Tzu-Bin Lin

The construct of media and information literacy in Singapore education system: global trends and local policies

This paper discusses the representation of information literacy and media literacy in the Singapore education discourse as part of its twenty-first century competencies framework. Through examining the conceptual definitions, purposes/aims, and means of these two significant twenty-first century competencies in the global context and the Singapore education policy, the authors argue that despite both information literacy and media literacy have been widely recognized as crucial skills in the knowledge-based economy, they are perceived as separate concepts, given differentiated emphasis, and implemented using similar approaches by various governmental and educational agencies in Singapore. To facilitate the acquisition of these critical competencies, this paper argues that an overarching framework featuring the seamless integration of information and media literacy in school curricula and public education needs to be in place to clarify conceptual concerns and guide its practical implementation.

Distributed leadership to support PLCs in Asian pragmatic Singapore schools

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in many countries, including Singapore. The central motivation behind PLCs is school-based curriculum development for twenty-first-century outcomes. However, the functioning of PLCs requires a transformation in the way school leaders work and relate to teachers in order to sustain teachers’ willingness to participate in teacher-initiated collaborative learning leading to improvements in classroom practices and student learning outcomes. It is postulated that a more distributed nature of leadership is necessary to bring about this transformation. However, the looseness and broadness of the concept on distributed leadership pose a threat to this transformative potential. Hence, the need to tease out its conceptual dimensions. From key literature, three dimensions emerged: empowerment, interactive relations for shared decisions and developing leadership. Nevertheless, these dimensions need to be sensitive to the Asian Singapore context, namely the value for hierarchy and economic pragmatism. Nation states around the world, including Singapore, are endeavouring to reform their education systems in order to successfully compete in the global economy (Carnoy, 1999). With human capital as Singapore’s primary resource, it is unsurprising that the state has placed great emphasis on strengthening the economic–education nexus. This tight nexus along with its instrumentalist view of the purpose of education underpins both the social and economic development that has taken Singapore from a Third to First World state in a little more than 40 years

The Construction of Media in Education Policies: A Comparative Study of Singapore and Taiwan

During the education reform movement starting in the mid-1990s, many educational initiatives from the Western countries have been introduced to the East Asian region. Media literacy education is one of the travelling policy discourses that is getting more significant in some Asian countries such as Taiwan and Singapore. This chapter aims to explore how media literacy is defined and articulated in the education policies in Singapore and Taiwan and seeks to discuss if the construction of policy discourses is similar or different from their origin in the Western countries, especially in the UK. This study is an ‘analysis of policy’ (Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing education policy. Routledge, London, 2010), which focuses on critically reviewing the existing policies on media literacy. Data are collected from policy-related documents and government websites. This chapter will offer a comparative study of media literacy in formal education and explains how the Western discourse is localised in Asian context.

The construction of information and media literacy in education policy: A study of Singapore.

Abstract This chapter aims to explore representations of information literacy and media literacy in Singapore’s educational discourse as part of its 21st century skills framework. Currently, information literacy and media literacy co-exist in Singapore’s education discourse but there is no related work attempting to clarify these two concepts in Singapore or to bridge them to propose an overarching framework. In what ways are these two terminologies identical or different in the local education context? We try to answer this question through reviewing relevant official documents. We start with a review the literature on the global scale regarding information literacy and media literacy. Then, we focus on Singapore to explore how various governmental agencies defining information literacy and media literacy. This chapter, in other words, is a result from a pilot study to understand how information literacy and media literacy is defined and understood in Singapore’s education system.

Establishing the norm of new media literacy of Singaporean students: Implications to policy and pedagogy

Abstract With the increasing impact of new media, Singapore has responded to the fast-changing media environment within the educational sector. A large-scale study was conducted in Singaporean schools to establish the norm of Singaporean students’ new media literacy. This was based on a conceptual framework of new media literacy (Lin et al., 2013). The development and validation of the measurement instrument can be found in Lee et al. (2015). This paper focuses on findings from the main study. A total of 4577 students, between 10 and 15 years old, from 52 schools participated in the study. That is, one-seventh of the Singaporean schools were involved in this survey study. To our best knowledge, there has not been any other study like this one carried out within the Asian context. Therefore, the findings offer valuable insights in theorizing new media and media literacy as well as for policy-makers and educators in countries with similar new media ecologies. Implications of this study suggest that it is possible to achieve gender equality for new media literary education. They also point to a new direction of inquiry by exploring new media literacy from a second language learning perspective.

Emerging Practices and Issues of New Media and Learning

The advent of new media has drastically changed the mode of communication and information dissemination among people. Communication and information are two key elements that constitute learning, regardless of whether one views learning as knowledge acquisition, meaningful participation within a community, or knowledge creation (Paavola et al. 2004). Consequently, many educators are advocating revolutionary changes in teaching and learning supported by new media and emerging technologies. For example, the TE21 report that illustrates a twenty-first-century model of teacher education as articulated by the National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore emphasizes much on the impact of new media on learning and teacher education (NIE 2009). Thomas and Brown’s (2011) depiction of the new culture of learning that emerged from self-motivated teenagers afforded by new media also creates challenges to the traditional notion of education that emphasizes structured curriculum to be delivered to students. In short, current and emerging technologies are creating new learning spaces that defy many assumptions of the traditional education practices.