Media literacy and artificial intelligence (AI) have become inextricably linked in today’s digital age. The evolving AI technologies significantly shape the current information and media landscape, introducing new media and information literacy challenges. For educators, students, policymakers, and the general public, grasping the implications of AI on media literacy is crucial in navigating and deciphering the increasingly complex information environment.
What is Media Literacy?
Media literacy goes beyond the ability to read and write; it encompasses a range of skills and competencies that allow individuals to engage with media content critically. These include the ability to discern biases, evaluate the credibility of sources, recognise propaganda, and understand the context and purpose behind media messages. As AI becomes intertwined with media, media literacy also encompasses understanding how AI algorithms operate and how they can influence information dissemination.
AI tools such as ChatGPT can now write articles and other content
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification system used to define and categorise various cognitive skills and levels of learning. Read my full article on Bloom’s for background.
Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs are helpful tools for educators and course designers to construct meaningful learning objectives, questions, and activities that enable learners to move through various levels of understanding and mastery. Using these verbs also assists in assessing learning progress, ensuring that the objectives are measurable and aligned with the desired outcomes.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool for learning designers
Choosing the right school for your child is a critical decision that can impact their future academic and career opportunities. While traditional schools have been the norm for decades, online schools are becoming increasingly popular. However, deciding which type of school is best for your child can be challenging. To help you make an informed decision, we’ve compiled a list of factors to consider when assessing whether your child is a good fit for an online or traditional school.
Assessing Your Child’s Fit for Online School: Factors to Consider
Social interaction
Physical schools provide ample opportunities for social interaction, extracurricular activities, and team sports. If social development and exchange are essential to you, a traditional school may be more suitable. Online schools may offer limited opportunities for socialization, which may impact your child’s overall development.
Flexibility
Online schools often allow students to learn at their own pace and may offer more flexibility in scheduling. This can benefit students with other commitments or those who may struggle to keep up with the speed of a traditional school.
Curriculum and course offerings
Compare online and traditional schools’ curriculum and course offerings. Some online schools may offer a broader range of electives or specialized courses that may not be available in a physical school. Ensure your chosen school provides the subjects and programs that meet your child’s interests and needs.
Teachers need a working set of information and communication technology skills: enough to run a class, prepare materials, communicate, and keep learner data reasonably safe. This is not the same as an ICT glossary of terms, and it is not an AI course.
Skill levels vary by school and role. A useful baseline is basic (can complete the task with guidance), intermediate (can do it independently), and proficient (can adapt the tool when the task changes). Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
A practical skill set
Most teachers need some of:
Email and calendars
Cloud storage and file sharing
Word processing, spreadsheets and slides
Forms for quizzes and data collection
A learning management system or class platform (Teams, Google Classroom, Moodle or the school equivalent)
Finding, saving and sharing resources, with some judgement about licences
Enough operating-system and device skill to keep a lesson running
Not a vendor checklist. Windows, Microsoft 365 or Google is an example environment, not a requirement.
Not AI literacy as a substitute. Prompting and classroom AI sit on top of these basics. They do not replace them.
With Matt Hains I wrote ICT Skills Every Teacher Should Have, a Cambridge practical guide and SACE-endorsed workshop series for teachers who need step-by-step classroom ICT. Themes: ICT literacy, communication, the cloud, productivity software, content management, integration and online collaboration.
Sources
Cambridge University Press. ICT Skills Every Teacher Should Have, with Matt Hains. Classroom ICT guide for teachers. Cambridge listing.
Computational literacy is the ability to understand, use and question computational processes: how data is represented, how instructions run, and what a system can and cannot do. It is broader than writing code in one language.
It sits beside, but is not the same as, ICT skills (using school software) or a single coding course. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
What it includes
Breaking a problem into steps (an algorithm, even on paper)
Seeing patterns and data, not only tools
Knowing that a computer follows instructions and will also follow bad ones
Enough scepticism to ask what a system was trained or programmed to do
Computational thinking is the problem-solving habit inside this. Coding is one way to practise it. Unplugged tasks can be another.
Classroom use
In Foundation Phase this can be sequences, patterns and simple robots or paper algorithms. Later it can be data, models and actual programs. Age and curriculum decide the depth. See computational thinking in African schools.
What it is not
Not “every child must be a programmer.”
Not AI literacy as a synonym. AI systems are computational, but this page is the older, wider skill.
Sources
Wing, J. Computational thinking as a general problem-solving approach, not only coding.
South Africa is in a skills crisis, compounded by the demands of an increasingly digital world. Its citizens need to learn basic digital skills, including how to use computers and how to search for, and assess, information. These skills could enable them to start their own small business or to recognise fake news and scams online.
Online learning platforms do not cater for the majority of South Africans. The courses use too much data and are presented in a language that is not familiar to the learner. We conducted research with over 8,000 respondents and 94.5% of them wanted to learn on their cell phone and in their mother tongue language.
With Diji, our WhatsApp chatbot, we have combined the power of WhatsApp and mother tongue language learning to develop short courses on basic digital skills for Zulu speakers. Click here to start learning digital skills on WhatsApp, in Zulu, for free!
In South Africa, Foundation Phase teaching is the first phase of formal schooling: Grade R and Grades 1 to 3, typically ages about 5 to 9. It is where home language, early literacy, numeracy and life skills are built as the base for later phases.
This page answers what the phase is. It is not a coding-and-robotics course, and it is not an AI primer. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
What the phase covers
Home language as the main language of learning and teaching in these years, with additional language according to the school’s offering
Literacy: listening, speaking, reading and writing at an early level
Mathematics: number, operations, patterns, space and measurement at Foundation Phase depth
Life Skills: beginning knowledge, personal and social well-being, creative arts and physical education as set out in CAPS
Play, routine and lots of oral language sit inside good Foundation Phase practice. That is a method, not a separate subject.
What it is not
Not Intermediate or Senior Phase. Those have different CAPS documents and different subject splits.
Not a promise that coding belongs in every Grade R lesson. Where a school teaches Coding and Robotics, that is an addition with its own guidance. See the Foundation Phase coding and robotics workshop note if that is the job you came for.
Neither formal nor informal assessment is inherently better. The better choice depends on the purpose, the evidence you need, the stakes for the learner, and how the results will be used.
This page is a personal classroom guide, not institutional policy. South African curriculum references are labelled as such. Last reviewed: 30 August 2026.
Formal and informal assessment are different routes to evidence, not a contest with one winner.
Introduction
Teachers use assessment to find out what learners know, can do and still need. Formal and informal assessment both belong in that work. They are not the only useful distinction. Formative and summative assessment answer a different question: whether the evidence is used to improve learning as it happens, or to summarise achievement at a point in time.
A test can be formal and still used formatively if the teacher and learners act on the results. An observation can be informal and still contribute to a summative judgement if it is recorded against clear criteria. Mixing those dimensions is how this topic becomes confusing.
Types of assessment
Formal assessment
Formal assessment is planned, structured evidence-gathering with stated criteria, a defined task, and a record that can be shared or revisited. It often happens at agreed points in a programme. It can include tests, assignments, practical tasks, orals, performances and examinations.
Formal does not mean standardised. It does not mean multiple choice. It does not mean learners never generate their own answers. Constructed responses, investigations and performances can all be formal when they are planned, criteria-based and recorded.
Informal assessment
Informal assessment is the evidence teachers gather in the flow of teaching: questions, discussion, observation, drafts, quick writes and other classroom checks. It is often lighter and more frequent than a set-piece task. It is not the same as “no record” and not the same as “no criteria”.
If informal evidence will later support a mark, a report or a decision about extra help, write it down. Unrecorded impressions fade and are hard to defend.
Should be recorded when it will guide teaching or reporting
Typical strength
Comparable evidence against shared criteria
Fast information that can change the next lesson
Typical risk
Anxiety, narrow tasks, delayed feedback
Bias, forgotten evidence, unclear criteria
Formative versus summative sits across this table, not inside one column. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam describe assessment as formative when the evidence is actually used to adapt teaching to meet learners’ needs. A formal test used only to rank, with no follow-up, is summative. An informal check that changes tomorrow’s grouping is formative.
Purpose of assessment
Choose the method after you can answer four questions:
What decision or next step will this evidence support?
What kind of evidence would actually show that learning?
How high are the stakes for the learner?
Who will use the results, and how soon?
The 2014 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, published by AERA, APA and NCME, treat validity, reliability and fairness as properties of an assessment use, not as badges a test automatically owns. A neat marksheet is not proof that the task measured what you intended, or that every learner had a fair chance to show it.
In South African public schools, the Department of Basic Education’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements and the National Protocol for Assessment Grades R-12 set recording, reporting and promotion requirements. That is national policy for that system. It does not make every formal task a standardised national test, and it does not make informal classroom checks optional extras with no professional duty of care.
Examples of formal assessment
An end-of-unit test with a mark scheme, including short answers and a longer written or practical item.
A planned oral or presentation assessed against a rubric.
A practical or performance task with stated criteria and a recorded result.
A school-based assessment or examination required by a curriculum or qualification.
A standardised test, when one is actually being used for comparison or placement. Treat that as one formal option, not the definition of formal assessment.
Formal assessment can include tests, orals, practicals and assignments, not only multiple-choice papers.
Examples of informal assessment
Exit tickets or entry tickets: one question on the way out or in, used to decide whether to reteach.
3-2-1: three ideas, two examples, one remaining question.
A two-minute quick write after an explanation.
A class vote used as a starting check, then followed by explanation, not as a mark.
Concept maps or flashcards made in class and reviewed with a partner.
Observation notes during group work or practical activity.
Informal checks work when the teacher acts on them. A pile of unmarked tickets is not assessment.
Using both in the classroom
Use informal checks to see whether today’s teaching landed, and to adjust before a high-stakes moment. Use formal tasks when you need a more comparable record against shared criteria, or when a curriculum requires it.
Do not assume that informal assessment is kinder and formal assessment is harsher. A surprise recitation can be more stressful than a published test. Do not assume younger learners can only be assessed informally. They can complete short planned tasks if the format fits.
Keep records that match the use. Informal notes can be brief. Formal files should show the task, the criteria, the result and any access arrangements. If you cannot explain a mark six weeks later, the record was too thin.
Challenges
Formal assessment goes wrong when the task is narrower than the learning, when feedback arrives too late to use, or when a multiple-choice paper is treated as the only respectable evidence. Multiple-choice items can be useful. They cannot, on their own, show extended reasoning.
Informal assessment goes wrong when it is only a feeling, when it favours the learners who speak first, or when it is never written down. “I just know how they are doing” is not a defence if a parent, inspector or the learner asks for the evidence.
AI tools can draft items, summarise comments or flag possible errors. They can also leak learner data, reproduce bias, and invent fluent nonsense. Keep learner work inside approved school systems, check every AI-generated item before it is used, and keep a human responsible for the judgement. This page is not a guide to automating marks.
Conclusion
Ask which is better only after you know what the assessment is for. Formal and informal assessment answer different classroom jobs. Most teaching needs both, plus a clear line between evidence used to improve learning and evidence used to summarise it.
Department of Basic Education, Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements and the National Protocol for Assessment Grades R-12. education.gov.za CAPS
American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and National Council on Measurement in Education, Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (2014). APA testing standards
Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998). “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment.” Phi Delta Kappan 80(2), 139-148.
This is a classroom question-stem bank organised by the six revised Bloom levels. A stem is a starting phrase, not a guarantee of cognitive demand. The complete task, the knowledge required and the criteria decide the level.
Use it to plan discussion and written questions. It is not a printable PDF unless you export the page yourself. Last reviewed: 30 August 2026.
Question stems by level. Check the whole task before you assign a level.
Bloom’s Taxonomy questions
Plan questions against the lesson objective. Use closed questions to check recall. Use open questions when you want explanation, comparison or judgement. Move up the levels only when learners have something worth thinking with. For the framework itself, see the introduction.
Remember
Retrieve facts, terms or simple sequences. Worked example in science: “List the parts of a plant cell named in yesterday’s diagram.”
Can you name …?
What is …?
When did …?
List … in order.
What do you remember about …?
How would you define …, using the glossary meaning?
Where in the text does it say …?
Understand
Construct meaning: explain, summarise, give an example. Worked example in history: “Explain in your own words why the 1913 Land Act mattered to black South African farmers.”
How would you summarise …?
What is the main idea of …?
Can you explain … in your own words?
Give an example of …
What does … mean in this context?
How is … different from …, at the level of meaning rather than judgement?
Apply
Use a method in a new but similar situation. Worked example in maths: “Use the percentage method we practised to calculate the discount on this price.”
How would you use … to …?
What would you need to do to apply … here?
Can you show how … works with this new example?
Using the rule, solve …
Where else could you apply …?
Analyse
Break material into parts and relate them. Worked example in English: “Which details in the extract support the narrator’s claim, and which details undermine it?”
How does … relate to …?
What are the parts of …?
Which evidence supports …?
What pattern do you notice in …?
How would you distinguish … from …?
What is the function of … in the whole?
Evaluate
Judge against stated criteria. Worked example in geography: “Using the three criteria on the board, which flood-management option is stronger for this town, and why?”
Which option is stronger, according to …?
How would you justify …?
What are the strengths and limits of …?
Is … valid, given …?
How well does … meet the criteria?
What would you recommend, and on what grounds?
Stems such as “What is the best one?” belong here only if criteria are named. They do not belong under Remember.
Create
Put elements together into an original product or plan. Worked example in technology: “Design a poster that teaches one safety rule to Grade 4, using only the facts we checked.”
How would you design …?
What would you compose to …?
Can you propose an alternative that still meets …?
How would you combine … to produce …?
What plan would you construct for …?
Using AI with these stems
A chatbot can draft extra stems. You still have to check classification, reading level and subject accuracy. A verb is not proof of the level.
Example: if you ask for Remember questions on plant cells and the model returns “Which option is stronger, and why?”, that is Evaluate, not Remember. Keep this stem bank beside the output and reject the mismatch.
Technology helps teachers when it removes a specific piece of friction: finding out who understood the lesson, collecting work, sharing a model, or keeping a record. It does not help when it adds logins, noise or a gap between learners who have data and learners who do not.
Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
Five durable uses
A mid-lesson check. A short quiz or poll so you can change the second half of the lesson.
A shared place for files and deadlines. An LMS or class folder so work is not only in one inbox.
A model you cannot bring into the room. A simulation, a digitised collection, a process that would be unsafe live.
Feedback that arrives while the work still matters. Comments on a draft, not only a mark at the end.
Admin you should not be rewriting by hand. Registers, repeating instructions, a calendar of due dates.
Media literacy matters because people now meet news, advertising, school materials and AI-generated media in the same feed. It is the ability to access, analyse, evaluate, create and act using media, so that you can check a claim before you believe it or pass it on.
This is a personal guide for teachers and learners, not institutional policy. Last reviewed: 30 August 2026.
Media literacy is a checking habit, not a subject you finish.
Why it matters, in five points
Schoolwork depends on sources. Learners who cannot tell a report from an advert, or a primary source from a summary, cannot complete research tasks fairly.
Public life depends on shared facts. Media literacy supports informed discussion. It does not, by itself, protect democracy or stop extremism. Those are larger political and social questions.
Misinformation and disinformation are different problems. Misinformation is false or misleading information spread regardless of intent. Disinformation is false or misleading information spread in order to deceive. Treat them separately.
AI makes fluent falsehood cheaper. Generated text, images and audio can look finished. Surface clues such as “it looks fake” are unreliable. Check origin, evidence and corroboration instead.
Sharing is a public act. Forwarding a claim to a class group or family chat is part of the media system. A useful habit is: if you cannot name the original source, do not amplify it.
What media literacy is
The National Association for Media Literacy Education defines media literacy as the ability to access, analyse, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication. UNESCO uses the related term media and information literacy for the competencies needed to engage with information and media critically. Neither definition is an anti-media campaign. The aim is better questions, not a ban.
Media literacy is not only an extra subject. It belongs inside reading, history, science, life orientation and digital skills. For social-media-specific skills, see internet and social media literacy.
A practical verification routine
Use this sequence on a post, article, image or video before you treat it as evidence.
Source. Who published this, and can you name them without opening a second tab?
Evidence. What is offered: a document, a dataset, a named witness, or only a caption?
Context. When was it made? What is cropped, translated or missing?
Purpose. Is this reporting, selling, campaigning, entertaining or fundraising?
Provenance. Can you find the first appearance, not only a screenshot?
Corroboration. Do two independent sources that are not copies of each other say the same thing?
Sharing. If it is still uncertain, say so, or do not forward it.
A worked example
A class WhatsApp group receives an image of a flooded school with the caption “This happened today in our province. Share.” A media-literate check does not start with “Does this look real?” It starts with: which school, which date, which original publisher? Reverse-search the image if you can. Look for a named newsroom or official statement. If the same photo was used last year in another country, the caption is the problem even if the flood in the picture was once real. Then decide whether to share, ask a clarifying question, or leave it.
A short classroom activity
Give learners one recent post (age-appropriate, no graphic harm). In pairs they complete the seven checks above on paper. They must mark each check as confirmed, unconfirmed or not applicable. Then they choose one action: use it as a source, set it aside, or ask the teacher for a better source. Keep this to 15 minutes. Younger learners can do source, purpose and sharing only.
Do not ask children to hunt extremist material or health scares as practice. Use ordinary school-relevant examples: a homework “fact”, a celebrity quote, or a product claim.
What this page does not claim
Media literacy is associated with better evaluation of sources in many studies, but it is not a shield against every harm, and it is not a substitute for platform design, regulation or pastoral care. Claims that it directly improves mental or physical health, or that it prevents radicalisation, need stronger evidence than this article can support, so they are not made here.
LMS means learning management system: software that holds courses, people, files, tasks and a record of who did what. Moodle, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams for Education, Canvas and Blackboard are examples, not the definition.
It is not the same as a virtual learning environment, though the labels are often used as if they were identical. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
LMS definition
A system for administering, documenting, tracking and delivering learning. If it only plays videos, it is not an LMS. If it enrols users, serves content, collects submissions and stores results, it is.
What is an LMS used for?
Enrolment, content in a sequence, assignments, quizzes, gradebook, announcements, and a log of activity. Schools, colleges and workplace training all use the same pattern with different depth.
What are the components of an LMS?
Users and roles (teacher, learner, admin)
Courses or classes
Content and files
Assessment and a gradebook
Messages or a forum
Reports
What are the benefits of an LMS?
One place for the class. A record you can check. The same course for more than one group. Benefits fail when nobody is trained, the internet is weak, or the tool is used only as a file dump.
