The theme for the 44th yearbook of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers is "Elevating the Role of Creativity, Identity, and Voice in Literacy," an apropos response to the three pandemics facing the U.S. communities and schools over the past several years. It represents a robust and humanizing next step to the increased…

The purpose of this study is to explore the self-directed learning behaviors of adult users of the social media vehicle, Twitter, through the lens of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States during the second wave, spring and summer of 2020. The objective of the study is to identify Twitter behavior and usage patterns to assist in…

There are abundant optimistic and pessimistic views about the potential educational impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The optimists envision that AI will enable teachers to do more of what only teachers can do for their students: build caring and trusting relationships; understand students' needs, backgrounds, and cultures; guide and…

Part of media education is showing students other ways of being, knowing, and making change away from social media. Such experiences can allow youth to reflect not only on the benefits and drawbacks of social media, but how they change the flow of our lives. They are then better positioned to choose when to use, or not use social media. Educators…

ChatGPT has garnered unprecedented popularity since its release in November 2022. This artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) is designed to generate human-like text based on patterns found in massive amounts of data scraped from the internet. ChatGPT is significantly different from previous versions of GPT by its quality of…

Political Information Literacy (PIL) is a vital and essential set of skills pre-dominantly discussed in Library and Information Studies disciplines. PIL is necessary to navigate the convoluted political information landscape, including the threats to democracy and the spreading of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. Having PIL is…

In this article, I discuss the academic field of adult education as it relates to critical media literacy, critical public pedagogy, social and civic activism, and higher education in this era many have labeled "post-truth." I ask readers to reconsider the traditional university tenure process and the academic publishing industry as…

Student voice can be a powerful tool in urban schools. Student voice programs engage students in the educational policies and practices that impact their lives and provides educators a glimpse into the experiences and needs of students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds. However, successful student voice programs rely upon adult…

Through the application of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and visual image analysis, this study evaluated 15 English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks utilized in Vietnam, seeking to explore the extent to which environmental literacy (EL) content is incorporated. The analysis indicates that the knowledge component appears 29 times, Affect 25…

Critical media literacy is vital for citizenship in a democracy and visually saturated world. Online media is almost indispensable to contemporary life, exerting increasing influence over real-world events. Therefore, future citizens must be able to evaluate the reliability of online media. I initiated a mixed-method arts-based study examining how…

This study examines the opportunities and challenges of employing ChatGPT in higher education, identifies essential user competencies, and evaluates its impact in the absence of formal policy guidelines. A qualitative case study design involved interviews with 10 faculty members and 10 students at a federal university in the United Arab Emirates.…

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is the most buzzing word in academia recently. Due to its ability to provide instant language support and generate diverse educational resources, it has emerged as a powerful tool in ELT (English language teaching). This study aims to explore ELT teachers' perception and usage of ChatGPT as a teaching tool in the…

The task of verifying credible and original information is now more complicated, especially for undergraduate students. This study uses information literacy and discourse analysis to develop English as a foreign language learners' critical reading skills while verifying information on social media. A reading test including false news was used to…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many researchers to adapt their studies from in-person to remote, using digital tools. Although established in ethnographic research, digital tools change how the researcher and participants can experience co-presence. This paper presents findings from an ethnography of an art museum's learning team during remote…

Writing practitioners, researchers, and scholars are at a juncture where foundational assumptions about the teaching of writing, its place in higher education, and its ability to help foster a truly inclusive democratic society are increasingly contested. Trust in literacy has been eroded over the past decades, coming to an acute crisis in the…