What Should be Taught in Schools

The digital era has progressed to a point where students cannot be functioning citizens without digital literacy. Digital literacy is important now because people interact and communicate with family and friends through the internet, students must leave a positive digital footprint for their possible future, many jobs require digital literacy including presenting, recording and analyzing data. Danah Boyd is a technology and social media scholar, who has taught at New York University and is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. She wrote a book called It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens about how society is failing youth by not preparing students for the technical world. Boyd’s argument in “Are Today’s Youth Digital Natives?”, a chapter from her book, is that young people are not being equipped with “critical digital literacy,” by focusing on the skills that are important that the youth need to know and why. The claim that I will to extend in her book, is about the youth becoming more media literate by: becoming technically literate, becoming aware of websites that use algorithm and what algorithms do, and understanding fake news.

A part of Boyd’s chapter is about the lack of standardized technical skills being taught or introduced to students, but I believe Boyd doesn’t speak enough on its importance. Boyd claims that the way social media is setup today doesn’t allow students to interact with the technology and coding because of new social media makes it easy and convenient to make a profile and to personalize it. There is no need to learn coding if everything you want is already an easy option offered by the social media company. Coding is the base of almost everything we do in modern technology like: the software of our computers and phones, in our apps on our phone, and all websites. Boyd notes that when Myspace was popular, users explored code to customize their profile and without this exploration many aren’t connecting with a large part of the digital world, coding. Since social media nowadays lacks this quirk, teens aren’t being introduced to the language of code, when knowing code is now more important than ever. Boyd says that technical skills are increasingly important, and teens don’t even have a basic understanding of how computers systems work, and if teens do want to learn additional problems are, “it takes time and effort as well as opportunities, networking, and training to become active participants in contributors .”(182 Boyd) So, it’s understandably difficult to create a basic standard curriculum, but it’s incredibly important and there is a lack of curriculum and students skills. Dian Schaffhauser, a freelance writer who writes about technology, supports Boyd’s claims by talking about the real dangers of the lack of technical skill. In her article, “When Students Can’t Compute.”, she wrote, “Online education promises learning opportunities for all, but too many community college students lack the tech skills–and the access–to take advantage of these resources.” The technical skills need to be taught to people for them to be able to access learning opportunities. High schools are not preparing teens for college or to be digitally literate citizens. Which is the reason why Boyd talks about technical skills in her book. Another source that extends Boyd’s argument is The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The CIPA is the only thing required by the federal government to be taught about the internet. This act forces schools to have two certificates making sure students are safe when using the internet. The certificates only are for the libraries and schools to show that they will censor children searches to be safe and more reliable. The extent of the teaching required by the 21st Century Act, which is under the CIPA, is schools must educate “minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.” This is a good start to beginning to teach students about being digital citizens, but it is nowhere close to being done. Children are learning about having good morals when it comes to the internet and learning about what is safe and legal to do while on the internet. This is a great Act for protecting our children, but this is the only curriculum required by the government to be taught to our children about technology. Boyd even recognizes the lack of good media literacy laws in her chapter. She wrote “Even though media literacy programs have been discussed and haphazardly implemented for decades, most people have little training in being critical in the content they are consuming.” This is a big problem because this is the maximum children must be taught. The CIPA doesn’t create well rounded students with knowledge in technology nor does it prepare students for jobs in the future. This is evidence that children are not being prepared for the real world and the massive amount of technology people are required to interact with.

Boyd claims technical skills are an essential part of becoming a digital citizen. She states, “Although it is not necessary to be technically literate to participate, those with limited technical literacy aren’t necessarily equipped to be powerful citizens of the digital world.”(183 Boyd) Many teenagers are jumping on the internet and learning the basics of social media but aren’t learning the basics of computers and technology. Lawmakers are now realizing the need for more digital literacy. A computer science bill, introduced by Assembly Member Tim Grayson, will be taking effect in California in July 2019 that requires standards for teaching coding and digital literacy. They describe “‘coding’ is the process of converting a program design into an accurate and detailed representation of that program in a suitable language.” This is a good start to teaching technology to students. There are many benefits to learning how to code that doesn’t have to do with being prepared for the technological based future. Though learning coding doesn’t make you a powerful citizen, it has many beneficial effects. Dan Crow, a writer from a newspaper, The Guardian, is focused on the effects of technology. In “Why Every Child Should Learn Code” Dan Crow extends what Boyd writes by explaining more positives of teaching people code. He is aware that not all jobs will require knowing code, but code teaches, “Computational thinking… it {coding} combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches you a new way to think about the world.” This shows the importance of teaching students coding that is just more than the saying that the future is computers. Students need to understand technology, which starts with coding, to become digital citizens. Boyd and Schaffhauser claim people need to be taught technical skills and when the only thing required to be taught is about being safe in chat rooms, there is a lot more things that students need to be taught. Another writer from The Muse also sees many benefits to learning code. Aja Frost is a writer who focuses on technology, career, and productivity. In her article called “4 Major Reasons You Need Coding Skills Even If You Don’t Want to Be an Engineer” her four major reasons to learn coding were: it will make people more self-sufficient at work, it will change how people think, it will improve people’s communication skills, it will increase your value in the job market, and it may make you promoted faster because of your increased value to the place you work at. Frost thinks that there are many benefits to learning coding that will make people stand out in any job market. She believes this because she had recently interviewed a marketer turned manager and she said her boss’s choice her for the job because coding allowed her to open up more options, take more projects, a help with reimagining the company’s website. Frost also believes having coding or being able to create a website on your skills on your resume will make you stand out and many employers look for people who will be able to have handy skills. So, coding is not only a good for students to learn for the educational benefits of making a more well-rounded student, it will make them more likely to be able to get a job even if their field isn’t coding. Coding and the other benefits mentioned by Dan Crow and Aja Frost will be taught in California thanks to a bill from Assembly Member Tim Grayson, but other states won’t be able to improve their youths conceptual thinking.

Another aspect of digital literacy has to do with algorithms and most people, including students, don’t understand what they are or how they work. Boyd believes that the lack of knowledge of algorithms results in people placing their trust in web engines and other things on the internet that may be biased. I think that people should know basics about algorithms like: what they are, how they are used, what websites use them, and why they are biased.  Boyd writes, “The results that a search engine produces may reveal biases in the underlying data, or they may highlight how the weights chosen by engineers prioritize certain content over others,”(185 Boyd). Boyd writes this in the context of people trusting the reliability of the order of Google’s results page. This source will further establish that Boyd’s claim that algorithms are biased, and more people should know about it. Data & Society is a research institute that is focused on the social and cultural issues arising from data-centric technologies. They published an algorithm briefing about how algorithms perpetuate racial bias and inequality to Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) in April 2018. The CPC is an organization within the Democratic congressional caucus in the United States Congress that works to advance progressive and liberal issues and positions. Data & Society published “Algorithmic Accountability: A Primer” and they stated, “It {Bias in algorithms}can be created through the social context where an algorithm is created, as a result of technical constraints, or by the way the algorithm is used in practice.” To have algorithm accountability, they recommend auditing by journalists or enforcing regulations. Bias in algorithms is not a maybe; algorithms are biased like humans because it is created by humans. The more checked the algorithm the better and more neutral it will be. It is important to know that algorithms are not trustworthy. It is also important to stop teaching children it is trustworthy. Google is a website that wants to generate money like most websites which makes it more bias then ones like Wikipedia that is only there for the betterment of people. In reality, Google is a for-profit company with the goal of acquiring the most profit. Therefore, their algorithms will reflect their objective and manipulate which websites get ranked higher. But Google is still considered to be a very trustworthy site that teachers recommend to their student perpetuating the cycle. This is because people are unaware of the algorithms and their bias. This concept extends Boyd’s argument by giving options for a solution and it shows that even though Google is biased that you can find good websites if you know how.  People should learn the difference, so they are not ignorant to the truth of algorithms and their biases.

Boyd doesn’t talk about non-factual websites and their influence on students, but it is an extremely important part of digital literacy at this time and by talking about some quick tips to teach students this will strengthen and make Boyd’s chapter more modern. Mike Caulfield is currently the director of blended learning, a combination of technology and traditional learning, at Washington State University Vancouver, and head of the Digital Polarization Initiative of the American Democracy Project, a pilot to change the way that online media literacy is taught. In Mike Caulfield’s “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”, Caulfield agrees with Boyd saying that, “the web gives us many such strategies, tactics, and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. Unfortunately, we do not teach students these specific techniques.” Caulfield recommends four tips to fact-check: look to see if someone already fact checked this site or article, look at the article’s sources, see if the sources are trustworthy, and go through the process again. This gives people that have a lack of digital literacy skills a quick checklist to think about while reading and looking for trustworthy sources, especially for school. While other people would prefer to teach a more of a non-lateral approach by just looking at the article. Frank Baker, a Media Education Consultant, has done hundreds of workshops for teachers and students on media literacy. Some of his recommendations for how to identify fake news is: a title in all caps, an excess number of ads, and reading more than just the headline. He also gives some tips like check the sources and reverse engine source pictures which can be considered lateral thinking, but most of them are based on what you can see on the site. Not just scholars are realizing that teens need to know how to tell the difference between real and fake news, lawmakers are to. Assembly member Tim Grayson introduced a bill about digital literacy in California legislature. They wrote in the bill that “‘digital literacy’ means the skills associated with using technology to enable users to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information.” This is important because it is now teaching young children not to trust everything they read on the internet. This also will lower the influences on people by making them more aware of fake news and how real it could look. Some people think this bill will do more harm than good. Sam Wineburg disagrees that checklists are the best way to be teaching students on how to fact check websites. Sam Wineburg is a professor at Stanford and his study was cited in California’s bill on digital literacy. He told the Washington Post in “Why California’s new media literacy law for schools could backfire” that, “instead of giving kids checklists, let’s teach them to spend a minute consulting what the broader Web says about a site or an organization before diving into it.” Wineburg’s worry is valid but if the checklist is how to check a website “laterally” like he wants then he shouldn’t be worried. Caulfield’s list is a step by step on how to read a text laterally. Checking things laterally is good, but it’s time consuming especially if its fake news on Facebook when people are just going to read the headline and believe. I think having a mixture of both laterally and non-laterally should be taught along with when to use either method. I disagree with Sam Wineburg’s concern about teaching only one method. At this point, something being taught to our kids about digital literacy can only be good. In conclusion, people are trying to teach students how to identify fake news and that is a step in the right direction for teaching digital literacy.

My position is that it is crucial to be teaching our students proficient digital literacy skills to prepare them for our highly technical world. I believe that youth becoming more media literate in technical literacy, becoming aware of websites that use algorithms and what algorithms do, and understanding fake news is an extremely important part in teaching them how to become informed digital citizens. A large part of Boyd’s claim is that students are unprepared, and I furthered her argument with the topics that I believe will increase digital literacy.

What Should be Taught in Schools

The digital era has progressed to a point where students can not be functioning citizens without digital literacy. Danah Boyd is a technology and social media scholar, that has taught at New York University and is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. She wrote a book called It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens about how society is failing youth by not preparing students for the technical world. Boyd’s argument in “Are Today’s Youth Digital Natives?”, a chapter from her book, is that young people are not being equipped with “critical digital literacy,” by focusing on the skills that are important that the youth need to know and why. The claims that I want to extend in her book, is about the youth becoming more media literate by: becoming technically literate, becoming aware of websites that uses algorithm and what algorithms do, and understanding fake news and website.

A large claim in Boyd’s chapter is the lack of standardized technical skills being taught or introduced to students, but I believe Boyd doesn’t speak enough on its importance. Boyd believes that the way social media is setup today doesn’t allow student to interact with the technology and coding. Coding is the base of almost everything we do on modern technology like: the software of our computers and phones, in our apps on our phone, and all websites. When Myspace was popular, users explore code to customize their profile and without this exploration many aren’t connecting with a large part of the digital world, coding. Since social media nowadays lack this quirk teens aren’t being introduced to the language of code, when knowing code is more important than ever. Boyd says that technical skills are increasingly important and teens don’t even have a basic understanding of how computers systems work, and if teens do want to learn more problems are, “ it takes time and effort as well as opportunities, networking, and training to become active participants in contributors(182 Boyd).” So it’s understandably difficult to create a basic standard curriculum, but it’s incredibly important and their is a lack of curriculum and students skills. Dian Schaffhauser, a freelance writer who writes about technology, who supports Boyd’s claims by talking about the real dangers of the lack of technical skill. In her article, “When Students Can’t Compute.”, she wrote, “Online education promises learning opportunities for all, but too many community college students lack the tech skills–and the access–to take advantage of these resources.” The technical skills need to be taught to people for them to be able to access learning opportunities. High schools are not preparing teens for college or to be digitally literate citizens. Which is the reason why Boyd talks about technical skills in her book. The Children’s Internet Protection Act is the only thing required by the federal government to be taught about the internet. This act forces schools to have two certificates making sure students are safe when using the internet. The extent of the teaching required by the 21st Century Act, which is under the CIPA, is schools must educate “minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.” This is a great Act for protecting our children, but this is the only curriculum required by the government to be taught to our children about technology. This is evidence that children are not being prepare for the real world and the mass of amount of technology people are required to interact with.

Boyd thinks technical skills is an essential part of becoming a digital citizen and people are listening. She states “Although it is not necessary to be technically literate to participate, those with limited technical literacy aren’t necessarily equipped be powerful citizens of the digital world(183 Boyd).” Many teenagers are jumping on the internet and learning the basics of social media, but aren’t learning the basics of computers and technology. Now we need to know Lawmakers are realizing the need for more digital literacy. A computer science bill, introduced by Assembly Member Tim Grayson, will be taking effect in California in July 2019 that requires standards for teaching coding and digital literacy. They describe “ ‘coding’ is the process of converting a program design into an accurate and detailed representation of that program in a suitable language.” This is a good start to teaching technology to students. There are many benefits to learning how to code that doesn’t have to do with being prepared for the technological based future. Dan Crow is a writer from a newspaper, The Guardian, is focused on the effects of technology. In “Why Every Child Should Learn Code” Dan Crow extends what Boyd writes by explaining more positives of teaching people code. He  is aware that not all jobs will require knowing code, but code teaches, “Computational thinking… it {coding} combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches you a new way to think about the world.” This shows the importance of teaching students coding that is just more than the saying that the future is computers. Students need to understand technology ,which starts with coding, to become digital citizen. Boyd and Schaffhauser claims people need to be taught technical skills and when the only thing required to be taught is about being safe in chat rooms, there is a lot more things that students need to be taught. Coding and the other benefits mentioned by Dan Crow will be taught in California thanks to a bill from Assembly Member Tim Grayson.

Another part of digital literacy has to do with algorithms and most people, including students, don’t understand what they are or how they work. Boyd believes that the lack of knowledge of algorithms because trust in web engines and other things on the internet that may be biased. I think that people should know basics about algorithms like: what they are, how they are used, what websites use them, and why they are biased.  Boyd writes, “The results that a search engine produces may reveal biases in the underlying data, or they may highlight how the weights chosen by engineers prioritize certain content over others(185).” Boyd writes this in the context of people trusting the order of Google’s results page for being reliable. In reality, Google is a for-profit company with the goal of acquiring the most profit. Which their algorithms will reflect their objective and manipulate which websites get ranked higher. But Google is still considered to be a very trustworthy site that teachers recommend to their student perpetuating the cycle. This is because people are unaware of the algorithms and their bias. Sam Wineburg is a Professor of Education and History at Stanford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts  and Sarah McGrew teaches in the Stanford Teacher Education Program and together they wrote an article talking about the three things student should know about how to choose a trustworthy site from Google. In “Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth Fact-checkers”, Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew wrote, “Instead of trusting Google to sort pages by reliability (which reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google works), the checkers mined URLs and abstracts for clues. They {professional fact-checkers} regularly scrolled down to the bottom of the search results page in their quest to make an informed decision about where to click first.” This gives insight on how professionals find the truth and trustworthy websites. This extends Boyd’s argument by giving options for a solution and it shows that even though Google is biased that you can find good websites if you know how.

Boyd doesn’t talk about non-factual websites and their influence on students, but it is an extremely important part of digital literacy at this time and by talking about some quick tips to teach students this will strengthen and make Boyd’s chapter more modern. In Mike Caulfield’s “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”, Caulfield agrees with Boyd saying that, “the web gives us many such strategies, tactics, and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. Unfortunately, we do not teach students these specific techniques.” Caulfield recommends four tips to fact-check: look to see if someone already fact checked this site or article, look at the articles sources, see if the sources are trustworthy, go through the process again. This gives people that have a lack of digital literacy skills a quick checklist to think about while reading and looking for trustworthy sources, especially for school. While other people would prefer to teach a more of a non-lateral approach by just looking at the article. Frank Baker a Media Education Consultant that has done hundreds of workshops for teachers and students on media literacy. Some of his recommendations for how to identify fake news is: a title in all caps, an excess amount of ads, and reading more than just the headline. He also gives some tips like check the sources and reverse engine source pictures that can be considered more lateral thinking, but most of them are based on what you can see on the site. Not just scholars are realizing that teens need to know how to tell the difference between real and fake news, Lawmakers are too. Assembly Member Tim Grayson, introduced a bill about digital literacy in California legislature. They wrote in the bill that “‘digital literacy’ means the skills associated with using technology to enable users to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information.” This is important because it is now teaching young children not to trust everything they read on the internet. This also will lowers the influences on people by making them more aware of fake news and how real it could look. Some people think this bill will do more harm than good. Sam Wineburg disagrees that checklists are the best way to be teaching students on how to fact check websites. Sam Wineburg is a professor at Stanford and his study was cited in California’s bill on digital literacy. He told the Washington Post in“Why California’s new media literacy law for schools could backfire” that, “instead of giving kids checklists, let’s teach them to spend a minute consulting what the broader Web says about a site or an organization before diving into it.” Wineburg’s worry is valid but if the checklist is how to check a website “laterally” like he wants then he shouldn’t be worried. Caulfield’s list is a step by step on how to read a text laterally. Checking things laterally is good, but it’s time consuming especially if its fake new on Facebook that people are just going to read the headline and believe. I think having a mixture of both laterally and non-laterally should be taught along with when to use either method. The idea, that one method is extremely better and Sam Wineburg is considered that that method is more harm, is completely ridiculous. At this point, something being taught to our kids about digital literacy can only be good. In conclusion, people are trying to teach students how to identify fake news and that is a step in the right direction for teaching digital literacy.

My position is that it is crucial to be teaching our students proficient digital literacy skills to prepare them for our highly technical world. I believe that youth becoming more media literate in technically literacy, becoming aware of websites that uses algorithm and what algorithms do, and understanding fake news and website is an extremely important part in teaching them how to become informed digital citizens. A large part of Boyd’s claim is that students are unprepared and I furthered her argument with the topics that I believe with increase digital literacy.

A large claim in Boyd’s chapter is the lack of standardized technical skills being taught or introduced to students, but I believe Boyd doesn’t speak enough on its importance. Boyd believes that the way social media is setup today doesn’t allow student to interact with the technology and coding. When Myspace was popular, users explore code to customize their profile and without this exploration many aren’t connecting with a large part of the digital world, coding. Since social media nowadays lack this quirk teens aren’t being introduced to the language of code, when knowing code is more important than ever. Boyd says that technical skills are increasingly important and teens don’t even have a basic understanding of how computers systems work, and if teens do want to learn more problems are, “ it takes time and effort as well as opportunities, networking, and training to become active participants in contributors.” So it’s understandably difficult to create a basic standard curriculum, but it’s incredibly important and their is a lack of curriculum and students skills. Dian Schaffhauser, a freelance writer who writes about technology, who supports Boyd’s claims by talking about the real dangers of the lack of technical skill. She wrote in “When Students Can’t Compute.”, “Online education promises learning opportunities for all, but too many community college students lack the tech skills–and the access–to take advantage of these resources.” The technical skills need need to be taught to people for them to be able to access learning opportunities. High schools are not preparing teens for college or to be digitally literate citizens. Which is the reason why Boyd talks about technical skills in her book. The Children’s Internet Protection Act is the only thing required by the federal government to be taught about the internet. This act forces schools to have two certificates making sure students are safe when using the internet. The extent of the teaching required by the 21st Century Act, which is under the CIPA, is schools must educate “minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.” This is a great Act for protecting our children, but this is the only curriculum required by the government to be taught to our children about technology. This is evidence that children are not being prepare for the real world and the mass of amount of technology people are required to interact with. Lawmakers are realizing the need for more digital literacy, a computer science bill, introduced by Assembly Member Tim Grayson, will be taking effect in California in July 2019 that requires standards for teaching coding and digital literacy. They describe “ ‘coding’ is the process of converting a program design into an accurate and detailed representation of that program in a suitable language.” This is a good start to teaching technology to students. There are many benefits to learning how to code that doesn’t have to do with being prepared for the technicnology based future. In “Why Every Child Should Learn Code”  Dan Crow extends what Boyd writes by explaining more positives of teaching people code. Dan Crow, a write focus on technology, is aware that not all jobs will require knowing code, but code teaches, “Computational thinking… it {coding} combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches you a new way to think about the world.” This shows the importance of teaching students coding that is just more than the saying that the future is computers. Students need to understand technology ,which starts with coding, to become digital citizen. Boyd and Schaffhauser claims people need to be taught technical skills and when the only thing required to be taught is about being safe in chat rooms, there is a lot more things that students need to be taught. Coding and the other benefits mentioned by Dan Crow will be taught in California thanks to a bill from Assembly Member Tim Grayson.

Another part of digital literacy has to do with algorithms and most people, including students, don’t understand what they are or how they work. Boyd believes that the lack of knowledge of algorithms cause trust in web engines and other things on the internet that my be biased. I think that people should know basics about algorithms like: what they are, how they are used, what websites use them, and why they are biased.  Boyd writes, “The results that a search engine produces may reveal biases in the underlying data, or they may highlight how the weights chosen by engineers prioritize certain content over others(185).” Boyd writes this in the context of people trusting the order of Google’s results page for being reliable. In reality, Google is a for-profit company with the goal of acquiring the most profit. Which their algorithms will reflect their objective and manipulate which websites get ranked higher. But Google is still considered to be a very trustworthy site that teachers recommend to their student perpetuating the cycle. This is because people are unaware of the algorithms and their bias. Sam Wineburg is a Professor of Education and History at Stanford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts  and Sarah McGrew teaches in the Stanford Teacher Education Program and together they wrote an article talking about the three things student should know about how to choose a trustworthy site from Google. In “Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth Fact-checkers”, Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew wrote, “Instead of trusting Google to sort pages by reliability (which reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google works), the checkers mined URLs and abstracts for clues. They {professional fact-checkers} regularly scrolled down to the bottom of the search results page in their quest to make an informed decision about where to click first.” This gives profesional insight on how professional find the truth and trustworthy websites. This extends Boyd’s argument by giving options for a solution and it shows that even though Google is biased that you can find good websites if you know how.

Boyd doesn’t talk about non-factual websites and their influence on students, but it is an extremely important part of digital literacy at this time and by talking about some quick tips to teach students this will strengthen and make Boyd’s chapter more modern. In Mike Caulfield’s “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”, Caulfield agrees with Boyd saying that, “the web gives us many such strategies, tactics, and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. Unfortunately, we do not teach students these specific techniques.” Caulfield recommends four tips to fact-check: look to see if someone already fact checked this site or article, look at the articles sources, see if the sources are trustworthy, go through the process again. This gives people that have a lack of digital literacy skills a quick checklist to think about while reading and looking for trustworthy sources, especially for school. Lawmakers are realizing the need for digital literacy that Assembly Member Tim Grayson, introduced a bill about digital literacy. They wrote that “‘digital literacy’ means the skills associated with using technology to enable users to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information.” This is important because it is now teaching young children not to trust everything they read on the internet. This also will lowers the influences on people by making them more aware of fake news and how real it could look. Some people think this bill will do more harm than good. Sam Wineburg disagrees that checklists are the best way to be teaching students on how to fact check websites. Sam Wineburg is a professor at Stanford and his study was cited in California’s bill on digital literacy. He told the Washington Post in“Why California’s new media literacy law for schools could backfire” that, “instead of giving kids checklists, let’s teach them to spend a minute consulting what the broader Web says about a site or an organization before diving into it.” Wineburg’s worry is valid but if the checklist is how to check a website “laterally” like he wants then he shouldn’t be worried. Caulfield’s list is a step by step on how to read a text laterally. The real problem with the bill is that it doesn’t tell people what exactly to be taught, it’s too loose and up for interpretation of what is going to be taught.

I want to extend Boyd’s argument that young people are not being equipped with “critical digital literacy,” by focusing on the skills that are important that the youth need to know and why.  Claims that I will be focusing on are: youth becoming media literate, becoming technically literate, becoming aware of websites that uses algorithms, and what algorithms do. The outside sources that I will use are: “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checker”(for specific techniques students/people should learn), “Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to Truth” (for more information lack of students knowledge about reliable websites), and “When Students Can’t Compute.” (for evidence that technical literacy is need).

 

In Mike Caulfield’s “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”, Caulfield agrees with Boyd saying that, “the web gives us many such strategies, tactics, and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. Unfortunately, we do not teach students these specific techniques.” Then gives specific tips that teaches people how to fact check websites.

In “Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth Fact-checkers”, by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, they give an explanation of what teachers should be teaching students, “Instead of trusting Google to sort pages by reliability (which reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google works), the checkers mined URLs and abstracts for clues.”

In  “When Students Can’t Compute.”, Dian Schaffhauser shows the dangers of the lack of technical skill by writing, “Online education promises learning opportunities for all, but too many community college students lack the tech skills–and the access–to take advantage of these resources.

Tobias Rose Stockwell starts his article with a story about the Ebola outbreak in New York with the purpose of showing how misinformation can spread, people only read the click bait titles, and how terror is a highly effective tool to get more views. This was an effective way to introduce the main topics of his article. Rose Stockwell writes about how modern technology has changed how news is being written, and how algorithms don’t know if what they are recommending you is fake or true. Rose Stockwell goes on to tell his audience ‘tricks of the trade’ to make the audience more informed individuals. He talks about how news is changing our perspective of the world for the worst. Rose Stockwell also uses a comparison to today’s news on Facebook and propaganda because all the inquiries and click bait titles, which causes more tension than needed on already controversial topics. Rose Stockwell’s solution to is to understand what the media uses to get engagement and what the media wants from you.

In Danah Boyd’s chapter called “Are Today’s Youth Digital Natives”, in her book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Boyd’s main argument is that people aren’t born with the knowledge of understanding how to use the internet because of when they were born. Boyd explains how the term “digital natives” got introduced to the pubic and explains what it has now become with the possible consequences. These are her claims of the consequences: political repercussions, no knowledge on fact checking in an article, no knowledge in source checking, and a general lack of digital literacy equality.

Another claim Boyd mentions is that teens may not know how to examine what they are consuming and it is educators jobs to teach them how to become digitally literate. When Boyd begins to discuss this topic she uses a child as an example of the failed teaching of many teachers and adults.  Boyd writes, “ She trusted the content on Google because the adults had told her it was a trustworthy site.” Children are not learning what is a proper source to use for research and even adults have learned wrong. Boyd also wants students to learn technological skills and media literacy to have a complete well-rounded knowledge of how the internet works to become digital citizens.

I would be interested in learning more about algorithms and how they are used to influence what choices you see on Google and Netflix. It’s interesting how the filter bubble works and I wonder how you can avoid it. I don’t really know how it works and since it’s so influential in how I see my choices on Google, I think it’s important to know about and understand fully. I am also interested in seeing if people know that Google is doing this and if they didn’t what their reaction is now knowing.

Some Claims:

• People aren’t born with the knowledge of understanding how to use the internet because of when they were born.
• Teens may not know how to examine what they are consuming
• People should learn what are appropriate sources which leads to a higher digital literacy understanding
• Describing teens as natives has political and problematic repercussions

Interesting:  I thought it was interesting that people named Google as a good source. Google is a for-profit company who have biases because they want ad revenue. It’s just so strange that people put their faith in a company that makes money off of them, instead of a website like Wikipedia that is made for people who want to learn.

My own experience: I think that people don’t double check if the information they find on the internet is true and then they spread it the possibly untrue facts. My family comes to me when they changed their settings on their phone and messed it up and I have to show them how to fix it, but there are also time when I have no idea and just mess with it until I can figure it out.

These days the internet is a part of the majority of our lives and it is scary to think how easily such an amazing thing, like the internet, could be manipulated to be used for bad. Roger McNamee is an American businessman and investor who wrote an article for USA Today called “I Invested Early in Google and Facebook. Now They Terrify me”. McNamee’s overall argument is that social media companies jeopardize public health and democracy and his intended audience is middle age, middle class individuals with at least some college experience. In this paper, I will identify and examine some of the rhetorical strategies used by McNamee and present an explanation of these strategies, as well as, discuss a source, an assumption McNamee makes, and a weakness of McNamee’s argument.

McNamee’s uses word choice to activate the audience sense of emotions. He uses compelling words to make people afraid of social media. When McNamee is discussing Google and Facebook, he claims that they use techniques to maintain attention to websites that creates addictive behavior. McNamee uses word choice and sentence structure in this argument to persuade the audience that Google and Facebook is addictive. He compares Google and Facebook to, “ gambling, nicotine, alcohol or heroin,” and as a result they, “produce short-term happiness with serious negative consequences in the long term.” This metaphor is perceived as pathos because he uses highly addictive substances and compares it to the internet which we don’t consider in the same category to create fear and anxiety about social media. He uses these substances with negative connotation to shock the audience in having an emotional response when comparing them to the internet. Mcnamee strategically places the comparisons of the addictive substances from least to most heinous, to lull the audience into the idea that the internet is being compared to life threatening substances. McNamee starts by comparing to a lesser of the addictions, gambling, to make the audience possibly agree that the internet is addictive. Then he uses the same mindset saying that if the internet is addictive then it could be as addictive as deadly substances. By choosing to use the word heroin in the list of comparisons he is correlating something life threatening to something we see as safe. The effectiveness in his overall argument is strong and he uses this argument as a base to form his outer claims on top of. Another way McNamee used pathos in his word choice of his title. The author uses “Now they terrify me” in his title to draw people in because it is a strong word and it intrigues the audience. The word “terrify” in the title sets the tone for the article being completely against the internet and social media. The audience also wants to know why Google and Facebook terrify McNamee which makes them read more. McNamee uses pathos in his essay to persuade readers emotions to convince them that social media is addictive and terrifying.

Roger McNamee uses reputable newspapers as ethos to develop his argument. McNamee uses how he is an investor in Facebook and was an early adviser to Facebook’s team to establish that he is knowledgeable about internet and Facebook. He is an investor then its not beneficial to speak his mind about how Facebook terrifies him. This gets the audience to put trust in the author right away because the audience knows he shouldn’t be stating harmful details about the companies he has investments in. By stating he worked at Facebook he is giving the readers a sense that this article could be a tell all about the company, which gives the audience a feeling that this is honest and truthful. McNamee uses ethos to allow the audience to trust him on what he is saying by being an unbiased, reputable source. McNamee also uses countless sources throughout his paper to support his claims. The majority were well-known newspapers and magazines like the Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes Magazine, and USA Today. Using a wide variety of sources that are prestigious in the audience’s mind. The author uses them because the majority of his argument doesn’t rely on scientific studies or reports so he must use well-respected and established newspapers to strengthen his claims. The lack of scientific research makes his claims weaker even with the large amount of respected resources that backup his claims and it is a major weakness. McNamee uses his background in technology and well known sources to convince the audience that his claims are true.

An assumption McNamee makes is that his audience is proactive. McNamee doesn’t mention a call to action in this article which weakens his article. He assumes the audience will figure out a solution to the problems he talks about in his article instead of him telling the audience what to do. The author makes his audience care about the topic and understand what’s wrong with technology companies to not give a solution. Since his audience tend to be older that means they are more inclined to vote so there may be some validity in his assumption. Also McNamee’s audience is education so they are likely to be able to come up with solutions on their own. McNamee may have a valid points to his assumptions, but by not giving the readers a call to action the article lacks a purpose and creates a weak ending to the article.

In McNamee’s essay he uses an article from USA Today, the same place McNamee’s piece was published, as evidence for the authors claim that teens are targeted by advertisers because of their depression. McNamee is using another opinion essay from the same newspaper he works at to strengthen his claim. This could be a bias because of the possibility of the authors working together and claiming a false threat.  If this threat of ad targeting is as large as McNamee claims then there should be better articles from different newspapers. With the possibility of being bias, Mcnamee claims that this topic, of advertisers targeting people, is been proved and is a defiant, but the article he uses as a source has contradictions. In his essay, he claims that, “Facebook told advertisers that they had the ability to target teens who were sad or depressed,” and cited Jessica Guynn and her article called Facebook can tell when teens feel insecure. In the article she blatantly says, “Advertisers cannot target individuals based on how they are feeling,” but can target specific age groups. They are targeting all teens by showing certain ads at certain times, but all teens are being targeted. The depressed teens may be more interested in the ad, but all teens are being targeted because they are seen as easily manipulated into buying products not because they are depressed. Not only is there no scientific evidence for this claim, the source McNamee uses doesn’t provide enough evidence itself to say that Facebook is targeting depressed teens.

A weakness in McNamee’s work is when he compared technology, like Facebook and Youtube, with religion. This analogy is misleading the audience. There are some similarities like the mass amount of people involved and his audience may consider that by going on the website is a sort of ritual, which people associate with religion, but technology is missing an important part that a religion needs. A religion needs a belief that connects people, whether that be a creation story or the purpose of the universe. Technology allows a mixture of beliefs and connects them all together, it also doesn’t push religion of beliefs onto people. Youtube and Facebook allow people to speak their minds, which makes it hard to have one overarching belief to follow which is why technology is not the same thing is having faith. Another part of religion that Facebook and Youtube have that is different is that: Facebook and Youtube are part of the physical world and religion is part of the spiritual or metaphysical world. A big part of religion is having faith in something bigger than yourself but with technology you may be apart of something bigger than yourself,  but you don’t need to have any faith because the technology is everywhere. Technology is something you see so it’s unfair to say you have faith in something you can see. Facebook is used by people to do many different things, things that have nothing to do with any aspects of belief, and religion has a lot to do with this you can’t see and need to believe. There are too many strong differences to uses the analogy comparing technology to religion which makes this a weakness in McNamee’s essay.

The significance of McNamee’s article is that most people use social media and its important understand how social media could be influencing you. He stresses that vast amounts of data compiled by social media companies use to influence you. I think this article was very strong on concepts and pathos, but overall it didn’t show me any actual evidence that democracy or public health was truly at stake. This paper demonstrates the value of rhetorical strategies, and by paying close attention to the way authors use word choice we can see that pathos can be a strong tool to persuade the audience.

These days the internet is a part of the majority of our lives and it is scary to think how easily such an amazing thing like the internet could be manipulated to be used for bad. Roger McNamee is an American businessman and investor who wrote this article for USA Today called I Invested Early in Google and Facebook. Now They Terrify me. McNamee’s overall argument is that social media companies jeopardize public health and democracy. In this paper, I will identify and examine some of the rhetorical strategies used by McNamee and present an explanation of these strategies, as well as, discuss a source, an assumption McNamee makes, and a weakness of McNamee’s argument.

In McNamee’s I invested early in Google and Facebook. Now they terrify me, the author uses word choice to activate the audience sense of emotions. He used compelling words to make people afraid of social media. As an example, in claim McNamee was discussing that Google and Facebook uses techniques to maintain attention to websites that creates addictive behavior. McNamee uses pathos within this argument to persuade the audience that Google and Facebook is addictive. He compares Google and Facebook, “Like gambling, nicotine, alcohol or heroin,” and even goes on to state that Google and Facebook, “produce short-term happiness with serious negative consequences in the long term.” This is perceived as pathos because he uses highly addictive substances and compares it to the internet which we don’t consider in the same category to create fear and anxiety about social media. He uses these substances with negative connotation to shock the audience in having an emotional response when comparing them to the internet. Another way McNamee used pathos in his word choice of his title. The author uses “Now they terrify me” in his title to draw people in because it is a strong word and it intrigues the audiences. The word “terrify” in the title sets the tone for the article being completely against the internet and social media. The audience also wants to know why Google and Facebook terrify McNamee which makes them read more. McNamee uses pathos in his essay to persuade readers emotions to convince them that social media is addictive and terrifying.

 

Roger McNamee uses ethos to develop his argument. McNamee about how he is an investor in Facebook and “was an early adviser to Facebook’s team.”  This strategy works by getting the audience to put trust in the author and it is effective because it not benefit him by saying his views and it shows he understands what he is talking about when it come to the internet. It is effective because the audience knows he shouldn’t be stating harmful details about the companies he has investments in. McNamee uses ethos to allow the audience to trust him on what he is saying by being a unbiased, reputable source. McNamee also uses countless sources throughout his paper to support his claims. The majority were well known newspapers and magazines like the Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes Magazine, and USA Today. Using a wide variety of sources that are prestigious in the audience’s mind. The author uses them because the majority of his argument doesn’t rely on scientific studies or reports so he must use well respected and established to strengthen his claims. The lack of scientific research makes his claims weaker even with the large amount of respected resources that backup his claims and its is a major weakness. McNamee uses his background in technology and well known sources to convince the audience that his claims are true.

An assumption McNamee makes is that Google, Youtube, and Facebook is all they want to do is make money. It may be true, but these websites weren’t created with the intent to make profit. Facebook was originally invented to connect students together on Harvard’s campus, Google was created to organize information on the internet, and Youtube was created to access videos easier. So when did these websites’ motives change from betterment of society to profit based and,  “a menace to public health and to democracy”. McNamee never addresses this phase in the company’s existence, he makes it seem that these companies have and always will be profit based. This assumption is essentially the problem McNamee is trying to address, that if they weren’t profit based then social media wouldn’t be so addictive to keep us on it and ads wouldn’t need to be as targeted. THough social media may be profit based how do we know if its for actual profit or for the betterment of the website if McNamee did not address that point.

In McNamee’s essay he uses an article from USA Today, the same place McNamee’s piece was published, as evidence for the authors claim that teens are targeted by advertisers because of their depression. McNamee is using another opinion essay to strengthen his claim. In his essay he claims that, “Facebook told advertisers that they had the ability to target teens who were sad or depressed,” and cited Jessica Guynn and her article called Facebook can tell when teens feel insecure. In the article she blatantly says, “Advertisers cannot target individuals based on how they are feeling,” but can target specific age groups. They are targeting all teens by showing certain ads at certain times, but all teens are being targeted. The depressed teens may be more interested in the ad, but all teens are being targeted because they are seen as easily manipulated into buying products not because they are depressed. Not only is there no scientific evidence for this claim, the source McNamee uses doesn’t provide enough evidence itself to say that Facebook is targeting depressed teens.

A weakness in McNamee’s work is when he compared technology, like Facebook and Youtube, and religion. This analogy is misleading the audience. There are some similarities like the mass amount of people involved and you may consider that by going on the website is a sort of ritual which you associate with religion, but technology is missing an important part that a religion needs. A religion needs a belief that connects people, whether that be a creation story or the purpose of the universe. Technology has a mixture of beliefs and connects them all together, it also doesn’t push religion of beliefs onto people. Another part of religion that Facebook and Youtube have that is different is that Facebook and Youtube are part of the physical world and religion is part of the spiritual or metaphysical world. Technology is used by people to do many different things, things that have nothing to do with any aspects of belief, and religion has a lot to do with this you can’t see and need to believe. There are too many strong differences to uses the analogy comparing technology to religion which makes this a weakness in McNamee’s essay.

The significance of McNamee’s article is that most people use social media and its important understand how social media could be influencing you. He stresses that vast amounts of data compiled by social media companies use to influence you. I think this article was very strong on concepts and pathos, but overall it didn’t show me any actual evidence that democracy or public health was truly at stake. This paper demonstrates the value of rhetorical strategies, and by paying close attention to the way authors use word choice we can see that pathos can be a strong tool to persuade the audience.

A claim discussed in McNamee’s “I invested early in Google and Facebook. Now they terrify me” was that Google and Facebook uses techniques to maintain attention to they websites that creates addictive behavior. McNamee uses pathos within this argument to persuade the audience that Google and Facebook is addictive. He compares Google and Facebook, “Like gambling, nicotine, alcohol or heroin,” and even goes on to state that Google and Facebook, “produce short-term happiness with serious negative consequences in the long term.” This is perceived as pathos because he uses highly addictive substances and compares it to the internet which we don’t consider in the same category. He uses these substances with negative connotation to shock the audience in having an emotional response when comparing them to the internet. Another way McNamee used pathos in his word choice of his title. The author uses “Now they terrify me” in his title to draw people in because it is a strong word and it intrigues the audiences. The word “terrify” in the title sets the tone for the article being completely against the internet and social media. The audience also wants to know why Google and Facebook terrify McNamee which makes them read more. McNamee uses word choice to persuade readers emotions to convince them that social media is bad.

 

Roger McNamee uses ethos to develop his argument. McNamee  about how he is an investor in Facebook and “was an early adviser ro Facebook’s team.”  This strategy works by getting the audience to put trust in the author and it is effective because it not benefit him by saying his views and it shows he understands what he is talking about when it come to the internet. It is effective because the audience knows he shouldn’t be stating harmful details about the companies he has investments in. McNamee uses ethos to allow the audience to trust him on what he is saying by being a unbiased, reputable source.