Avatars and Digital Technology Literacy Applied in Psychology

Technological advances have led to a variety of positive outcomes and benefits. This chapter aims to discuss the different kinds of therapeutic interventions, clinical methods, and approaches in the field of psychology that have resulted from the advance in digital and virtual technology. In particular, this chapter focuses on avatars and virtual technology as a component of media literacy. Additionally, the chapter explores, in detail, how avatars are used across various clinical settings with diverse populations such as individuals with autism spectrum disorder, individuals with schizophrenia, prison settings, and the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the significant implications avatars have in regards to education. Lastly, controversies and challenges are discussed regarding the efficacy of digital technology within clinical settings (e.g., telepsychology).

Decision Making Process in Intercultural Communication

The society we live in and the culture we're surrounded by all have an impact on our decision-making processes requiring that media literacy skills start flourishing during the early years. Globalization changed the dynamics of the world and society by removing any limitations of time and space. Thus, different cultures and values encounter one another, which is why media literacy and intercultural awareness are becoming the key skills in today's world. This chapter aims to analyze the stages, reasons, and the choices of the decision-making process of individuals from different cultural backgrounds in an intercultural communication setting where they were given certain problems for which they were expected to find solutions in a limited amount of time. The chapter mainly discusses the notion of “tolerance” and “judgement”: how one positions her/himself in an intercultural environment and how s/he approaches a problem with the awareness of cultural differences.

Media Literacy in EFL Teacher Education

As one of the 21st century skills, media literacy refers to the ability of individuals to critically evaluate and creatively produce representations in a variety of media. A rapid changing world of media, information and communication, which is reshaping the future of work trends, changes literacy demands and requires more complex literacy skills. Thus, it is necessary for students to build the 21st century literacy skills through technology-integrated instructions and classroom practices. In particular, this chapter aims to raise awareness of the relevance of media literacy in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and EFL teacher education. This chapter provides an evolution of media literacy with its origin, explores the competencies of media literacy, analyzes various frameworks for media literacy education, and elaborates on different teaching approaches. Based on this review, a conceptual framework for media literacy competencies in teacher education is proposed. Additionally, this chapter offers recommendations for best practices of media literacy in EFL classrooms as well as in EFL teachers' preparation and professional development programs.

Universal Design for Learning, Media Literacy, and Repeated Measures in Inclusion Classrooms

This chapter highlights the role of universal design for learning in inclusive classrooms. How teachers design instruction to meet the diverse needs of all learners in inclusion classrooms is where the importance of universal design for learning lies. UDL is the “what,” “how,” and “why” of learning; its principles provide for multiple means of engaging students, multiple representations of instructional methods and materials, multiple types of student responses, and multiple means of evaluating performance. Presented from the context of multiple literacies including media literacy, this chapter explains how UDL can be applied in the classroom in concert with response to intervention, mastery learning, and repeated measures strategies. This chapter strongly argues the utility of using universal design for learning and its benefits for teaching in inclusion classrooms.

A Model for Product Design Process via Social Media

Recently, with the rapid development of information and communication technologies, alternative solutions have emerged to respond to changing user requirements. The most important of these are digital media and technologies that allow users to share with each other and create media content within individuals or groups. These platforms, called social media, offer a technological infrastructure where sharing and discussion are principle concepts. Social media can provide not only increase in communication, but also it allows customers to take an active role in creating value in business. This means that social media have changed the way companies innovate with individuals. The purpose of the research is to reveal how social media is used for product development in the context of one of the most used technique by open systems called co-creation approach. This chapter can be considered as a model designed to demonstrate the use of social media's power.

Integrating Media Literacy Into Mathematics

A disconnect between the content taught in mathematics classroom and the skills young adults need for future success has created need for more diverse pedagogy. Media literacy and mathematics communities agree on similar goals for students to access media, evaluate it, and produce their own. Through the use of progressive instructional techniques, specifically involving media literacy, educators can simultaneously address overlooked equity concerns in mathematics. Research has found that these techniques can help students by holding them to high standards, support math thinking and language development, draw on students' prior knowledge, value their communities, and solve real-world problems that they will be facing in the future. Practical suggestions and expert advice for implementing more progressive pedagogy are included. Issues and solutions to infuse new methods into the classroom are outlined along with future research suggestions.

Media Literacy in a Digital Age

New possibilities of representation through the use of multiple modes has challenged language's power as a dominant means to express meanings. Multimodal communication is now becoming the norm in the modern era of communication and Internet. Diverse forms of media exist and are combined in different ways to create new meanings though what constitutes media (media language or visual grammar), and the motivations behind design often remain transparent to users. The increase and diversity in different forms of representation other than written or spoken language also bring along changes in the field of literacy. In this chapter, the main focus is on Multimodal Social Semiotics —the theory of communication formed by Kress and his colleagues. The new language of multimodality and design builds on what it means to be media literate and has significant implications for media literacy education. This chapter's focus is on the basics of reading multimodal texts and the connection between new literacy and media literacy studies based on Multimodal Social Semiotics Theory.

Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is a serious and newly arising problem of today's world due to the negative intentions in using the recent technological improvements. However, despite its being a relatively new area, a significant number of studies conducted on this issue can be found. This chapter provides a general overview of the current literature with exemplary research to present some insight into the global and local practices in relation to any possible solution of prevention/intervention program for the cyber bullying problem. The global scale involves many studies of various scholars from several countries with different focuses while the local scale concentrates on the case of Turkey and the same of Turkish students or teachers.

The Philip Seymour Hoffman Project

The purpose of this chapter, and the class project upon which it is based, has been to demonstrate the prosocial role social media, and in particular Facebook, can play in media literacy, by providing a framework for showcasing rigorous student research and harnessing creative responses to salient social welfare and policy issues. Specifically, Facebook can potentially raise awareness of opioid abuse, which has spiraled into a global epidemic, provide narratives that reach broader audiences, and thus fill a gap in substantive mainstream media coverage on the topic. The chapter traces the evolution and progress of a student project in a media literacy class at a New York public university and puts efforts to address the current opioid crisis in an historical context. The immediate catalyst for the project was the sudden, tragic, heroin-related death in 2014 of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, but the “bigger picture” has been broader communities. This study may interest media educators, their educational institution, government agencies, and health institutions that deal with health policy.

Importance of Data Management in Digital Media Literacy

A digital literate person is identified as competent person in the three dimensions of digital technologies, defined as technical, cognitive, and socio-emotional. In particular, under the technical dimension, the person is able to use the tools of the digital world in a competent way. Considering this definition given in technical dimension, it is seen that the individual being a good digital literate is also related to the tools of the digital world. However, no matter how good a digital literate can be, she/he is suffocated in the information if there is no tool to help in accessing information in a certain area, because of the size of digital world. The purpose of this study is to strengthen the technical dimension of digital literacy by developing a tool for reaching the correct visuals by using deep learning techniques. In order to fulfill that purpose, transferring cultural heritage to the next generation by avoiding disturbing visuals, was focused.