Literature Review
Current global issue in rapid emergency online instruction and 24/7 media consumption are compounded by ongoing changes in digital technologies and expectations for the development of global competencies (CMEC, 2020). The need for an informed and technologically prepared populace are identified in policy and position papers, nationally and globally:
- Leading SGD - Education 2030 established teacher education as one of the priorities in the sustainable development goals;
- UNESCO continues to examine policies and practices for media and information literacies (Singh et al., 2016), digital citizenship (Law et al., 2018), open educational government (Huss & Keudel, 2020), and open educational resources (UNESCO, 2019a);
- the U.S. Department of Educational Technology (2016) released the document Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation: Policy Brief (Stokes-Beverley & Simoy, 2016);
- a position paper from the European Literacy Policy Network indicated that “many teachers lack competence, confidence and knowledge of effective strategies to harness the potential of diverse technologies to enhance digital literacy teaching and learning, and to foster young people’s resilience to the risks associated with digital technology” (Lemos & Nascimbeni, 2016, p. 3); and
- a Canadian government report, Democracy Under Threat outlined the need to address education of digital literacies (Zimmer, 2018).
While these identified needs have a sense of urgency, in the midst of the global health crises, these are not new issues. Along with a public outcry for media literacies in the face of fake news (Singh et al., 2016) and increasing demands for technologically and digitally literate populations, there is a push to change teacher education generally and the teaching practices of those who teach in teacher educator programs more specifically (Foulger et al. 2017). A thread connects these issues to the revitalization of teacher education programs in order to “prepare teachers who will teach in transformative ways and leverage technology as a problem-solving tool” (Schmidt-Crawford et al., 2018, p. 132). It is time to examine what is happening in the field of preservice teacher education programs, specifically in relation to media and digital literacy (MDL) instruction, open education, and teacher educators' technological competencies.
This literature review presents the purpose and the research questions driving this investigation. A glossary of terms is shared to fully understand the concepts explored in the literature. A taxonomy of literacies, helping to position MDL within the plethora of definitional combinations available in the field of literacy education, is examined. An open education framework for this research is also presented. My positionality as a teacher and scholar in the field of teacher education is considered. Theoretical and conceptual frameworks grounding the teaching and research of MDL in teacher education from an open educational lens are examined in the Research Frameworks section of this literature review. An Alternative Dissertation (AltDiss) framework is the final section of the literature review. The literature review concludes with research implications, next steps and a brief summary.