The world is changing faster than ever, especially when it comes to the industries of multimedia and education.
In the past, children would learn from printed media, radio, television and so on but with digital multimedia, this has changed.
This rather-new form of learning has been coined ‘media literacy education’ and has rapidly become an essential part of a modern-day child’s education. After all, many children are subject to online digital media from a young age, sometimes even as young as one or two years old, yet it’s vital for their upbringing to understand how to live, work and generally operate in the 21st Century.
The Challenges We Face
In its most basic form, the term ‘literacy’ defines the ability to recognize and interpret ‘symbols and squiggles’ on paper, mentally translating them into words that communicate a message.
However, as language evolved over the years, it has become more complex.
Furthermore, words and written text, whether that’s in a physical or digital form, isn’t the only media that we need to come to grips with while growing up.
It’s music we hear, content coming from smartphones and tablets, magazine content, videos we see, games we play and so on.
It’s safe to say that media, in all its forms, is not just an element that shapes our culture – it is, in fact, our culture. And this brings benefits to Media Literacy Education.
However, this is breaking down the way we typically analyze and interpret this data. In most cases, traditional grammar and sentence structure does not apply.
This then creates a challenge for children to learn and understand the differences.
Addressing the Challenges
With all this in mind, it is important that we, parents and educators are taking steps to educate children on the differences of media formats.
If you’re working for a company that produces advertising content, it’s typically not one person sitting down and writing and creating everything, it’s a team of people coming together and bringing their own set of skills.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a parent or a teacher, or in other ways, are responsible for a child’s education, it’s important that you embrace the nature of these tools and services to help children come to grips with the way that modern-day society and culture works.
Otherwise, children will be left feeling out-of-touch and will be unable to grasp the skills that are essential for their success in later life.
Photo Credit
Photo is pixabay creative commons
Guest Author Bio
Patrick Black
Patrick Black is a personal development blog writer and editor at AcademicBrits. In his articles Patrick features different aspects of psychology and motivation strategies, as well as shares his latest work experience and case studies.
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