New Media Literacy in the Context of Early Childhood Education (An Overview from Indonesian Kindergarten Future Teachers)

Abstract

New era of global society 5.0 proposes some future skills that should be comprehended by students. One of the future skills is new media literacy which is a combination skills of media literacy, cultural literacy and information or technological literacy. Some recent studies have been conducted to investigate the best way of teaching NML skill from basic to higher education. However, there is still vagueness among researchers, parents and early childhood education teachers about how digital tools can collaborate effectively with traditional non-digital tools in children’s daily lives. Therefore, this study investigates the understanding and perspectives of kindergarten future teachers in teaching new media literacy to children. Moreover, the qualitative approach is employed in this study through questioners and interviews. From data analysis, it can be concluded that future teachers comprehend very well in some aspects, such as, get familiar with various kinds of media that suitable for children. Nevertheless, they are still less comprehend in understanding other elements of new media literacy as well as its teaching strategies. Consequently, it is recommended to set this topic in some subjects on the curriculum of Early Childhood Teacher Education Study Program.