This year, a research paper by Windsor High School English teacher Ben Boyington, “Devices and Directions: The 1:1 Initiative in Schools as an Avenue to Closing the Digital Divide,” will be featured in the book Media Education for a Digital Generation (edited by Julie Frechette, Ph.D., and Rob Williams, Ph.D., and published as part of Routledge Research’s Media and Cultural Studies Series). The following is a brief description of the book in its entirety. We are proud of the contribution that Mr. Boyington has made to this work!
The goals for comprehensive and critical digital literacy require grasping the means through which communication is created, deployed, used, and shared, regardless of which tools or platforms are used for meaning-making and social interaction. As mobile technology, social media, and converged web content drive the new information economy, media education for a digital generation has become paramount. Educators continue to extol the need for current and relevant curricular models designed to encourage critical and effective engagement within our media landscapes at a time when digital media have become appendages of self, social, local, national, and global constructs at the core of humanity. Few curricular models are poised to comprehensively address this question: “What does it mean to be digitally literate in the media age?” The answer lies in careful questioning and examination of the benefits of innovative, decentralized digital media that enable self, social, and civic participation within a paradigm that values digital media for its transformative potential. With chapters from both media education activists and scholars in the disciplines of communications and media studies, this book will provide a framework for developing critical digital media literacies by exploring the necessary skills and competencies for engaging as citizens of the digital world.