Journal articles on the topic 'Program Pro-Literacy'

Historically, illiteracy has been a reality for Brazilians. This paper describes an adult literacy program currently in practice in Northeastern Brazil from a critical theory framework. The program described is based on Freireʼs circles of culture and its conception is that literacy is a process for social inclusion. Along with the description provided by the author, resulting from participant observation and review of literature, this paper includes the perspective of a student currently in the program. Further, from a critical standpoint, the author acknowledges many positive things already implemented and challenges for the future of this promising literacy program.

Abstract. School learning activities related to the school literacy movement include activities in the habituation stage, development and learning are activities that must be carried out by stu-dents, teachers, and education personnel who aim to foster good habits and form positive charac-ter generation. This study intends to describe the role of teacher librarians in schools in the Infor-mation Literacy program, especially those related to students' reading interests. The research method used in advanced research on information literacy uses a qualitative approach to the case study method. This method is used to find out how information literacy training programs can pro-vide education for students at elementary school. The results of this study indicate that Librarian Teachers provide a significant role in the reading interest of students. The information literacy program conducted in the elementary school is aimed at increasing students' interest in reading. These activities include reading, writing, book reviewing or story telling and so on programs to attract students to be more happy to come to the library. The activities carried out in the library by the teachers of librarians were carried out well, in accordance with the school literacy movement that was proclaimed by the government. Teacher Librarian have a role as a transfer of infor-mation in the classroom of course also has a very important role in the school environment, one of which is the information literacy program conducted at the Elementary School of Hikmah Teladan. Abstrak. Kegiatan pembelajaran di sekolah yang terkait dengan gerakan literasi sekolah meliputi kegiatan dalam tahapan pembiasaan, pengembangan dan pembelajaran adalah aktivitas yang harus dilakukan oleh siswa, guru, dan tenaga kependidikan yang bertujuan untuk menumbuhkan kebiasaan yang baik dan membentuk generasi berkarakter positif. Penelitian ini bermaksud untuk mendeskripsikan peran teacher librarian (guru pustakawan) di sekolah pada pro-gram Literasi Informasi terutama yang terkait dengan minat baca siswa. Metode Penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian lanjutan tentang literasi media ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode studi kasus. Metode ini, studi kasus (case study).Metode ini digunakan untuk mengetahui bagaimana program pelatihan literasi informasi dapat memberikan pendidikan ter-hadap siswa di SD Hikmah Teladan. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa Guru Pustakawan memberikan peranan yang cukup signifikan terhadap minat baca siswa. Hal tersebut dapat dilihat pada hasil penelitian bahwa memberikan Guru Pustakawan mempunyai peran sangat besar pada program literasi di sekolah. Program literasi informasi yang dilaksanakan di perpustakaan sekolah adalah bertujuan untuk meningkatkan minat baca siswa. Kegiatan tersebut meliputi program lomba membaca, menulis, meresensi buku ataupun story telling dan sebagainya untuk menarik siswa agar lebih senang untuk datang keperpustakaan. Kegiatan yang dilaksanakan di perpustakaan sekoleh yang dikalukan oleh guru pustakawan telah berjalan dengan baik, sesuai dengan gerakan literasi sekolah yang telah dicanangkan oleh penmerintah. Guru pustakawan mempunyai peranan sebagai pentransfer informasi di dalam kelas tentu juga mempunyai peran yang sangat penting di ling-kungan sekolah salah satunya adalah program literasi informasi yang dilaksanakan di SD Hikmah Teladan.

Scientific literacy is a vital program for current generation of students in the whole world. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact of students’ social behaviors on scientific literacy by using robust regression. A robust approach is applied to overcome the weaknesses of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model. The method is believed to produce better accuracy of estimation. This study applies a survey method conducted by using 200 research subjects which are randomly selected at a university in Indonesia. There are two instruments used, namely questionnaire sheets using a Likert scale and test sheets. There are four categories used in this study to measure the students’ social behaviors, which are cooperation (X1), assertiveness (X2), self-control (X3) and pro-social behaviors toward peers (X4). The analysis results reveal that all of independent variables have positive and significant impact on students’ scientific literacy (Y). Furthermore, the highest impact is collaboration (X1) and the lowest impact is pro-social behavior towards peers (X4), where the robust regression coefficients are .262 and .238, respectively.

Community Service is carried out by donating Training to Anticipate Fake News (Hoax) on Social Media, which is a pro-active form and participation of Universities in the Thousand Islands Police Resort program through the local government in overcoming the problem of media literacy (dissemination of hoax news), so that people can distinguish which information is correct and which information is fake or hoax so that the acceleration and effectiveness of development programs can be achieved which is marked by the better quality of public understanding related to false information (hoax) on social media. Media Literacy Training Anticipating Fake News (Hoax) in Social Media uses the Empowering 8 (E8) model approach. Post test results from 26 participants who took part in the training, there was a significant increase in value, namely as many as 26.56 points from the average value of the pre test value of 55 points with a value range of 20 to 70 points, to 74.56 points with a value range of 60 to 80 points Pengabdian kepada masyarakai ini dilaksanakan dengan mengadakan Pelatihan Literasi Media Mengantisipasi Berita Palsu (Hoax) Di Media Sosial, yang merupakan wujud pro aktif dan partisipasi Perguruan Tinggi terhadap program Polres Kepulauan Seribu melalui pemerintah setempat dalam mengatasi persoalan literasi media (penyebaran berita hoax), agar masyarakat bisa membedakan mana informasi yang benar dan mana informasi yang palsu atau hoax sehingga dapat tercapai akselerasi dan efektivitas program pembangunan yang ditandai oleh semakin baiknya kualitas pemahaman masyarakat terkait informasi yang palsu (hoax) pada media sosial. Pelatihan Literasi Media Mengantisipasi Berita Palsu (Hoax) Di Media Sosial menggunkan pendekatan model Empowering 8 (E8). Hasil post test dari 26 peserta yang mengikuti pelatihan, terdapat peningkatan nilai yang cukup signifikan, yakni sebanyak 26.56 poin dari nilai rata-rata nilai pretest adalah 55 poin dengan rentang nilai 20 s.d 70 poin, menjadi 74.56 poin dengan rentang nilai 60 s.d 80 poin

AbstractUnderwater photo-elicitation is a novel experiential marine education technique that combines direct experience in the marine environment with the use of digital underwater cameras. A program called Show Us Your Ocean! (SUYO!) was created, utilising a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative methods) to test the efficacy of this technique. Participants (adults and high school students) snorkelled, explored the ocean, and captured images both in and out of the water. Underwater photo-elicitation was proven effective at increasing awareness, eliciting emotional reactions, and fostering a sense of connection to the ocean. However, it was not necessarily effective for raising awareness of environmental issues nor for motivating pro-environmental behaviour. Interestingly, while some attitudes about and behaviours toward the ocean did become more environmentally sensitive, others appeared to shift unexpectedly away from environmental concern. This result was perhaps due to the lack in the program of an ecological knowledge-based component. Participants enjoying the beauty of the ocean did not realise the threats facing it or what to do about these. If the goal is to achieve significant attitude change and cultivate pro-environmental behaviour, this new approach should be supplemented with critical thinking/action competence and ecological/ocean literacy.

Recent reports, initiatives, and activities around higher education institutions revealed the relevance and value of sustainability education through both formal curriculum and informal curriculum activities. While the significance of sustainability education has continuously improved by raising awareness among new generations of students, it has not adequately promoted pro-environmental behaviors or attitude changes. This research study used a linear pretest–posttest experimental approach to understand whether two codesigned interventions; a trash and recycling bin system, and a Materials Exchange program, could improve sustainability literacy and material conservation behaviors across the School of Design. Additionally, a mid-experiment focus group study was conducted to provide text-rich data for analysis of 3R behaviors. Analysis of the data collected revealed that these interventions were reasonably successful in improving responsible material management. To have a greater impact on sustainable behavior, it is suggested that a formal educational experience should supplement the informal interventions described in this paper to onboard students as they enter the design studio culture. Additionally, the expansion of the trash and recycling bin station system into the university dormitories is discussed. This work has successfully catalyzed a collaboration between all School of Design stakeholders to address studio waste in a tangible way.

ABSTRACT IMPACT: The Bench Tutorials Program is an independent study course in biomedical research in which high school students are paired with graduate and post-doctoral students during the academic year. The purpose is to enhance the rigor of high school science education and build the pipeline of tomorrow’s researchers. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: The Bench Tutorials Program: ο Proficiency in research design, implementation, and presentation; ο Acquisition of hands-on laboratory skills; ο Increase in scientific literacy; ο Increase in analytical skills and critical thinking; ο Career in science; ο Build the pipeline of tomorrow’s biomedical researchers METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: High School seniors are paired with graduate and postdoc mentors through a matching process. Students spend approximately four hours/week in supervised instruction and research from a participating laboratory in addition to classroom experience at their High School. Mentors design research projects relating to the larger research framework of their laboratories. In light of COVID-19, approaches have been adjusted to maintain the program safely through a hybrid method of using the high school lab for hands-on learning and through the use of Go-Pros ’s to enable our mentors to video and narrate as they conduct experiments in their own labs to teach their mentees scientific methods and processes. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Since inception, more than 400 students and mentors have participated in the Bench Tutorial’s program. This year we found a way to continue the program under COVID-19 restraints without putting anyone in harms way. Go-Pros have been essential for our program to maintain continuity for high school students who receive academic credit for this course. This program is also one of few in which our graduate students have the opportunity to serve as mentors in the scientific setting. Using Go-Pro’s will also enable us to provide teaching videos online for other academic institutions, so even in the absence of COVID-19 in the future, the continued use of these devices will still be of great value. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: High school students are afforded the ability to work on cutting edge research projects alongside graduate students and postdocs, who are afforded the chance to mentor and teach. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have successfully adjusted our methods for teaching through the use of Go-Pro technology.

Purpose Public administration, or the implementation of public policies by civil servants, will be central to implementing the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. And yet, few American master of public administration (MPA) programs explicitly focus on sustainable development or sustainability literacy. This study asks whether it is possible to build professional sustainability literacy within a general MPA course, specifically in a course on quantitative methods. Design/methodology/approach Through a natural experiment conducted in three sections of the graduate course Quantitative Methods in Public Administration at UNC Wilmington, the study explores the relationship between student growth in professional sustainability literacy and a student’s level of foundational sustainability literacy, pro-environmental behavior, background knowledge in statistics and their interest in sustainable development within public administration. Findings The study finds that there is a statistically significant relationship between growth in a student’s professional sustainability literacy and two variables: above average foundational sustainability literacy and a high level of interest in sustainability policies and programs. Originality/value This study is the first to consider an embedded approach to sustainability education in the field of public administration.

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of environmental consciousness in terms of its defining features, structural dimensions and types. More specifically, it explores the correlation between the anthropocentric/ecocentric perspective and sustainable household practices and interactions with the natural world. Another focus is the underlying dimensions of environmental consciousness such as environmental sensitivity, sustainable consumption, environmental concern and commitment to act pro-environmentally. Ecological crisis is examined through the lens of spirituality, value orientations, attitudes, worldviews and environmental consciousness. Among the other issues addressed are effective environmental literacy programs through school-family partnership and the driving forces of pro-environmental behaviour.

Damage to the ecosystem and decline in the amount of biodiversity continues. Ecosystem damage due to human activities has become a global problem. This destructive activity reflects the low of the community’s environmental literacy. Environmental education can be a solution to improve community’s environmental literacy. The objectives of environmental education are (1) awareness; (2) knowledge; (3) attitude; (4) skills; and (5) participation. One effective method in environmental education is based on experiential learning. This article aims to explain the concept of environmental education based on experiential learning which can be an alternative integration of environmental education in schools. This article discusses the urgency of environmental literacy, how environmental education can improve environmental literacy, and detailed concepts of how to implement environmental education based on experiential learning in schools. Experiential learning-based environmental education means instilling Kolb’s learning cycle in learning and environmental education programs. The Kolb cycle consists of: (1) Concrete Experience; (2) Observation and Reflection; (3) Forming Abstract Concept; (4) Testing in New Situation. Experiential learning based environmental education will provide provisions for students to be able to design pro-environment actions or participate in providing solutions to environmental problems.

La constante aceleración de los procedimientos científicos humanísticos y tecnológicos hacen necesario formar a los docentes universitarios en todas las áreas de su desempeño académico atendiendo a esta necesidad se diseño el Programa de formación a distancia en asesoramiento académico con el soporte del Campus Virtual de la universidad como entorno de aprendizaje y del apoyo de herramientas de la Web 2.0. Con el propósito desarrollar las competencias básicas requeridas para desempeñar las funciones como docente asesor académico e incorporarlos a la cultura del aprendizaje en entornos virtuales de aprendizaje, todo ello orientado al mejoramiento y potenciación del desempeño docente y del estudiante universitario en la institución. En este sentido, Castaño & Maíz (2008) argumentan, que el trabajador y trabajadora del conocimiento del siglo xxi no pueden basarse en la manera de aprender del siglo xx, y de épocas anteriores. El reto de abordar el desarrollo de competencias académicas, dirigidas a gestionar oportunidades para optimizar el desempeño académico de sus estudiantes (asesoramiento académico), y de competencias tecnológicas en pro de una alfabetización informacional y digital que favorecen a un mejor desempeño docente propio de la sociedad del conocimiento y de la información. La interacción fue desarrollada en un ambiente cooperativo, dinámico, multidimensional apoyado en herramientas tecnológicas como googledoc, videos instruccionales (teleclase), trabajo colaborativo en red, discusión y debates en línea, creación Voki, entre otras, estrategias empleadas en el proceso de formación. Esta experiencia se convirtió en un aprendizaje de doble flujo, este tipo de aprendizaje se reconoce en este caso, cuando aprende el docente al mejorar su desempeño académico y aprende la institución al tener un profesional capacitado para aceptar los retos de la sociedad del conocimiento y de la información para afrontar la evolución de la Educación a distancia en la institución.Palabras Clave: Entornos virtuales de aprendizaje, Asesoramiento Académico, educación a distancia, Web. 2.0, teleclase, trabajo colaborativo, voki.Abstract The continued acceleration of scientific procedures are necessary humanistic and technological training of university teachers in all areas of academic performance in response to this need we designed the training program in academic advising at a distance with the support of the Virtual Campus of the university as learning environment and support of Web 2.0 tools. In order to develop the basic skills required to perform teaching duties as counselor and incorporate the culture of learning in virtual learning environments, all aimed at improving and enhancing the performance of teachers and university student in the institution. In this sense, Brown & Corn (2008) argue that the knowledge workers of the twenty-first century can not be based on the way to learn from the twentieth century and earlier times. The challenge of addressing the development of academic, aimed at managing opportunities for optimizing the academic performance of students (academic advising), and technological skills in favor of a digital information literacy and promote a better teaching performance of the company itself knowledge and information. The interaction was developed in a collaborative environment, dynamic, multidimensional supported by technological tools such as googledoc, instructional videos (teleclass), collaborative networking, discussion and online discussions, creation Voki, among other strategies employed in the training process. This experience became a learning dual-stream, this type of learning is recognized in this case, when the teacher learns to improve their academic performance and learn the institution to have a trained professional to embrace the challenges of the knowledge society and information to address the evolution of distance education in the institution.Keywords: virtual learning environments, academic counseling, distance learning, Web.2.0, teleclass, collaborative work, Voki.

Developing Civic Literacy for a citizen of a young country is a pedagogical mission that must be borne by every educator directed by the 2013 Curriculum through the use of Scientific approaches in various learning activities that require learning media that can arouse students' rational and intellectual thinking ability, namely Audio Visual Media namely a media based on multimedia with computer hardware and run based on software programs namely; Pro Gold Show. Researchers intend to carry out an Action Research (Action Research) which aims to examine the Impact of the Use of Scientific Learning-Based Models Using Computer Application Media Pro Gold Show Research will be carried out through three cycles namely planning, acting, observing and Reflection and analyzed by SWOT (Strenghts Weakness Opportunities Threats). This study was conducted to develop a hypothetical model using a qualitative approach, while the results of the study showed that the Action Model had the power: Can provide a more effective and simple transformation of knowledge through a series of stages of Action, Weaknesses: Learning using an old style that is Cross Curricular will hinder innovation and improvisation: Opportunities: Still open Innovation and Improvisation in its development; Threat: Creativity that is not formed due to the lack of ability of the Teacher will result in actions in learning to be in vain.

Environmental education is an important tool for managing environmental problems, with a view to protecting the environment. Several significant factors, however, impede its implementation. Educators’ lack of knowledge and appropriate training on environmental topics results in difficulties in implementing environmental education programs. Nevertheless, environmental literacy is expected to lead to the manifestation of pro-environmental behavior. The aim of the present study was to examine the impacts of environmental training on pre-primary and primary school educators, and its influence on the formation of their environmental perceptions and attitudes. We investigated whether training triggers the implementation of environmental education programs, and its possible metacognitive effects on educators. Simple random sampling was used as a sampling method. A structured questionnaire was administered to 154 pre-primary and primary school teachers, and the data collection took place through the use of face-to-face interviews. The research findings indicated that educators were interested in environmental issues, and mainly used the media to obtain information about environmental issues. Gender and age were important characteristics influencing the performance and attitudes of environmental educators. It also became apparent that there are significant deficiencies in the capacity building of educators, and in the organization of environmental education in pre-primary and primary education, that negatively affect the implementation of environmental programs in schools.

The strategic line of development of the digital society in Russian Federation is aimed, first of all, at the development of human potential, that is, the «knowledge economy», and only then at the formation of a digital economy that provides technological leadership in the global digital space. Forms universal digital literacy and professional and communicative competencies necessary for the «knowledge economy», and also creates a supporting infrastructure for the digital economy in the sphere of professional education. In the era of digitalization, project financing has become one of the leading trends in financial support for education. In the course of the research, two types of financing models in the global educational space were identified: basic models and derived (partial) models. Taking into account the fact that in Russia the main investor in the field of higher education is the state, in order to attract extra-budgetary sources, the potential of the financial mechanism of public-private partnership should be used. That is, the mixed model of subsidizing pro jects of state programs can be expanded by introducing into it a block of project financing within the framework of the PPP mechanism that stimulates the inflow of private capital. In turn, the development of new information technologies and products is changing the models of pro ject financing in higher education. The participatory model of project financing of universities proposed in the study using the PPP mechanism ensures the embedding of civil society institutions both in the budgetary process that determines the level of spending on higher education and in the process of public-private investment in universities.

e4275120This text aims to analyze the tensions that were marked in the professional development of a literacy teacher when entering a public school system. Initially, some conceptions of a beginning teacher present in the literature are presented and the historical-cultural perspective is adopted as a theoretical framework, with the studies of Yves Clot and collaborators on the teaching activity, the professional gender of the teacher. The data consists of different narratives of the teacher: memorial of formation in the master's dissertation, written and oral narratives produced during her participation in the Education Observatory Program and a narrative produced specifically for research. The analysis focuses on three thematic units: entering the career; tensions between academic education and the real teaching activity; and the collective of the work. The analysis points to signs of a development marked by advances and moments of professional fulfillment, but also of setbacks and anxieties, especially when the teacher reflects on her academic background, countering her power to act with students in the literacy process. His moments of tension stand out when he entered a peripheral school with adverse working conditions and without the support of school management, culminating in illness. The curbing of the teacher's power to act causes atrophies in the professional genre, mainly due to the absence of a work group in schools.ResumoEste texto objetiva analisar as tensões que foram marcantes no desenvolvimento profissional de uma professora dos anos iniciais, ao ingressar numa rede pública de ensino. Inicialmente apresentam-se algumas concepções de professor iniciante, presentes na literatura, e adota-se a perspectiva histórico-cultural como quadro teórico, com os estudos de Yves Clot e colaboradores sobre a atividade docente, o gênero profissional do professor. Os dados consistem de diferentes narrativas da professora: memorial de formação na dissertação de mestrado, narrativas escritas e orais produzidas durante sua participação no Programa Observatório da Educação e uma narrativa produzida especificamente para a pesquisa. A análise centra-se em três unidades temáticas: ingresso na carreira; tensões entre a formação acadêmica e o real da atividade docente; e o coletivo de trabalho. A análise aponta indícios de um desenvolvimento marcado por avanços e por momentos de realização profissional, mas também por retrocessos e angústias, principalmente quando a professora reflete sobre sua formação acadêmica, contrapondo-se com seu poder de agir com os alunos no processo de alfabetização. Destacam-se os seus momentos de tensão, ao ingressar numa escola periférica com condições de trabalho adversas e sem o apoio da gestão escolar, culminando em adoecimento.Palavras-chave: Condições do trabalho docente, Desenvolvimento profissional, Carreira do magistério, Escola pública.Keywords: Teaching working conditions, Professional development, Teaching career, Public school.ReferencesANDRÉ, M. Políticas de apoio aos docentes em estados e municípios brasileiros: dilemas na formação de professores. Educar em Revista, Editora UFPR, Curitiba, n. 50, p. 35-49, out./dez. 2013.ANDRÉ, M.; CALIL, A. M. G.; MARTINS, F. P.; PEREIRA, M. A. L. 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A few months from the time of this survey, the nearly completed inpatient psychiatric facility within the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital's complex would be ready for admissions. Understanding the health workers' level of experience of mental illness and their likely behavioural responses towards people with psychiatric illness, therefore, should be a good baseline to understanding their likely reactions towards admitting such patients within a general hospital setting. The study, which used a pre-tested and adapted attribution questionnaire, was pro -spective and cross-sectional. Randomly selected health workers in Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital had their level of familiarity and attributions towards psychiatric patients assessed. The respondents showed a high level of experience with mental illness, with more than 3 in 5 of them having watched movies on mental illness before. More than half of them held positive (favorable) attributions towards persons with mental illness on nine of the ten assessed attribution factors. Almost all held negative (unfavourable) opinion towards intimate relationships with such persons. Attribution factors, “Responsibility, “Anger”, “Dangerousness”, “Fear” and “Segregation” were significantly related to the respondents' level of education (P<0.05). Marital status of the respondents related significantly to “Pity” and “Avoidance” factors (P<0.05). Having watched movies on mental illness significantly related to “Responsibility” and “Fear” factors (P<0.05). Programs designed to improve the health workers mental health literacy, and increased positive professional contacts with mentally ill persons on treatment, would further enhance their perceived positive attributions towards them.

In acknowledging the significant role of forestry on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of local communities, this study focused on examining how different factors affect the intentional behavior towards community forestry among the poor households in Malaysia. Employing theory of planned behavior (TPB) in an expanded model, this study collected data from 420 underprivileged households from 10 states in Malaysia using a survey questionnaire. Final analysis is performed using two methods, one being the well-established, conventional way of partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM); the other being a frontier technology of computing using artificial neural network (ANN), which is generated through a deep learning algorithm to achieve the maximum possible accuracy for each of the five scenarios aforementioned. The study found that perceived benefits (PB) and eco-literacy (EL) have a significant positive effect on the attitude towards environment (ATE) while normative belief (NB) and motivation (MO) have a significant positive effect on subjective norms (SUN). Perceived control (PC) has a significant positive effect on perceived behavioral control (PBC). ATE, SUN, and PBC have a significant positive effect on the intention towards community forestry (ITCF), whereas the ITCF has a significant positive effect on community forestry adoption behavior (CFAB). When formulating and enforcing carbon reduction and poverty elevating programs through community forestry, the Malaysian government should consider the perceptions of poor families and the prerogative from their special reference groups to enhance the perceived ability of the vulnerable groups for positive and effective pro-environmental behavior that can lead to sustainable forestry management.

Adult literacy and English as an Additional Language (EAL) programs are often challenged to find suitable and authentic reading texts and instructional materials for their students. Newsela PRO, an entirely online resource, provides high-interest fiction, timely news articles, and other nonfiction texts in both English and Spanish that focus on developing reading and critical thinking skills by providing students with five levels of reading difficulty. Although originally designed for younger learners, the use of Newsela PRO has recently expanded into adult literacy programs. This convergent mixed-methods study investigated the usability and instructional use of this educational technology in an intensive, precollege EAL program in a community college in the northeastern United States. This case study found that instructors felt the detailed reports provided by Newsela PRO enhanced their instruction and feedback and enabled them to differentiate instruction more effectively. Regardless of language-proficiency level, students found Newsela “easy to very-easy-to-use.” They were motivated to read more extensively and developed more confidence in their academic skills and English-language proficiency. These preliminary findings justify the additional cost of Newsela PRO as well as exploring its expanded use in other adult education, EAL, and literacy programs, especially Spanish-language literacy programs, both in the United States and internationally. As many adult and higher education programs were mandated to transition to distance learning exclusively during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the effective instructional use of educational technology has become critical.

ABSTRACTThis article presents the contributions of Pro-Mathematical Literacy program in Mathematics for a group of course members. By different guidelines, according to the reflexive professor´s point of view and through the study of case, it was established three categories of analysis. From the results, got by analysis of two questionnaires with 18 course members and two reports of the tutors of this group, it was possible to conclude that the course was important for the retaken of mathematical content by talking about relevant issues to the classroom work, discussing among the pairs and providing changes in pedagogical practice. In addition, course members felt that the involvement of teachers in Pro-Mathematical Literacy can be one reason for the improvement in student performance in Brazil Exam, large-scale assessments for Basic Education. This program, a partnership of MEC - Ministry of Education of Brazil with partner Universities and Education Systems , happened from 2005 to 2013.RESUMOO presente artigo apresenta as contribuições do programa Pró-Letramento em Matemática para um grupo de professores cursistas. Sob diferentes orientações, pelo viés do professor reflexivo e por meio do estudo de caso, foram esta-belecidas três categorias de análise. Dos resultados, obtidos pela análise de dois questionários aplicados a 18 professores cursistas e de dois relatórios das professoras tutoras desse grupo, foi possível concluir que o curso foi importante pela retomada de conteúdos matemáticos, por abordar questões pertinentes ao trabalho em sala de aula, discutindo-as entre os pares e proporcionando alterações na prática pedagógica. Além disso, os professores cursistas consideraram que a partici-pação de professores no programa Pró-Letramento em Matemática pode ser um dos motivos para a melhora no desempenho dos alunos na Prova Brasil, avaliação em larga escala para a Educação Básica. Esse programa, parceria do MEC - Ministério de Educação do Brasil com as Universidades parceiras e Sistemas de Ensino, aconteceu de 2005 a 2013. Contato principal: msmoraes@fc.unesp.br

The objective of this qualitative research project was to determine if storytelling would improve grade four students’ information literacy. A storytelling program was presented to a class of 21 grade four students. This storytelling pro-gram was designed from a constructivist framework and was used to guide the students through Carol…L’objectif de ce projet de recherche qualitative était de vérifier si la narration permettrait d’améliorer les résultats d’élèves de quatrième année en ce qui concerne la maîtrise de l’information. Un programme de narration a été présenté à une classe de 21 élèves de quatrième année. Ce programme, conçu à partir d’un cadre constructiviste, a servi de guide pour les étudiants à travers les différentes étapes de l’approche du processus de recherche de Carol…

If the current view of literature is that social emotional competence is essential for academic learning and achievement, what does this mean for the classroom teacher? (McCombs 2004). What is emotional literacy? How can emotional competency be developed? The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact that training in social emotional learning has on the pedagogy and practice of classroom teachers. It examined the effect of the Canadian developed social-emotional learning program Roots of Empathy (ROE) on teachers, children, the classroom environment and its subsequent impact on the broader community. This research study documented the changes that occurred for teachers and children who participated in the social emotional learning program. It seeks to understand how both the instructor training and program implementation has impacted on the participants, what this has meant for their understanding of social emotional learning (SEL), how the children have responded to the program and what subsequent changes have occurred in their behaviours and learning. It investigated the perceptions of the participants to the effectiveness of ROE as an SEL learning program, its benefits and limitations. From collective data and current literature on SEL, conclusions and recommendations are made. ROE is currently operating in over 1100 classrooms in Canada, with a pilot program being implemented in Australia and New Zealand. The findings of this phenomenology are significant in providing evidence-based research to inform the ongoing implementation of ROE in Australia and specifically Western Australia. For developing emotional literacy, the Roots of Empathy program was highly effective. It contributed positively to the professional learning of the teachers and increased their awareness of the emotional competencies of their children. It was also evident that pro-social behaviour of the children in the Roots of Empathy classes increased while bullying and aggression decreased. It was also noted that a whole school approach is essential for effective long term implementation of a chosen social emotional learning program and that administration support was a key factor to successful learning outcomes for all participants. Ongoing longitudinal evaluation of a social emotional learning program implementation is recommended to accurately evaluate the long term impact of these programs on the learning outcomes for students. Roots of Empathy is unique, even being described as "revolutionary in its potential to change the way young people see themselves and their world" (Gordon 2005, p.26), as it gives children direct experiential learning of emotional literacy through their interaction with a real baby. This study emphasises the need for all teachers, and pre-service teachers, to be trained in programs that specifically address social-emotional competencies. It supports the need for all schools to be resourced to implement programs that explicitly teach social emotional learning, essential for students’ cognitive and academic skills’ development. What policymakers and educators must now address is the question, “Can we afford not to support this program?"

Abstract Objectives Adolescent wellbeing is now recognized as critical to breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty and malnutrition. Multiple factors shape cognitive wellbeing during adolescence, thus we sought to take a holistic approach in examining factors related to mental outcomes among Indian adolescents. Methods Data were drawn from in-school adolescents aged 10–19 years (n = 2482 females (F), 2728 males (M)) in the Understanding the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults (UDAYA) study in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. We examined four outcomes: literacy, numeracy, aspiration for advanced studies, and depression. Predictors spanned nutritional factors (anemia, underweight, dietary diversity, free school meals), social support (number of friends, time spent with friends, parental support, substance abuse, household violence), and environment (urban, sanitation, household wealth, school quality, work outside school). Mutually-adjusted logistic regression models, accounting for cluster sampling design and state fixed effects, were used to examine associations between these predictors and the four outcomes for M and F separately. Results Among nutritional factors, associations were found between anemia and depression (F: AOR 1.40, 95% CI 1.00–1.97), underweight and numeracy (M: 0.72, 0.54–0.96), dietary diversity and literacy (F: 1.09, 1.01–1.17). Receiving free school meals was associated with poorer outcomes (AORs 0.37 to 0.50), which we attribute to the pro-poor program targeting. Strong parental support was related to higher literacy (M: 4.66, 2.89–7.54), numeracy (M: 2.64, 1.64–4.26; F: 1.70, 1.07–2.70) and aspirations (M: 1.84, 1.25–2.69) while substance abuse and violence were related to worse outcomes (AORs 0.56 to 0.72). Higher wealth predicted higher literacy, numeracy and aspirations. Having an improved latrine facility at home predicted higher numeracy (F: 1.60, 1.11–2.30) and aspirations (F: 1.87, 1.28–2.75). Conclusions Our findings highlight the complexity of factors that adolescents face which affect their mental wellbeing. Policies and programs to improve adolescent mental health require well-rounded packages of interventions targeting nutritional, social, and environmental aspects of life. Funding Sources Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through POSHAN, led by IFPRI.

ABSTRACT Background During the Covid-19 pandemic fake news has been circulating impacting on the general population’s opinion about a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2. Health literacy measures the capacity of navigating health information. Methods We used data from a prospective national online cohort of 1647 participants. Descriptive statistics, Chi2 and ANOVA independence tests and two multivariable multinomial regression models were performed. Interactions between each variable were tested. Results Detection of fake news and health literacy scores were associated with intention to get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (p &lt; 0.01). The risk of being “anti-vaccination” or “hesitant”, rather than “pro-vaccination”, was higher among individuals reporting bad detection of fake news, respectively OR = 1.93 (95%CI = [1.30;2.87]) and OR = 1.80 (95%CI = [1.29;2.52]). The risk of being in “hesitant”, rather than “pro-vaccination” was higher among individuals having a bad health literacy score (OR = 1.44; 95%CI = [1.04;2.00]). No interaction was found between detection of fake news and health literacy. Conclusions To promote acceptance of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, it is recommended to increase individuals’ ability to detect fake news and health literacy through education and communication programs.

Based on the assumption that collaboration of librarians with teachers is central to the concept of information literacy, this study aims to understand the vision of the librarian with regard to collaboration, if he/she realizes the difficulties in this collaboration and in what way he/she seeks to collaborate. A qualitative/interpretative methodology was used and data were collected through reports of experiences, interviews and group discussion. The sample was composed of 28 school librarians (14 from public schools and 14 from private institutions). Results show that librarians not only understand the need for collaboration with teachers for the success of their educational practice, but also engage themselves in concrete actions to achieve that collaboration, which reveals a pro-active attitude, different from the projected image of a professional isolated from school life. This attitude indicates that Brazilian school librarians are starting to build the foundations for their educational practice, which could pave the way for the establishment of information literacy programs in Brazilian schools.

IntroductionAccounts of mentoring relationships inevitably draw attention to hierarchies of expertise, knowledge and learning. While public concerns about both the risks and benefits for young people of social media, little attention has been given to the nature of the mentoring role that parents and families play alongside of schools. This conceptual paper explores models of mentorship in the context of family dynamics as they are affected by social media use. This is a context that explicitly disrupts hierarchical structures of mentoring in that new media, and particularly social media use, tends to be driven by youth cultural practices, identity formation, experimentation and autonomy-seeking practices (see for example: Robards; boyd; Campos-Holland et al.; Hodkinson). A growing body of research supports the notion that young people are more skilled in navigating social media platforms than their parents (FOSI; Campos-Holland et al.). This research establishes that uncertainty and tension derived from parents’ impression that their children know more about social media they do (FOSI; Sorbring) has brought about a market for advice and educational programs. In the content of this paper it is notable that when family dynamics and young people’s social media use are addressed through notions of digital citizenship or cyber safety programs, a hierarchical mentorship is assumed, but also problematised; thus the expertise hierarchy is inverted. This paper argues that use of social media platforms, networks, and digital devices challenges traditional hierarchies of expertise in family environments. Family members, parents and children in particular, are involved in ongoing, complex conversations and negotiations about expertise in relation to technology and social media use. These negotiations open up an alternative space for mentorship, challenging traditional roles and suggesting the need for cooperative processes. And this, in turn, can inspire new ways of relating with and through social media and mobile technologies within the family.Inverting Expertise: Social Media, Family and MentoringSocial media are deeply embedded in everyday routines for the vast majority of the population. The emergence of the ‘networked society’, characterised by increasing and pervasive digital and social connectivity, has the potential to create new forms of social interactions within and across networks (Rainie and Wellman), but also to reconfigure intergenerational and family relations. In this way, social media introduces new power asymmetries that affect family dynamics and in particular relationships between young people and their parents. This relatively new mediated environment, by default, exposes young people to social contexts well beyond family and immediate peers making their lived experiences individual, situational and contextual (Swist et al.). The perceived risks this introduces can provoke tensions within families looking to manage those uncertain social contexts, in the process problematising traditional structures of mentorship. Mentoring is a practice predominantly understood within educational and professional workplace settings (Ambrosetti and Dekkers). Although different definitions can be found across disciplines, most models position a mentor as a more experienced knowledge holder, implying a hierarchical relationship between a mentor and mentee (Ambrosetti and Dekkers). Stereotypically, a mentor is understood to be older, wiser and more experienced, while a mentee is, in turn, younger and in need of guidance – a protégé. Alternative models of mentorship see mentoring as a reciprocal process (Eby, Rhodes and Allen; Naweed and Ambrosetti).This “reciprocal” perspective on mentorship recognises the opportunity both sides in the process have to contribute and benefit from the relationship. However, in situations where one party in the relationship does not have the expected knowledge, skills or confidence, this reciprocity becomes more difficult. Thus, as an alternative, asymmetrical or cooperative mentorship lies between the hierarchical and reciprocal (Naweed and Ambrosetti). It suggests that the more experienced side (whichever it is) takes a lead while mentoring is negotiated in a way that meets both sides’ needs. The parent-child relationship is generally understood in hierarchical terms. Traditionally, parents are considered to be mentors for their children, particularly in acquiring new skills and facilitating transitions towards adult life. Such perspectives on parent-child relationships are based on a “deficit” approach to youth, “whereby young people are situated as citizens-in-the-making” (Collin). Social media further problematises the hierarchical dynamic with the role of knowledge holder varying between and within the family members. In many contemporary mediated households, across developed and wealthy nations, technologically savvy children are actively tailoring their own childhoods. This is a context that requires a reconceptualisation of traditional mentoring models within the family context and recognition of each stakeholder’s expertise, knowledge and agency – a position that is markedly at odds with traditional deficit models. Negotiating Social Media Use within the FamilyIn the early stages of the internet and social media research, a generational gap was often at the centre of debates. Although highly contested, Prensky’s metaphor of digital natives and digital immigrants persists in both the popular media and academic literature. This paradigm portrays young people as tech savvy in contrast with their parents. However, such assumptions are rarely grounded in empirical evidence (Hargittai). Nonetheless, while parents are active users of social media, they find it difficult to negotiate social media use with their children (Sorbring). Some studies suggest that parental concerns arise from impressions that their children know more about social media than they do (FOSI; Wang, Bianchi and Raley). Additionally, parental concern with a child’s social media use is positively correlated with the child’s age; parents of older children are less confident in their skills and believe that their child is more digitally skillful (FOSI). However, it may be more productive to understand social media expertise within the family as shared: intermittently fluctuating between parents and children. In developed and wealthy countries, children are already using digital media by the age of five and throughout their pre-teen years predominantly for play and learning, and as teenagers they are almost universally avid social media users (Nansen; Nansen et al.; Swist et al.). Smartphone ownership has increased significantly among young people in Australia, reaching almost 80% in 2015, a proportion nearly identical to the adult population (Australian Communications and Media Authority). In addition, most young people are using multiple devices switching between them according to where, when and with whom they connect (Australian Communications and Media Authority). The locations of internet use have also diversified. While the home remains the most common site, young people make use of mobile devices to access the internet at school, friend’s homes, and via public Wi-Fi hotspots (Australian Communications and Media Authority). As a result, social media access and engagement has become more frequent and personalised and tied to processes of socialisation and well-being (Sorbring; Swist et al.). These developments have been rapid, introducing asymmetry into the parent-child mentoring dynamic along with family tensions about rules, norms and behaviours of media use. Negotiating an appropriate balance between emerging autonomy and parental oversight has always featured as a primary parenting challenge and social media seem to have introduced a new dimension in this context. A 2016 Pew report on parents, teens, and digital monitoring reveals that social media use has become central to the establishment of family rules and disciplinary practices, with over two thirds of parents reporting the use of “digital grounding” as punishment (Pew). As well as restricting social media use, the majority of parents report limiting the amount of time and times of day their children can be online. Interestingly, while parents engage in a variety of hands-on approaches to monitoring and regulating children’s social media use, they are less likely to use monitoring software, blocking/filtering online content, tracking locations and the like (Pew). These findings suggest that parents may lack confidence in technology-based restrictions or prefer pro-active, family based approaches involving discussion about appropriate social media use. This presents an opportunity to explore how social media produces new forms of parent-child relationships that might be best understood through the lens of cooperative models of mentorship. Digital Parenting: Technological and Pedagogical Interventions Parents along with educators and policy makers are looking for technological solutions to the knowledge gap, whether perceived or real, associated with concerns regarding young people’s social media use. Likewise, technology and social media companies are rushing to develop and sell advice, safety filters and resources of all kinds to meet such parental needs (Clark; McCosker). This relatively under-researched field requires further exploration and dissociation from the discourse of risk and fear (Livingstone). Furthermore, in order to develop opportunities modelled on concepts of cooperative mentoring, such programs and interventions need to move away from hierarchical assumptions about the nature of expertise within family contexts. As Collin and Swist point out, online campaigns aimed at addressing young people and children’s safety and wellbeing “are often still designed by adult ‘experts’” (Collin and Swist). A cooperative mentoring approach within family contexts would align with recent use of co-design or participatory design within social and health research and policy (Collin and Swist). In order to think through the potential of cooperative mentorship approaches in relation to social media use within the family, we examine some of the digital resources available to parents.Prominent US cyber safety and digital citizenship program Cyberwise is a commercial website founded by Diana Graber and Cynthia Lieberman, with connections to Verizon Wireless, Google and iKeepSafe among many other partnerships. In addition to learning resources around topics like “Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World”, Cyberwise offers online and face to face workshops on “cyber civics” in California, emphasising critical thinking, ethical discussion and decision making about digital media issues. The organisation aims to educate and support parents and teachers in their endeavor to guide young people in civil and safe social media use. CyberWise’s slogan “No grown up left behind!”, and its program of support and education is underpinned by and maintains the notion of adults as lacking expertise and lagging behind young people in digital literacy and social media skills. In the process, it introduces an additional level of expertise in the cyber safety expert and software-based interventions. Through a number of software partners, CyberWise provides a suite of tools that offer parents some control in preventing cyberbullying and establishing norms for cyber safety. For example, Frienedy is a dedicated social media platform that fosters a more private mode of networking for closed groups of mutually known people. It enables users to control completely what they share and with whom they share it. The tool does not introduce any explicit parental monitoring mechanisms, but seeks to impose an exclusive online environment divested of broader social influences and risks – an environment in which parents can “introduce kids to social media on their terms when they are ready”. Although Frienedy does not explicitly present itself as a monitoring tool, it does perpetuate hierarchical forms of mentorship and control for parents. On the other hand, PocketGuardian is a parental monitoring service for tracking children’s social media use, with an explicit emphasis on parental control: “Parents receive notification when cyberbullying or sexting is detected, plus resources to start a conversation with their child without intruding child’s privacy” (the software notifies parents when it detects an issue but without disclosing the content). The tool promotes its ability to step in on behalf of parents, removing “the task of manually inspecting your child's device and accounts”. The software claims that it analyses the content rather than merely catching “keywords” in its detection algorithms. Obviously, tools such as PocketGuardian reflect a hierarchical mentorship model (and recognise the expertise asymmetry) by imposing technological controls. The software, in a way, fosters a fear of expertise deficiency, while enabling technological controls to reassert the parent-child hierarchy. A different approach is exemplified by the Australian based Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, a “living lab” experiment – this is an overt attempt to reverse deliberate asymmetry. This pedagogical intervention, initially taking the form of an research project, involved four young people designing and delivering a three-hour workshop on social networking and cyber safety for adult participants (Third et al.). The central aim was to disrupt the traditional way adults and young people relate to each other in relation to social media and technology use and attempted to support learning by reversing traditional roles of adult teacher and young student. In this way ‘a non-hierarchical space of intergenerational learning’ was created (Third et al.). The result was to create a setting where intergenerational conversation helped to demystify social media and technology, generate familiarity with sites, improve adult’s understanding of when they should assist young people, and deliver agency and self-efficacy for the young people involved (7-8). In this way, young people’s expertise was acknowledged as a reflection of a cooperative or asymmetrical mentoring relationship in which adult’s guidance and support could also play a part. These lessons have been applied and developed further through a participatory design approach to producing apps and tools such as Appreciate-a-mate (Collin and Swist). In that project “the inclusion of young people’s contexts became a way of activating and sustaining attachments in regard to the campaign’s future use”(313).In stark contrast to the CyberWise tools, the cooperative mentoring (or participatory design) approach, exemplified in this second example, has multiple positive outcomes: first it demystifies social media use and increases understanding of the role it plays in young people’s (and adults’) lives. Second, it increases adults’ familiarity and comfort in navigating their children’s social media use. Finally, for the young people involved, it supports a sense of achievement and acknowledges their expertise and agency. To build sustainability into these processes, we would argue that it is important to look at the family context and cooperative mentorship as an additional point of intervention. Understood in this sense, cooperative and asymmetrical mentoring between a parent and child echoes an authoritative parenting style which is proven to have the best outcome for children (Baumrind), but in a way that accommodates young people’s technology expertise.Both programs analysed target adults (parents) as less skilful than young people (their children) in relation to social media use. However, while first case study, the technology based interventions endorses hierarchical model, the Living Lab example (a pedagogical intervention) attempts to create an environment without hierarchical obstacles to learning and knowledge exchange. Although the parent-child relationship is indubitably characterised by the hierarchy to some extent, it also assumes continuous negotiation and role fluctuation. A continuous process, negotiation intensifies as children age and transition to more independent media use. In the current digital environment, this negotiation is often facilitated (or even led) by social media platforms as additional agents in the process. Unarguably, digital parenting might implicate both technological and pedagogical interventions; however, there should be a dialogue between the two. Without presumed expertise roles, non-hierarchical, cooperative environment for negotiating social media use can be developed. Cooperative mentorship, as a concept, offers an opportunity to connect research and practice through participatory design and it deserves further consideration.ConclusionsPrevailing approaches to cyber safety education tend to focus on risk management and in doing so, they maintain hierarchical forms of parental control. Adhering to such methods fails to acknowledge young people’s expertise and further deepens generational misunderstanding over social media use. Rather than insisting on hierarchical and traditional roles, there is a need to recognise and leverage asymmetrical expertise within the family in regards to social media.Cooperative and asymmetrical mentorship happens naturally in the family and can be facilitated by and through social media. The inverted hierarchy of expertise we have described here puts both parents and children, in a position of constant negotiation over social media use. This negotiation is complex, relational, unpredictable, open toward emergent possibilities and often intensive. Unquestionably, it is clear that social media provides opportunities for negotiation over, and inversion of, traditional family roles. Whether this inversion of expertise is real or only perceived, however, deserves further investigation. This article formulates some of the conceptual groundwork for an empirical study of family dynamics in relation to social media use and rulemaking. The study aims to continue to probe the positive potential of cooperative and asymmetrical mentorship and participatory design concepts and practices. The idea of cooperative mentorship does not necessarily provide a universal solution to how families negotiate social media use, but it does provide a new lens through which this dynamic can be observed. Clearly family dynamics, and the parent-child relationship, in particular, can play a vital part in supporting effective digital citizenship and wellbeing processes. Learning about this spontaneous and natural process of family negotiations might equip us with tools to inform policy and practices that can help parents and children to collaboratively create ‘a networked world in which they all want to live’ (boyd). ReferencesAmbrosetti, Angelina, and John Dekkers. "The Interconnectedness of the Roles of Mentors and Mentees in Pre-Service Teacher Education Mentoring Relationships." 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On the morning of Thursday, 4 May 2006, the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held an open hearing entitled “Terrorist Use of the Internet.” The Intelligence committee meeting was scheduled to take place in Room 1302 of the Longworth Office Building, a Depression-era structure with a neoclassical façade. Because of a dysfunctional elevator, some of the congressional representatives were late to the meeting. During the testimony about the newest political applications for cutting-edge digital technology, the microphones periodically malfunctioned, and witnesses complained of “technical problems” several times. By the end of the day it seemed that what was to be remembered about the hearing was the shocking revelation that terrorists were using videogames to recruit young jihadists. The Associated Press wrote a short, restrained article about the hearing that only mentioned “computer games and recruitment videos” in passing. Eager to have their version of the news item picked up, Reuters made videogames the focus of their coverage with a headline that announced, “Islamists Using US Videogames in Youth Appeal.” Like a game of telephone, as the Reuters videogame story was quickly re-run by several Internet news services, each iteration of the title seemed less true to the exact language of the original. One Internet news service changed the headline to “Islamic militants recruit using U.S. video games.” Fox News re-titled the story again to emphasise that this alert about technological manipulation was coming from recognised specialists in the anti-terrorism surveillance field: “Experts: Islamic Militants Customizing Violent Video Games.” As the story circulated, the body of the article remained largely unchanged, in which the Reuters reporter described the digital materials from Islamic extremists that were shown at the congressional hearing. During the segment that apparently most captured the attention of the wire service reporters, eerie music played as an English-speaking narrator condemned the “infidel” and declared that he had “put a jihad” on them, as aerial shots moved over 3D computer-generated images of flaming oil facilities and mosques covered with geometric designs. Suddenly, this menacing voice-over was interrupted by an explosion, as a virtual rocket was launched into a simulated military helicopter. The Reuters reporter shared this dystopian vision from cyberspace with Western audiences by quoting directly from the chilling commentary and describing a dissonant montage of images and remixed sound. “I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters,” a narrator’s voice said as the screen flashed between images of street-level gunfights, explosions and helicopter assaults. Then came a recording of President George W. Bush’s September 16, 2001, statement: “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.” It was edited to repeat the word “crusade,” which Muslims often define as an attack on Islam by Christianity. According to the news reports, the key piece of evidence before Congress seemed to be a film by “SonicJihad” of recorded videogame play, which – according to the experts – was widely distributed online. Much of the clip takes place from the point of view of a first-person shooter, seen as if through the eyes of an armed insurgent, but the viewer also periodically sees third-person action in which the player appears as a running figure wearing a red-and-white checked keffiyeh, who dashes toward the screen with a rocket launcher balanced on his shoulder. Significantly, another of the player’s hand-held weapons is a detonator that triggers remote blasts. As jaunty music plays, helicopters, tanks, and armoured vehicles burst into smoke and flame. Finally, at the triumphant ending of the video, a green and white flag bearing a crescent is hoisted aloft into the sky to signify victory by Islamic forces. To explain the existence of this digital alternative history in which jihadists could be conquerors, the Reuters story described the deviousness of the country’s terrorist opponents, who were now apparently modifying popular videogames through their wizardry and inserting anti-American, pro-insurgency content into U.S.-made consumer technology. One of the latest video games modified by militants is the popular “Battlefield 2” from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City, California. Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, said enthusiasts often write software modifications, known as “mods,” to video games. “Millions of people create mods on games around the world,” he said. “We have absolutely no control over them. It’s like drawing a mustache on a picture.” Although the Electronic Arts executive dismissed the activities of modders as a “mustache on a picture” that could only be considered little more than childish vandalism of their off-the-shelf corporate product, others saw a more serious form of criminality at work. Testifying experts and the legislators listening on the committee used the video to call for greater Internet surveillance efforts and electronic counter-measures. Within twenty-four hours of the sensationalistic news breaking, however, a group of Battlefield 2 fans was crowing about the idiocy of reporters. The game play footage wasn’t from a high-tech modification of the software by Islamic extremists; it had been posted on a Planet Battlefield forum the previous December of 2005 by a game fan who had cut together regular game play with a Bush remix and a parody snippet of the soundtrack from the 2004 hit comedy film Team America. The voice describing the Black Hawk helicopters was the voice of Trey Parker of South Park cartoon fame, and – much to Parker’s amusement – even the mention of “goats screaming” did not clue spectators in to the fact of a comic source. Ironically, the moment in the movie from which the sound clip is excerpted is one about intelligence gathering. As an agent of Team America, a fictional elite U.S. commando squad, the hero of the film’s all-puppet cast, Gary Johnston, is impersonating a jihadist radical inside a hostile Egyptian tavern that is modelled on the cantina scene from Star Wars. Additional laughs come from the fact that agent Johnston is accepted by the menacing terrorist cell as “Hakmed,” despite the fact that he utters a series of improbable clichés made up of incoherent stereotypes about life in the Middle East while dressed up in a disguise made up of shoe polish and a turban from a bathroom towel. The man behind the “SonicJihad” pseudonym turned out to be a twenty-five-year-old hospital administrator named Samir, and what reporters and representatives saw was nothing more exotic than game play from an add-on expansion pack of Battlefield 2, which – like other versions of the game – allows first-person shooter play from the position of the opponent as a standard feature. While SonicJihad initially joined his fellow gamers in ridiculing the mainstream media, he also expressed astonishment and outrage about a larger politics of reception. In one interview he argued that the media illiteracy of Reuters potentially enabled a whole series of category errors, in which harmless gamers could be demonised as terrorists. It wasn’t intended for the purpose what it was portrayed to be by the media. So no I don’t regret making a funny video . . . why should I? The only thing I regret is thinking that news from Reuters was objective and always right. The least they could do is some online research before publishing this. If they label me al-Qaeda just for making this silly video, that makes you think, what is this al-Qaeda? And is everything al-Qaeda? Although Sonic Jihad dismissed his own work as “silly” or “funny,” he expected considerably more from a credible news agency like Reuters: “objective” reporting, “online research,” and fact-checking before “publishing.” Within the week, almost all of the salient details in the Reuters story were revealed to be incorrect. SonicJihad’s film was not made by terrorists or for terrorists: it was not created by “Islamic militants” for “Muslim youths.” The videogame it depicted had not been modified by a “tech-savvy militant” with advanced programming skills. Of course, what is most extraordinary about this story isn’t just that Reuters merely got its facts wrong; it is that a self-identified “parody” video was shown to the august House Intelligence Committee by a team of well-paid “experts” from the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a major contractor with the federal government, as key evidence of terrorist recruitment techniques and abuse of digital networks. Moreover, this story of media illiteracy unfolded in the context of a fundamental Constitutional debate about domestic surveillance via communications technology and the further regulation of digital content by lawmakers. Furthermore, the transcripts of the actual hearing showed that much more than simple gullibility or technological ignorance was in play. Based on their exchanges in the public record, elected representatives and government experts appear to be keenly aware that the digital discourses of an emerging information culture might be challenging their authority and that of the longstanding institutions of knowledge and power with which they are affiliated. These hearings can be seen as representative of a larger historical moment in which emphatic declarations about prohibiting specific practices in digital culture have come to occupy a prominent place at the podium, news desk, or official Web portal. This environment of cultural reaction can be used to explain why policy makers’ reaction to terrorists’ use of networked communication and digital media actually tells us more about our own American ideologies about technology and rhetoric in a contemporary information environment. When the experts come forward at the Sonic Jihad hearing to “walk us through the media and some of the products,” they present digital artefacts of an information economy that mirrors many of the features of our own consumption of objects of electronic discourse, which seem dangerously easy to copy and distribute and thus also create confusion about their intended meanings, audiences, and purposes. From this one hearing we can see how the reception of many new digital genres plays out in the public sphere of legislative discourse. Web pages, videogames, and Weblogs are mentioned specifically in the transcript. The main architecture of the witnesses’ presentation to the committee is organised according to the rhetorical conventions of a PowerPoint presentation. Moreover, the arguments made by expert witnesses about the relationship of orality to literacy or of public to private communications in new media are highly relevant to how we might understand other important digital genres, such as electronic mail or text messaging. The hearing also invites consideration of privacy, intellectual property, and digital “rights,” because moral values about freedom and ownership are alluded to by many of the elected representatives present, albeit often through the looking glass of user behaviours imagined as radically Other. For example, terrorists are described as “modders” and “hackers” who subvert those who properly create, own, legitimate, and regulate intellectual property. To explain embarrassing leaks of infinitely replicable digital files, witness Ron Roughead says, “We’re not even sure that they don’t even hack into the kinds of spaces that hold photographs in order to get pictures that our forces have taken.” Another witness, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and International Affairs, Peter Rodman claims that “any video game that comes out, as soon as the code is released, they will modify it and change the game for their needs.” Thus, the implication of these witnesses’ testimony is that the release of code into the public domain can contribute to political subversion, much as covert intrusion into computer networks by stealthy hackers can. However, the witnesses from the Pentagon and from the government contractor SAIC often present a contradictory image of the supposed terrorists in the hearing transcripts. Sometimes the enemy is depicted as an organisation of technological masterminds, capable of manipulating the computer code of unwitting Americans and snatching their rightful intellectual property away; sometimes those from the opposing forces are depicted as pre-modern and even sub-literate political innocents. In contrast, the congressional representatives seem to focus on similarities when comparing the work of “terrorists” to the everyday digital practices of their constituents and even of themselves. According to the transcripts of this open hearing, legislators on both sides of the aisle express anxiety about domestic patterns of Internet reception. Even the legislators’ own Web pages are potentially disruptive electronic artefacts, particularly when the demands of digital labour interfere with their duties as lawmakers. Although the subject of the hearing is ostensibly terrorist Websites, Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California) bemoans the difficulty of maintaining her own official congressional site. As she observes, “So we are – as members, I think we’re very sensitive about what’s on our Website, and if I retained what I had on my Website three years ago, I’d be out of business. So we know that they have to be renewed. They go up, they go down, they’re rebuilt, they’re – you know, the message is targeted to the future.” In their questions, lawmakers identify Weblogs (blogs) as a particular area of concern as a destabilising alternative to authoritative print sources of information from established institutions. Representative Alcee Hastings (D-Florida) compares the polluting power of insurgent bloggers to that of influential online muckrakers from the American political Right. Hastings complains of “garbage on our regular mainstream news that comes from blog sites.” Representative Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) attempts to project a media-savvy persona by bringing up the “phenomenon of blogging” in conjunction with her questions about jihadist Websites in which she notes how Internet traffic can be magnified by cooperative ventures among groups of ideologically like-minded content-providers: “These Websites, and particularly the most active ones, are they cross-linked? And do they have kind of hot links to your other favorite sites on them?” At one point Representative Wilson asks witness Rodman if he knows “of your 100 hottest sites where the Webmasters are educated? What nationality they are? Where they’re getting their money from?” In her questions, Wilson implicitly acknowledges that Web work reflects influences from pedagogical communities, economic networks of the exchange of capital, and even potentially the specific ideologies of nation-states. It is perhaps indicative of the government contractors’ anachronistic worldview that the witness is unable to answer Wilson’s question. He explains that his agency focuses on the physical location of the server or ISP rather than the social backgrounds of the individuals who might be manufacturing objectionable digital texts. The premise behind the contractors’ working method – surveilling the technical apparatus not the social network – may be related to other beliefs expressed by government witnesses, such as the supposition that jihadist Websites are collectively produced and spontaneously emerge from the indigenous, traditional, tribal culture, instead of assuming that Iraqi insurgents have analogous beliefs, practices, and technological awareness to those in first-world countries. The residual subtexts in the witnesses’ conjectures about competing cultures of orality and literacy may tell us something about a reactionary rhetoric around videogames and digital culture more generally. According to the experts before Congress, the Middle Eastern audience for these videogames and Websites is limited by its membership in a pre-literate society that is only capable of abortive cultural production without access to knowledge that is archived in printed codices. Sometimes the witnesses before Congress seem to be unintentionally channelling the ideas of the late literacy theorist Walter Ong about the “secondary orality” associated with talky electronic media such as television, radio, audio recording, or telephone communication. Later followers of Ong extend this concept of secondary orality to hypertext, hypermedia, e-mail, and blogs, because they similarly share features of both speech and written discourse. Although Ong’s disciples celebrate this vibrant reconnection to a mythic, communal past of what Kathleen Welch calls “electric rhetoric,” the defence industry consultants express their profound state of alarm at the potentially dangerous and subversive character of this hybrid form of communication. The concept of an “oral tradition” is first introduced by the expert witnesses in the context of modern marketing and product distribution: “The Internet is used for a variety of things – command and control,” one witness states. “One of the things that’s missed frequently is how and – how effective the adversary is at using the Internet to distribute product. They’re using that distribution network as a modern form of oral tradition, if you will.” Thus, although the Internet can be deployed for hierarchical “command and control” activities, it also functions as a highly efficient peer-to-peer distributed network for disseminating the commodity of information. Throughout the hearings, the witnesses imply that unregulated lateral communication among social actors who are not authorised to speak for nation-states or to produce legitimated expert discourses is potentially destabilising to political order. Witness Eric Michael describes the “oral tradition” and the conventions of communal life in the Middle East to emphasise the primacy of speech in the collective discursive practices of this alien population: “I’d like to point your attention to the media types and the fact that the oral tradition is listed as most important. The other media listed support that. And the significance of the oral tradition is more than just – it’s the medium by which, once it comes off the Internet, it is transferred.” The experts go on to claim that this “oral tradition” can contaminate other media because it functions as “rumor,” the traditional bane of the stately discourse of military leaders since the classical era. The oral tradition now also has an aspect of rumor. A[n] event takes place. There is an explosion in a city. Rumor is that the United States Air Force dropped a bomb and is doing indiscriminate killing. This ends up being discussed on the street. It ends up showing up in a Friday sermon in a mosque or in another religious institution. It then gets recycled into written materials. Media picks up the story and broadcasts it, at which point it’s now a fact. In this particular case that we were telling you about, it showed up on a network television, and their propaganda continues to go back to this false initial report on network television and continue to reiterate that it’s a fact, even though the United States government has proven that it was not a fact, even though the network has since recanted the broadcast. In this example, many-to-many discussion on the “street” is formalised into a one-to many “sermon” and then further stylised using technology in a one-to-many broadcast on “network television” in which “propaganda” that is “false” can no longer be disputed. This “oral tradition” is like digital media, because elements of discourse can be infinitely copied or “recycled,” and it is designed to “reiterate” content. In this hearing, the word “rhetoric” is associated with destructive counter-cultural forces by the witnesses who reiterate cultural truisms dating back to Plato and the Gorgias. For example, witness Eric Michael initially presents “rhetoric” as the use of culturally specific and hence untranslatable figures of speech, but he quickly moves to an outright castigation of the entire communicative mode. “Rhetoric,” he tells us, is designed to “distort the truth,” because it is a “selective” assembly or a “distortion.” Rhetoric is also at odds with reason, because it appeals to “emotion” and a romanticised Weltanschauung oriented around discourses of “struggle.” The film by SonicJihad is chosen as the final clip by the witnesses before Congress, because it allegedly combines many different types of emotional appeal, and thus it conveniently ties together all of the themes that the witnesses present to the legislators about unreliable oral or rhetorical sources in the Middle East: And there you see how all these products are linked together. And you can see where the games are set to psychologically condition you to go kill coalition forces. You can see how they use humor. You can see how the entire campaign is carefully crafted to first evoke an emotion and then to evoke a response and to direct that response in the direction that they want. Jihadist digital products, especially videogames, are effective means of manipulation, the witnesses argue, because they employ multiple channels of persuasion and carefully sequenced and integrated subliminal messages. To understand the larger cultural conversation of the hearing, it is important to keep in mind that the related argument that “games” can “psychologically condition” players to be predisposed to violence is one that was important in other congressional hearings of the period, as well one that played a role in bills and resolutions that were passed by the full body of the legislative branch. In the witness’s testimony an appeal to anti-game sympathies at home is combined with a critique of a closed anti-democratic system abroad in which the circuits of rhetorical production and their composite metonymic chains are described as those that command specific, unvarying, robotic responses. This sharp criticism of the artful use of a presentation style that is “crafted” is ironic, given that the witnesses’ “compilation” of jihadist digital material is staged in the form of a carefully structured PowerPoint presentation, one that is paced to a well-rehearsed rhythm of “slide, please” or “next slide” in the transcript. The transcript also reveals that the members of the House Intelligence Committee were not the original audience for the witnesses’ PowerPoint presentation. Rather, when it was first created by SAIC, this “expert” presentation was designed for training purposes for the troops on the ground, who would be facing the challenges of deployment in hostile terrain. According to the witnesses, having the slide show showcased before Congress was something of an afterthought. Nonetheless, Congressman Tiahrt (R-KN) is so impressed with the rhetorical mastery of the consultants that he tries to appropriate it. As Tiarht puts it, “I’d like to get a copy of that slide sometime.” From the hearing we also learn that the terrorists’ Websites are threatening precisely because they manifest a polymorphously perverse geometry of expansion. For example, one SAIC witness before the House Committee compares the replication and elaboration of digital material online to a “spiderweb.” Like Representative Eshoo’s site, he also notes that the terrorists’ sites go “up” and “down,” but the consultant is left to speculate about whether or not there is any “central coordination” to serve as an organising principle and to explain the persistence and consistency of messages despite the apparent lack of a single authorial ethos to offer a stable, humanised, point of reference. In the hearing, the oft-cited solution to the problem created by the hybridity and iterability of digital rhetoric appears to be “public diplomacy.” Both consultants and lawmakers seem to agree that the damaging messages of the insurgents must be countered with U.S. sanctioned information, and thus the phrase “public diplomacy” appears in the hearing seven times. However, witness Roughhead complains that the protean “oral tradition” and what Henry Jenkins has called the “transmedia” character of digital culture, which often crosses several platforms of traditional print, projection, or broadcast media, stymies their best rhetorical efforts: “I think the point that we’ve tried to make in the briefing is that wherever there’s Internet availability at all, they can then download these – these programs and put them onto compact discs, DVDs, or post them into posters, and provide them to a greater range of people in the oral tradition that they’ve grown up in. And so they only need a few Internet sites in order to distribute and disseminate the message.” Of course, to maintain their share of the government market, the Science Applications International Corporation also employs practices of publicity and promotion through the Internet and digital media. They use HTML Web pages for these purposes, as well as PowerPoint presentations and online video. The rhetoric of the Website of SAIC emphasises their motto “From Science to Solutions.” After a short Flash film about how SAIC scientists and engineers solve “complex technical problems,” the visitor is taken to the home page of the firm that re-emphasises their central message about expertise. The maps, uniforms, and specialised tools and equipment that are depicted in these opening Web pages reinforce an ethos of professional specialisation that is able to respond to multiple threats posed by the “global war on terror.” By 26 June 2006, the incident finally was being described as a “Pentagon Snafu” by ABC News. From the opening of reporter Jake Tapper’s investigative Webcast, established government institutions were put on the spot: “So, how much does the Pentagon know about videogames? Well, when it came to a recent appearance before Congress, apparently not enough.” Indeed, the very language about “experts” that was highlighted in the earlier coverage is repeated by Tapper in mockery, with the significant exception of “independent expert” Ian Bogost of the Georgia Institute of Technology. If the Pentagon and SAIC deride the legitimacy of rhetoric as a cultural practice, Bogost occupies himself with its defence. In his recent book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, Bogost draws upon the authority of the “2,500 year history of rhetoric” to argue that videogames represent a significant development in that cultural narrative. Given that Bogost and his Watercooler Games Weblog co-editor Gonzalo Frasca were actively involved in the detective work that exposed the depth of professional incompetence involved in the government’s line-up of witnesses, it is appropriate that Bogost is given the final words in the ABC exposé. As Bogost says, “We should be deeply bothered by this. We should really be questioning the kind of advice that Congress is getting.” Bogost may be right that Congress received terrible counsel on that day, but a close reading of the transcript reveals that elected officials were much more than passive listeners: in fact they were lively participants in a cultural conversation about regulating digital media. After looking at the actual language of these exchanges, it seems that the persuasiveness of the misinformation from the Pentagon and SAIC had as much to do with lawmakers’ preconceived anxieties about practices of computer-mediated communication close to home as it did with the contradictory stereotypes that were presented to them about Internet practices abroad. In other words, lawmakers found themselves looking into a fun house mirror that distorted what should have been familiar artefacts of American popular culture because it was precisely what they wanted to see. References ABC News. “Terrorist Videogame?” Nightline Online. 21 June 2006. 22 June 2006 http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2105341>. Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: Videogames and Procedural Rhetoric. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Game Politics. “Was Congress Misled by ‘Terrorist’ Game Video? We Talk to Gamer Who Created the Footage.” 11 May 2006. http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/285129.html#cutid1>. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. julieb. “David Morgan Is a Horrible Writer and Should Be Fired.” Online posting. 5 May 2006. Dvorak Uncensored Cage Match Forums. http://cagematch.dvorak.org/index.php/topic,130.0.html>. Mahmood. “Terrorists Don’t Recruit with Battlefield 2.” GGL Global Gaming. 16 May 2006 http://www.ggl.com/news.php?NewsId=3090>. Morgan, David. “Islamists Using U.S. Video Games in Youth Appeal.” Reuters online news service. 4 May 2006 http://today.reuters.com/news/ArticleNews.aspx?type=topNews &storyID=2006-05-04T215543Z_01_N04305973_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY- VIDEOGAMES.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc= NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2>. Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London/New York: Methuen, 1982. Parker, Trey. Online posting. 7 May 2006. 9 May 2006 http://www.treyparker.com>. Plato. “Gorgias.” Plato: Collected Dialogues. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1961. Shrader, Katherine. “Pentagon Surfing Thousands of Jihad Sites.” Associated Press 4 May 2006. SonicJihad. “SonicJihad: A Day in the Life of a Resistance Fighter.” Online posting. 26 Dec. 2005. Planet Battlefield Forums. 9 May 2006 http://www.forumplanet.com/planetbattlefield/topic.asp?fid=13670&tid=1806909&p=1>. Tapper, Jake, and Audery Taylor. “Terrorist Video Game or Pentagon Snafu?” ABC News Nightline 21 June 2006. 30 June 2006 http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Technology/story?id=2105128&page=1>. U.S. Congressional Record. Panel I of the Hearing of the House Select Intelligence Committee, Subject: “Terrorist Use of the Internet for Communications.” Federal News Service. 4 May 2006. Welch, Kathleen E. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and the New Literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Losh, Elizabeth. "Artificial Intelligence: Media Illiteracy and the SonicJihad Debacle in Congress." M/C Journal 10.5 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/08-losh.php>. APA Style Losh, E. (Oct. 2007) "Artificial Intelligence: Media Illiteracy and the SonicJihad Debacle in Congress," M/C Journal, 10(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/08-losh.php>.