The Ethics Of Digital Literacy

The digital era has brought many opportunities - and many challenges - to teachers and students at all levels. Underlying questions about how technologies have changed the ways individuals read, write, and interact are questions about the ethics of participation in a digital world. As users consume and create seemingly infinite content, what are the moral guidelines that must be considered? How do we teach students to be responsible, ethical citizens in a digital world? This book shares practices across levels, from teaching elementary students to adults, in an effort to explore these questions. It is organized into five sections that address the following aspects of teaching ethics in a digital world: ethical contexts, ethical selves, ethical communities, ethical stances, and ethical practices.

The original edition of this accessible and interdisciplinary textbook was the first to consider the ethical issues of digital media from a global perspective, introducing ethical theories from multiple cultures. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to cover current research and scholarship, and recent developments and technological changes. It also benefits from extensively updated case-studies and pedagogical material, including examples of “watershed” events such as privacy policy developments on Facebook and Google+ in relation to ongoing changes in privacy law in the US, the EU, and Asia. New for the second edition is a section on “citizen journalism” and its implications for traditional journalistic ethics. With a significantly updated section on the “ethical toolkit,” this book also introduces students to prevailing ethical theories and illustrates how they are applied to central issues such as privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication online. Digital Media Ethics is student- and classroom-friendly: each topic and theory is interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions, additional resources, and suggestions for further research and writing. Together, these enable readers to foster careful reflection upon, writing about, and discussion of these issues and their possible resolutions.

Get the knowledge and resources you need to guide students through the tough questions that reside in the gray areas of humans’ relationship with the gadgets, apps and tools that permeate our lives. More and more, people are waking up to the notion that the technology we hold in our hands each day is not a neutral tool that individual users control. The facade has been cracking for years amid accusations of election interference, with the public being introduced to the complexities of hacking, the concept of bot accounts, the larger threat of information warfare, and more. The rise in rhetoric around “fake news” has social media companies examining their role in the spread of misinformation, the public asking who checks the fact-checkers and everyone from politicians to tech conglomerates wondering if, when and how information regulation needs to happen. Amid this backdrop, it has become clear that society needs thoughtful, empathetic digital citizens who can navigate the important ethical questions at the intersection of technology and humanity. This book is designed to help students consider the systems and structures in which they spend so much of their time, asking them to look at the technology around them through a critical lens. Focusing on six big ethical questions being discussed in the technology sector and larger society today, chapters include: • Key vocabulary you and your students will encounter in your investigation of each topic. • A short summary of the current research and viewpoints on the topic from leading experts in their fields. • News articles exploring the ethical questions playing out in society today. • Focused research questions that students can use to explore the various aspects of the ethical dilemma. • Stories of educators who are engaging students with lessons around tech ethics. • A “Try This” section with instructional strategies for helping students navigate open-ended questions. There are no clear right or wrong answers to the ethical issues presented inside these pages. But if you ascribe to the idea that technology is not neutral, if your students are already users of various technologies and if you understand that many of our students will go on to tech-related careers, is it ever too soon to begin talking about the ethics of technology with them?

Rapid changes in technology and the growing use of electronic media signal a need for understanding both clear and subtle ethical and social implications of the digital, and of specific digital technologies. Understanding Digital Ethics: Cases and Contexts is the first book to offer a philosophically grounded examination of digital ethics and its moral implications. Divided into three clear parts, the authors discuss and explain the following key topics: • Becoming literate in digital ethics • Moral viewpoints in digital contexts • Motivating action in digital ethics • Speed and scope of digital information • Moral algorithms and ethical machines • The digital and the human • Digital relations and empathy machines • Agents, autonomy, and action • Digital and ethical activism. The book includes cases and examples that explore the ethical implications of digital hardware and software including videogames, social media platforms, autonomous vehicles, robots, voice-enabled personal assistants, smartphones, artificially intelligent chatbots, military drones, and more. Understanding Digital Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of philosophical ethics, those working on topics related to digital technology and digital/moral literacy, and practitioners in related fields.

Digital literacy has become the vital competency that students need to master before graduating. This book provides rich examples of how to integrate it in disciplinary courses.While many institutions are developing introductory courses to impart universal literacy (skills students need to know) and creative literacy (skills for creating new content), discipline-specific skills (skills needed to succeed within a specific discipline) are a vital extension to their learning and ability to apply digital literacy in different contexts. This book provides examples of how to integrate digital literacy across a wide variety of courses spanning many domains.Rather than a wholly new core institutional outcome, digital literacy adds to the development of critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, and teamwork skills by building students’ capacities to assess online information so they can ethically share, communicate, or repurpose it through the appropriate use of available digital technologies. In short, it provides the vital digital dimension to their learning and the literacy skills which will be in increasing demand in their future lives.Following introductory chapters providing context and a theoretical framework, the contributing authors from different disciplines share the digital competencies and skills needed within their fields, the strategies they use to teach them, and insights about the choices they made. What shines through the examples is that, regardless of the specificity of the disciplinary examples, they offer all readers a commonality of approach and a trove of ideas that can be adapted to other contexts.This book constitutes a practical introduction for faculty interested in including opportunities to apply digital literacy to discipline-specific content. The book will benefit faculty developers and instructional designers who work with disciplinary faculty to integrate digital literacy. The book underscores the importance of preparing students at the course level to create, and be assessed on, digital content as fields are modernizing and delivery formats of assignments are evolving.Domains covered include digital literacy in teacher education, writing, musicology, indigenous literary studies, communications, journalism, business information technology, strategic management, chemistry, biology, health sciences, optometry, school librarianship, and law.The book demonstrates a range of approaches that can used to teach digital literacy skills in the classroom, including:·Progressing from digital literacy to digital fluency ·Increasing digital literacy by creating digital content · Assessment of digital literacy ·Identifying ethical considerations with digital literacy ·Sharing digital content outside of the classroom ·Identifying misinformation in digital communications ·Digitizing instructional practices, like lab notes and essays ·Reframing digital literacy from assumption to opportunity ·Preparing students to teach digital literacy to others ·Collaborating with other departments on campus to support digital literacy instruction ·Incorporating media into digital literacy (digital media literacy) ·Using digital storytelling and infographics to teach content knowledge] ·Weaving digital literacy throughout the curriculum of a program, and with increasing depth

As fast-evolving technologies transform everyday communication and literacy practices, many young children find themselves immersed in multiple digital media from birth. Such rapid technological change has consequences for the development of early literacy, and the ways in which parents and educators are able to equip today’s young citizens for a digital future. This seminal Handbook fulfils an urgent need to consider how digital technologies are impacting the lives and learning of young children; and how childhood experiences of using digital resources can serve as the foundation for present and future development. Considering children aged 0–8 years, chapters explore the diversity of young children’s literacy skills, practices and expertise across digital tools, technologies and media, in varied contexts, settings and countries. The Handbook explores six significant areas: Part I presents an overview of research into young children’s digital literacy practices, touching on a range of theoretical, methodological and ethical approaches. Part II considers young children’s reading, writing and meaning-making when using digital media at home and in the wider community. Part III offers an overview of key challenges for early childhood education presented by digital literacy, and discusses political positioning and curricula. Part IV focuses on the multimodal and multi-sensory textual landscape of contemporary literary practices, and how children learn to read and write with and across media. Part V considers how digital technologies both influence and are influenced by children’s online and offline social relationships. Part VI draws together themes from across the Handbook, to propose an agenda for future research into digital literacies in early childhood. A timely resource identifying and exploring pedagogies designed to bolster young children’s digital and multimodal literacy practices, this key text will be of interest to early childhood educators, researchers and policy-makers.

Students today have always had technology in their lives, so many teachers assume their students are competent tech users — more competent, in fact, than themselves. In reality, not all students are as tech savvy as teachers might assume, and not all teachers are as incompetent as they fear. Even when students are comfortable using technology, they may not be using it appropriately. Likewise, educators of all skill levels may not understand how to use technology effectively. Both students and teachers need to become members of a digital citizenry. In this essential exploration of digital citizenship, Mike Ribble provides a framework for asking what we should be doing with respect to technology so we can become productive and responsible users of digital technologies.

The digital age has brought about significant changes to our society, creating a complex and ever-evolving digital landscape. To navigate this landscape effectively, it is crucial to foster a deep understanding of ethics and citizenship in all domains of life. This imperative holds true at every level of education, and it is equally important to explore the historical origins of these concepts. Critical Roles of Digital Citizenship and Digital Ethics delves into the multifaceted realm of digital ethics and citizenship, shedding light on the latest research studies conducted in the educational field, as well as insights from the humanities, history, social sciences, sociology, and civics. This comprehensive research handbook provides a platform for in-depth discussions and empirical investigations into the philosophical foundations and practical implications of digital citizenship. By examining how digital ethics have been and continue to be shaped, the book offers valuable insights into the ways in which educators and researchers can approach these topics in the realm of education. Designed for researchers in humanities, sociology, and educational fields, as well as students seeking a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary dimensions of digital ethics and digital citizenship, this book offers a rich exploration of their roots and current implications. It explores the historical underpinnings of these concepts, advocates for asset-based approaches to digital citizenship, and examines the current educational strategies implemented at both the K-12 and post-secondary levels. Additionally, it delves into the theoretical foundations of digital ethics and citizenship, considering the impact of digital landscapes on young learners, adolescents, and adults. The book also presents insightful reports on the latest studies pertaining to digital ethics and digital citizenship.