MLA Guide to Digital Literacy

by Ellen C. Carillo

Updated edition providing students with hands-on strategies for digital literacy.

The second edition of this best-selling classroom guide helps students understand why digital literacy is a crucial skill for their education, future careers, and participation in democracy. Offering practical guidance for assessing information online, this guide provides students with the tools to locate reliable sources among the clickbait and viral videos that pervade the web. The guide's hands-on activities, germane readings, and lesson plans give students strategies for reading and analyzing data visualizations; finding and evaluating credible sources; learning how to spot fake news; fact-checking; crafting a research question; effectively conducting searches on Google and on library catalogs and databases; finding peer-reviewed publications; evaluating primary sources; and understanding disinformation and misinformation, filter bubbles, propaganda, and satire in a variety of sources―including websites, social media posts, infographics, videos, and more (on platforms like Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , TikTok , and YouTube ).

New to the second
• attention to the ethical dimensions of digital technology, including privacy issues and bias in search algorithms―with an accompanying lesson plan
• an emphasis on how digital literacy can help stem racism, sexism, ableism, and the persistence of harmful stereotypes
• instruction on using inclusive research and citation practices to avoid perpetuating systemic bias
• a new chapter, "Composing in Digital Spaces," that offers instruction in multimodal composition and foregrounds accessibility 
• a new and up-to-date reading, "The Real History of Fake News"
• a section on avoiding plagiarism 
• updated references and examples
• resource lists of digital tools, platforms, and software that can support the practices described in the guide

Genres: Nonfiction

182 pages, Paperback

Published August 9, 2022

Reviews

[Paschalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general, a very nice short introduction in the dangers of the web and how to avoid them if you are a student. The only fault I’d say is that many times the author tries to combine two topics, one from Digital literacy and the other from essay writing, that do not make a coherent whole as a chapter.

[Z]

Academic Librarians, assemble! This brief, focused MLA publication neatly summarizes the information literacy and information evaluation theories and skills that are familiar to those of us teaching at the community college, accelerated degree program, early college entry program, and undergraduate level. Public Librarians in instructional and programming roles may also find much here that can be applied to their work. In my own work as a teaching librarian, I have occasionally used the instructional worksheets, blog posts, videos, and other materials available from the MLA website. This book, written in accessible language, would serve well as assigned course reading. The guide also covers research skills.
Combined with some of the Open Educational Resources (ACRL Sandbox, etc.) created by academic librarians, The MLA Guide to Digital Literacy could be part of a strong toolkit for those new to the job of teaching information literacy.

[Dustin Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the guide provides a fair supply of valuable tips for vetting internet sources, most of the book is mere common sense that anyone thoughtful enough to read a book like this probably already uses. Could be quite valuable for middle school classrooms.