, as particularly effective at low-technology learning environments. Further research should be carried out to gain more insight into the cross-curricular infusion and acquisition of NMLs through Waldorf education across different educational grades.

Assessing New Media Literacies in Social Work Education: The Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Assessment Instrument

The focus of this article is to replicate the validity and reliability of a newly developed assessment tool for self-reported media literacy levels by assessing the new media literacy levels of social work students and educators. The study is grounded in the New Media Literacies (NML) framework and the concept of participatory culture. Findings indicate a significant difference between the levels of new media literacy of students and educators. Students were also found to be more engaged with new media. The study demonstrates the need to incorporate new media literacies into the social work curriculum to increase the digital competencies of both educators and students. Implications for social work education and future research are suggested.

Collboard: Fostering new media literacies in the classroom through collaborative problem solving supported by digital pens and interactive whiteboards

Education systems worldwide must strive to support the teaching of a set of New Media Literacies (NMLs). These literacies respond to the need for educating human capital within participatory cultures in a highly technologized world. In this paper, we present Collboard, a constructivist problem solving activity for fostering the development of specific NMLs in classrooms: collective intelligence, distributed cognition and transmedia navigation. Collboard encompasses successive individual and collaborative work phases that prompt active student participation and engagement. It integrates digitally augmented appliances, namely, digital pens as a means to support individual work, and interactive whiteboards as a collaborative knowledge construction space. We report on the conceptual design of Collboard, its different technological and software components, as well as our findings from experiences we conducted in a Swedish school with 12 students from a 7th grade maths class. Findings from the experience provide an indication that Collboard can be well integrated in classroom teaching, and that it can foster the development of collective intelligence, distributed cognition and transmedia navigation in different knowledge domains.

New Media Literacies of Communication Students

This study examined new media literacy skills of university students based on Jenkins and his colleagues’ classification. Toward this purpose, an online Likert scale was administered to a sample (n=170). This scale included a multi-component understanding of media literacy such as tackling the consumption of media messages and the original creation of multimedia material. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was 0,93. The instrument was structured around three main sections; demographics, media use characteristics, and new media literacies (NMLs). The third section aimed to assess participants’ new media literacy skills by presenting them 60 items about their social and cultural modes of engagement, online interaction, and media consumption and creation patterns. The statements were conceptually built around the 12 NMLs skills identified by Jenkins and his colleagues. These skills are: Play, appropriation, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation, and visualization. The results of the study showed that individuals who spent more time on Internet, social media, and blogging had the highest NMLs levels. Furthermore, young participants’ NMLs levels were higher than those over the age of 32.

Developmentally appropriate New Media Literacies: Supporting cultural competencies and social skills in early childhood education

Young children explore their world through manipulatives, playing with ‘technology’ that may or may not be digital. To this end, I offer an exploration into how the existing framework of the New Media Literacies (NMLs) paradigm set forth by Henry Jenkins (2006) in Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century might be applicable to early childhood education. For the purposes of this paper, I focus on three of the twelve NML skills ( play, distributed cognition and transmedia navigation) and how they might each be reflected in the interplay between digital and non-digital media within Reggio Emilia-inspired teaching and learning. Aligning the discussion of young children's media use with NMLs might allow for greater examination of the potential positive benefits of digital and non-digital media and technology.