How to Use This Book

Exploring Digital Media Literacy is an online multimedia textbook designed to support teachers in the Waterloo District School Board in teaching digital media literacy and cyber security in grades 7-10.

At the bottom of each page are Next and Previous buttons that let you move between chapters and units. The left and right arrow keys also allow you to move between pages.

At the top left of each page there is also a table of content. Clicking or tapping Contents expands this menu, allowing you to navigate quickly between chapters and lessons.

Lesson Material

This textbook contains six lessons. Each lesson includes:

Front matter that gives an overall description of the lesson, options for ways of delivering the lesson in more or fewer sessions, necessary preparation for the lesson, overall learning goals, and a list of Specific Expectations that the lesson addresses. They also provide links to printable versions of the lessons where available.

Teacher chapters, which provide instructions, prompts, links to downloadable content, observation checklists and rubrics, and other material that you need to deliver the lesson;

And Student chapters, which include texts, videos, interactive activities, and other materials that students will view and use during the lesson.

The lessons generally follow this structure:

Select this link to access a video description for people who are blind or low-vision.

The textbook also ends with a Glossary. When Glossary terms appear in the text they are blue and underlined, like hyperlinks: clicking or tapping them will make the definition appear in a pop-up window.

Technical Requirements

This textbook is designed to be delivered using a data projector or a digital whiteboard. Students are expected to have laptop computers and internet access. Some lessons also include handouts or other material to be downloaded and printed. In some cases, you will be given the option to use either the digital or printed version of an activity.

In many of the lessons, you also have the opportunity to allow students to use other tools, particularly when making media. Rather than recommending specific tools or products, we generally provide a link to Alternativeto.net, a website that allows you to search and sort online tools by purpose, cost, platform, and other factors.

When considering which tools to use, you may find it useful to consider the factors explore in this video:

Select this link to access a video description for people who are blind or low-vision.

Privacy Policy

MediaSmarts abides by all relevant federal and provincial privacy laws and is committed to respecting the privacy of its online users and members.

This policy will tell you what information is collected when you visit our site and how that information is used. It applies to all websites and online applications provided by MediaSmarts and any and all successor entities.

Information We Collect From Online Visitors

Browsing

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous traffic data which helps us analyze how visitors engage with our site. For more information, see the Google Analytics Terms of Service.

MediaSmarts makes no attempt to identify you or track your individual browsing activities.

Information submitted by users

Information submitted by users on mediasmarts.ca is hosted by Pantheon.io. This is stored on a server located in Canada and so is subject to the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and is also compliant with EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679(“GDPR”). You can view the Pantheon Systems Privacy Policy.

All information submitted by users is removed from these servers if the user chooses to delete it. Users are not required to submit any information about students other than what the users themselves need for record-keeping and assessment purposes. Users are encouraged to submit as little identifying information about students as possible.

We do not record any information or material that is entered into the interactive h5p activities.

Use and retention

MediaSmarts does not retain personal information any longer than is needed for the purposes stated in this policy. Information submitted by users will be deleted at their request at any time. To request deletion of any or all stored data, contact [email protected].

Data submitted by users is never shared with any third parties.

Breach notification

In the event of a breach of MediaSmarts’ records or website, the breach will be reported to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as per subsection 10.1(2) of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. If you have provided us with an email address, including but not limited to having created an account on our secure site, you will be notified about any data breaches by email within seven days after we become aware of the breach.

Changes to this policy

Any changes or updates to this policy will be immediately published on the site. If you have provided us with an email address, including but not limited to having created an account on our secure site, you will be notified about any changes to this policy by email within seven days.

Privacy questions or concerns

If you have any questions or concerns about MediaSmarts’ privacy policy or wish to access any personal information we may have about you, please contact our Privacy Officer Penny Warne at [email protected].

Assessment

Each lesson includes either an Observation Checklist or a Rubric so you can assess student learning. These reflect the categories of knowledge and skills found in the Language 7 to 9 Achievement Chart. (In the Observation Checklists, each item describes a Level 3 achievement.)

You are welcome to use these assessment tools or to develop your own if you prefer. If you choose to develop your own assessment tools, consider the points raised in this video:

Select this link to access a video description for people who are blind or low-vision.

Accessibility and Accommodation

Both the Pressbooks format and h5p are designed to be fully accessible and to support Universal Design for Learning principles. Text in Pressbooks is designed to be read by all major screen readers. All images are accompanied by alt text and all of the videos have captions available. Screen readers will read Glossary term and then the definition automatically.

All videos in both the teacher and student textbooks are followed by links to a detailed description of that video. There are also links to descriptions of important images. In a small number of cases, the h5p activities may not be fully accessible. In those cases there will be a link to an accessible version of that activity.

The Office of Communications of the United Kingdom has the following advice on adapting digital media literacy instruction for students with disabilities:

• Take time to understand the individual digital and media literacy and individual needs of participants to ensure person-centred support.
• Keep media literacy sessions under an hour and avoid trying to cover too much content within a single session.
• Scope and provide practical support as part of delivery focused on parents and supporters.

This textbook also supports the core Universal Design for Learning principles:

Multiple means of representation: Outside of the Digital Media Literacy SE, integrating interactive and media-based instructions provides additional means of representation that may be more accessible to students. Many of the individual lessons deliver content through multiple different media.

Multiple means of action and expression: Media-making and interactive activities give students more ways of demonstrating their learning. In each case, options have been provided to make the activities as broadly effective as possible. The individual lessons also provide a wide range of different means of action and expression.

Multiple means of engagement: The topics and content of the lessons are informed by MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wireless World project and our other research. As a result, they reflect the media and technology that students are using, the ways that they are using them and the concerns they have about them.

Integrating the interactive activities into your learning management system

The interactive activities in the textbook were made with h5p, an open-source tool based on Javascript. h5p activities should work on all desktop and mobile browsers, though some settings, plugins and extensions may limit their functionality. You can learn more about h5p at their website.

Many of the h5p content types let students save or export their work. In general, we recommend that students use the Copy or Save functions in these to either copy their work over to a document (such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word document) or save it to their computer or server.

However, if you use a learning management system such as Brightspace, Google Classroom, Moodle, or Desire to Learn, you also have the option of integrating these tools directly into your LMS. This will let students send or save work directly to your learning environment without the step of copying it to a new document or saving it locally.

Brightspace

In Brightspace:

• In your course, go to Content → open the Table of Contents.
• Either create a new module or pick an existing one.
• Click Existing Activities (below the module name).
• In the dropdown, choose the Pressbooks‑related LTI option (e.g., “NSCC Pressbooks LTI” or your school’s branded Pressbooks tool).

Link a Pressbooks book:

• A Pressbooks viewer will appear showing books you have access to (you must be a subscriber/user of the book).
• Select the book, then choose whether to bring in the whole book, a part, or individual chapters.
• Brightspace will display the Pressbooks TOC; check the items you want to add, then click Save and return to course. The selected chapters appear as activities in that module.

Desire to Learn

Follow these steps:

1. Log in to D2L and make sure the h5p plugin has been installed in your system.
2. Use the Reuse tool at the bottom left and download the h5p activity. Navigate to your course, go to “Content” and select the module where you want to add the h5p activity.
3. Click “Upload/Create” and choose “Upload Files”
4. Select your .h5p file and upload it.
5. In D2L, configure the assignment to accept file submissions or text entries. From this point you can also access h5p analytics within D2L for detailed learner insights.

Moodle

1. Log in to Moodle as a teacher or administrator.
2. Use the Reuse tool at the bottom left and download the h5p activity. Navigate to your course, go to “Content” and select the module where you want to add the h5p activity.
3. Navigate to your course and turn editing on.
4. Click “Add an activity or resource” and choose “H5P” from the list.
5. Configure the h5p activity:
   1. Give the activity a name and description
   2. In the “H5P Package” section, upload your downloaded .h5p file
   3. Adjust settings as needed and save.

Google Classroom

Google Classroom does not have native h5p integration, but you can use this workaround:

1. In Google Classroom, create a new assignment or material. Include the h5p activity link in the instructions
2. Have students submit their work through the assignment’s “Add or create” feature.