A Review of Howard University’s Digital Media Literacy Course With Dr. Patton.
(With Spongebob Gifs Because That’s How I’m Feeling.)
With April coming to an end, so comes the end of the Spring semester at Howard University; the end of my last semester at Howard, in fact. This is bittersweet time for me, to say the least. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been home with my parents, taking all of my classes online for the past month and a half; which is probably the longest I’ve spent at my parent’s house in the past 3 years.
Despite popular belief that “school is closed,” I’ve been swamped with coursework since moving to online. Not one of my teachers has let up on assignments. I just thank God that I’m one of the lucky ones who has a stable, relatively peaceful household, because the way I’ve been feeling, I can’t imagine being under more difficult circumstances.
That being said, I’m not here to rant, believe it or not. I’m here to talk about my experience taking Digital Media Literacy with Dr. Patton. I should start by mentioning that this semester has been an extraordinarily difficult one for me, and I was absent for a significant portion of the first half of the semester due to some medical reasons. So, I can only judge the course based on the parts that I’ve experienced.
I think Dr. Patton is a great professor. She really cares about her field of work and about all of us as individuals, and as soon-to-be professionals. It’s been clear throughout that everything she does is to ensure our success, which helps me to understand why THE HECK this class was so hard!
WordPress almost single handedly prevented me from graduating this year. At first, that software seems impossible to use by the average non-tech student, but after watching a ton of tutorials and through a lot of persistence, I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of it. Having made it this far, I definitely appreciate Dr. Patton for pushing us.
I’ve learned things I’ve always wanted to learn but never felt I was capable of, like blogging and vlogging. I’ve even learned things that I never knew I didn’t know, like the history of the internet, and the history of racism in advertising, and the wide range of fake news out there. I never even knew that the internet and the Web were two different things!
I think there are two lessons that will stick me most, though: (1) the long history of sexualization of black children in art and media (which might have also scarred me a little), and (2) the lack of privacy we truly have on the internet.
We were assigned to watch a two-hour documentary called “Internet Cell Phones are Destroying our Brains,” which I watched not once, but TWICE, and sent to basically everyone I know. The stuff about cell phones ruining our health, I already knew, but what really stuck with me was the information about big businesses collecting our data and using it to sell things back to us, right under our noses. There isn’t a day that I use the Web without thinking about algorithms and privacy and whatnot. Slightly scary, but still, I HIGHLY recommend watching it.
My minor is in Strategic, Legal, and Management communication, so Digital Media Literacy is a required course for me to graduate. Before taking it, I had absolutely no idea what the class was about, and it seemed that everyone I asked was just as clueless. It’s really a shame, because after learning what I’ve learned, I realize that the things taught in this course are an absolute necessity if you’re going to make it in the 21st century.
If you don’t have a grasp of the internet, the web, and the media, you are 100% being manipulated and taken advantage of by those who do. I absolutely feel that I’ve become more media literate in taking this course; it even scares me to think of how ignorant I was to some of this information beforehand.
At the beginning of classes moving to online, Dr. Patton announced that some people would be sitting in on our class. Students were confused, and somewhat appalled that there were so many guests in our zoom call. Everyone was like, why are these strangers in our class?, and why would they want to be, when they could be doing literally anything else?
Well now, I completely understand. This knowledge is for everyone, and everyone should seek to attain it. Plus, Dr. Patton does a great job of teaching it. Overall I’d give this class a 10/10 for new, important knowledge, hands on teaching, and real-life, applicable skills. I’d highly recommend it to other students, but only if they’re ready to put in the extra work for a great reward.
Don’t forget to check out the overview of my experience in my most recent vlog!
Mezcla 