Digital Media Literacy
Communication, creativity, and collaboration are essential 21st century skills that every student needs to thrive in a digital, connected world and educators are prepping future graduates by providing technological mediated experiences designed to develop creative fluency. Students who are ‘given a voice’ by leveraging digital media tools greatly increase their ability to interpret, critically challenge, and communicate ideas in a persuasive and ethical manner. Digital media literacy is both transactional and transformational – understanding how to use a tool and knowing when to apply the appropriate tool to achieve a desired effect. Within this educational paradigm, technology facilitates critical thinking; students who shape and frame content with digital tools articulate ideas through a process of adaptability, flexibility, and problem solving.
If you are an impending graduate, check your transcript and resume. What opportunities and experiences have you had to develop and apply the following skills during your academic career?
- Knowledge Construction
You curate information from digital resources to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions. - Innovative Design
You use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful, or imaginative solutions. - Creative Communications
You communicate clearly and express yourself creatively using tools, formats, and digital media appropriate for your goals. - Global Collaboration
You use collaborative technologies to examine issues and share information with peers, extended community members, and global citizens.
Think about the opportunities you have had within your coursework to design, produce, and share digital media scholarship. Consider digital audio recording and podcasting, digital photography and image enhancement, digital video production and publishing, motion graphics design and animation, copyright and fair use of curated materials, and analysis of media elements for bias, credibility, originality, and ethical use. If your digital media literacy resume is lean, take advantage of workshops, online tutorials (Lynda.com), peer feedback, and faculty and staff mentors to further develop your core competencies.
Graduates who can communicate in multiple media formats, who can think and work creatively to develop unique and useful solutions, and who can collaborate in both physical and virtual spaces will be well prepared to live and work in an ever changing technological world.
Written by Kate Lee, Senior Media Producer, Smith College
Measure your current digital media literacy level by taking this quiz.
True or False: A text transcript can be embedded within a mp3 file, in addition to the audio data.
An audio filter that adjusts the gain of a file so that the greatest peak level is lower or equal to a set decibel level.
An audio filter that reduces sound that exceeds a certain threshold level, smoothing out the dynamics and increasing the overall volume.
A _______ artist recreates the realistic ambient sounds that a video production portrays.
An arrangement or combination of colors that are carefully selected to capture the attention and/or set a mood for the user when viewing a project.
In topography, ________ is the process of adjusting space between individual letter forms.
Vector based file types are constructed with lines and fill colors using mathematical formulas, and are excellent for creating graphics that frequently require resizing without compromising resolution. Raster images are constructed using a fixed number of colored pixels, cannot be scaled up without compromising their resolution. Raster images that are enlarged often appear pixilated or blurry. Check only the vector based file types included in this list.
Select the video editing option that created the visual effect shown above on the far right.
Select the motion option that created the animation of the triplicate Photoshop files in this video shown below.
Select the motion behavior that created the animation of the images in this video shown below.
In a film or video production, a C47 refers to what?
For more information on Digital Media Literacy opportunities at Smith College, visit https://www.smith.edu/edtech/dml