week 5 discussion

Many educators believe that with the growth of media and information technology, media literacy is just as important as – or even more important than – print literacy (that is, learning to read and write).

What is your position on the relative importance of the two “literacies”?

First, I want to start by saying that I think media literacy is very important. Now more than ever, technology is be implemented into pretty much anything. You go to a sporting event, you don’t see them writing the score on paper and showing it to the crowd. You see technicians in putting the score on an electronic device that is able to output the score on a screen for the crowd to see. There are many other examples for technology and its uses. The point I’m making is that most or all occupations will involve using or at least having to read technology at some point. But what gets me is that educators think that it is more important than print literacy. I believe that print literacy is the foundation for all literacies including media literacy. Without this basic fundamental skill, we wouldn’t be able to read media literacy or comprehend it because we wouldn’t have the skills to do so. Chapter 8 discusses how technology isn’t perfect. It breaks down, needs repairs, upgrades, and gets infected with all kinds of viruses. There will be a time when we are going to have to shy away from technology and do things the old fashioned way for a day or two. Not knowing print literacy would handicap us all. So if I’m still unclear, I think both literacies are equally important.

James