MEDIA EDUCATION AS A FACTOR AFFECTING THE QUALITY OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE USA AND CANADA.

The paper is aimed at the analysis of the main principles of media technologies incorporation into secondary education of the USA and Canada, revealing didactic foundations of media education, systematizing the ways of forming media and digital competences. It has been determined that rapidly developing digital technologies are the main reason of changes in modern media and affect a person, human activity and society. It has been defined that though media education is considered a separate branch of pedagogical study, its goals and tasks are mostly implemented by “across the curriculum” approach due to the use of diverse academic disciplines in school curriculum. In this context, special attention has been paid to the new role of the teacher in their attempt to form students’ skills of critical thinking. The number of disciplines with incorporated media literacy skills has been identified: English, Technology Education, Health Studies, Journalism, Media Production. It has been stated that young people, who are the main users of modern media tools, often do not have skills of media literacy. It leads to their inability to produce different messages, review them, search for information, cooperate with other users and critically assess the information they are working with. It has negative influence on their personality and may result in some problematic situations. In the USA and Canada, the development of students’ media competence is carried out through the development of its components (information competence, critical thinking, communication skills, and media production skills). They are formed most effectively during the study of social disciplines. In the USA and Canada, media training of secondary school teachers is carried out in the framework of formal, nonformal and informal education. The conclusion has been made that developing media literacy must become an integral part of secondary education [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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