A brief look at ‘grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.
Libraries are all about literacy and following the pattern of time, media literacy is now on the forefront. How do we, as librarians from many different backgrounds, educations, and communities make sure that we are doing the most we can with media literacy? How do you steer them with social, print, or any other kind of media literacy? You can start with using the devices your teens already have. As shocking as it may seem, there are always things they can learn on their devices. Play and Learn. Are you a system that has devices that you can use in a program and let them use in a petting zoo fashion? Allow teens to experience new technology if your system has access. If your library doesn’t have the means, take a look at teaching a class about how to analyse messages. We know all too often we misinterpret messages and this is a good way to steer them in a direction of thinking in a different manner. Don’t let the word “media” scare you. There’s an aspect that we all can dabble in. Media literacy is also in print fashion, so look into research and paper writing. Also try a workshop where teens look at their social media and see if some of their past posts could have had multiple interpretations. These are just a few of the ways that media literacy can be a part of your library. More steps and tips are outlined in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action How do you use media literacy in your library? Comment below.