Media Literacy

Media Literacy

As I was researching media literacy, I realized that it can be viewed in various ways. The following definitions came from the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE):

Media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages.

Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and to synthesize and analyze messages.

Media literacy is the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via media and the ability to synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages.

Media education is the study of media, including ‘hands on' experiences and media production.

Media literacy education is the educational field dedicated to teaching the skills associated with media literacy.

Within North America, media literacy is seen to consist of a series of communication competencies, including the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and COMMUNICATE information in a variety of forms, including print and non-print messages. (National Association for Media Literacy Education [NAMLE], 2008, n.p.)

One viewpoint is that people should be able to correctly “read” media. The idea is that media can be propaganda and can negatively influence children and that this is a concern for educators to address as demonstrated in the following quotes:

The longstanding and widespread argu­ment used by media literacy educators—about the need for education to be relevant to the lived cultural experience of students with mass media and popular culture—seems to have lost its prominence as educa­tors seek something which is simultaneously more basic and more challenging: to bring online tech­nology tools into classroom to harness their use for socially-connected (or participatory) learning” (Hobbs & Jenson, 2009, p. 5).

Quite a bit of hype has been perpetuated among the legion of advocates, telling us that chil­dren and teens are actively creating content online by sharing their writing, video, music, and photography. But what is the reality? Sadly, neither creation nor sharing is randomly distributed among a diverse group of young adults, since creative activity is related to similar factors as it was in previous times: a person’s socioeconomic status.” (Hobbs & Jenson, 2009, p. 5).

A video from the Center for Media Literacy (2008) web site, "Media Literacy, Education & Choice," very clearly states this argument for acquiring and teaching the skill to "read" media so as not to be unknowingly swayed toward prejudice or unreasonably sold on bad ideas. In the video, Tessa Jolls, the President for the Center for Media Literacy explains the "five core questions of media literacy".

Media Literacy, Education & Choice

The other side of the coin is that students should be taught to create and develop media also. Michael Wesch's (2008) "A Portal to Media Literacy" presents an excellent demonstration of using a "portal that we play withthat is designed to bring students together, to get them working together in new ways, in ways that actually allow them to explore new media while actually using new media to learn about the subject." The video is long, but gives a beautiful and clear explanation of the differences between education ideas in yesteryear and the possible influence of new media on education today and well worth watching. Also, he defines the "meaning" and shows two different definitions as they relate to meaningful connection and creating what he calls "significance" in learning. Very relevant for teachers who want to truly educate.

A Portal to Media Literacy

Both sides of media literacy are important, relevant and necessary in education today. The question that it raises is how will we do it?

Credits

Photo used with permission of http://www.flickr.com/photos/extraketchup/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

References

Center for Media Literacy. (2008). Media literacy, education & choice: CML's Tessa Jolls explains the five key questions [web video post]. Media Education Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article709.html

Hobbs, R. & Jensen, A. (2009). The past, present, and future of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education. 1, 1-11.

National Association for Media Literacy Education. (2008). Media literacy: Definitions. Retrieved from http://www.amlainfo.org/media-literacy/definitions

Wesch, M. (2008, June 17). Lecture presented at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

BP4_2009102_EducationalUsesforBookmarking

Uses for Social Bookmarking in Art Education

Illustration above is a screenshot of a bookmarking page.

Definitions [bold letters added by me]:

• "The term 'Web 2.0' refers to the next generation of Internet applications that allow (even encourage) the average Internet user to collaborate and share information online" (Thompson, 2008, p. 711).
• "Social bookmarking or tagging is the process of assigning and sharing among users, freely selected terms to resources. This approach is a form of user-generated metadata and allows users to locate new resources through the collective intelligence of other users" ((Chei Sian, Dion Hoe-Lian, Khasfariyati & Alton, 2009, p. 1).
• "Delicious is a social bookmarking site that allows a user (or a group of users on one account) to add meaningful labels that describe the content of Web sites. These labels are commonly called 'tags,' and the process is called 'tagging'" (Buffington, 2008a, p. 307).

For teachers, social bookmarking sites are a convenient and useful way of organizing online resources for lesson planning, teaching and research. It is especially convenient because the bookmarks to sites are located on line and are accessible to any computer with Internet access.

For students, a classroom bookmarking site can be used by a class of students to compile sites which relate to what students are studying, thus documenting the learning process. Art teachers can use social bookmarking such as del.ico.us for teaching students art vocabulary, having students work out appropriate tagging relating to art terms such as the elements and principles of art (Buffington, 2008b). "A teacher could show an image to the class and the students could discuss possible terms to use to 'tag' the image" (p. 38).

Thompson (2008) illustrates how one high school science department has made the social bookmarking site, del.ico.us. Teachers in the department have a commons site in which they all collect and "tag" sites related to curricula, collaboratively giving all science teachers access to a very applicable resource. Art departments can create similar sites for district teachers to use and contribute to, correlating links to district art curricula.

Forbes (2004) gives some great examples demonstrating the usefulness across the k-8 curriculum particularly in supporting reading instruction. One great point that she makes is that "[b]ecause all links are previewed before being made available to students, safety on the internet is improved" (p. 149). This is important with internet safety being a high priority with parents, administrators and teachers.

Definition:

• Walker (2007) describes teaching in artmaking with big ideas as "the use of big ideas of human concern such as identity, relationships, humans and nature, power, change, conflict, and so forth as a central focus for artmaking" (p. 190).

Another use suggested by Buffington (2008) is to use social bookmarking as a way of structuring searches related the "big idea" that students are working on. She gives and excellent example in the article, Creating and Consuming WEb 2.0 in Art Education.

To sum up, there are numerous ways that social bookmarking can be used in art education. These are just a few.

References

Buffington, M. (2008). Creating and consuming Web 2.0 in art education. Computers in the Schools, 25(3/4), 303-313.

Buffington, M. (2008). What is Web 2.0 and how can It further art education?. Art Education, 61(3), 36-41.

Chei Sian, L., Dion Hoe-Lian, G., Khasfariyati, R., & Alton Y. K., C. (2009). Tagging, sharing and the influence of personal experience. JODI: Journal of Digital Information, 10(1), 6.

Forbes, L. (2004). Using Web-based bookmarks in k-8 settings: Linking the Internet to instruction. Reading Teacher, 58(2), 148-153.

Thompson, J. (2008). Don't be afraid to explore Web 2.0. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(10), 711-778.

Walker, S. (2006). How shall we teach? Rethinking artmaking instruction. Teaching Artist Journal, 4(3), 190-197.

ETC Page

Pretty useful page in iGoogle.

AR/CBL Page

Whee! I finally figured out how to edit this so that MY delicious came up. Actually pretty simple.

Home or What's Going On Page

Okay, here's my iGoogle Home (WGO, but I like "Home" better) page.

BP3_2009101_GoogleReader

The RSS Feeds that I Chose from My Google Reader

I am an art teacher and an artist. From actually living the life of an art educator, I know how little time there is to actually be a practicing artist. Researching curriculum, writing lesson plans, ordering supplies, preparing and setting up materials, organizing and inventorying and keeping all of the supplies in order, working on all of the administrative paperwork (usually digitally), there is very little time left over for actually practicing art. About seven years ago, I began to create a website with the idea of organizing my lesson plans and embellishing them with just a bit of technology. This developed into a way of sharing with other teachers.

Now, I see that I can improve my own instruction and share that via my teaching sites with other art teachers. Hopefully, this will have a positive impact on their teaching AND free up some time to invest in their own artistic endeavors. Following are 5 RSS feeds to which I have subscribed:

1. One art educator whose web presence I have followed for over 7 years is Craig Roland. Dr. Roland is an art education professor at University of Florida in Gainesville and created the site, Art Junction. His blog, located on that site, is “The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet” (http://artjunction.org/blog/).
2. I have also used Academic Search Premier to subscribe to all articles that Dr. Roland gets published in academic journals. It seems he writes regularly for School Arts and I now have access to all of those articles. I admire and respect his work as an art educator and see him as a mentor in the field of art education. Keeping up with Craig Roland directly benefits my profession as his areas of expertise are my areas of interest.
3. Additionally, I subscribed to Education World: Technology Integration (http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/). Education World is an online magazine for educators containing articles, lesson plans and reviews. The magazine once did a review on one of my sites that led to many more educators being exposed to the site. Following the magazine will show me what my peers are doing and using in the classroom. From this I can speculate how I can create my site in order to address what teachers see as needs.
4. Dr. Deason’s Instructional Design Network (http://drdeason.blip.tv/) is a regular podcast with loads of information on different components of instruction. I felt that I was only able to touch upon the subject while taking his class and that he has much to offer. This way I can quickly see what topics his latest podcasts cover and determine which I would like to experience.
5. Another subscription that I started is the Journal of Extension (www.joe.org). This is the journal for “Outreach Educators.” Organizations such as 4-H Club (Head, Heart, Hands, and Health) are considered extension education. As a child, I belonged to the 4-H Club and loved it when we were able to have a meeting. In 4-H, I learned to thread a needle and sew on a button and to make biscuits. I went to 4-H Camp and made crafts and played learning games and learned practical things. These extension education organizations have often been the source of practical, useful knowledge. It occurred to me that public school education could learn something from its format and content. The very usefulness of the programs make them relevant to many. Studying these should give me some great ideas for relevance.

BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching

Personal Learning Environments and Anti-Teaching

Think about what you have learned about Multiple Intelligences, Brain-Based Learning, and good instructional design. Are virtual learning environments with course management systems the answer? What about PLEs and Web 2.0 tools? Is technology itself enough?

A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a digital organizational tool for collecting information for use and research in one place. You can include your emails, blogs, RSS feeds, calendar and loads of other applications so that you have them all together. This can certainly make learning more efficient; the PLE is a time saver. It can be organized according to an individual?s interests or according to a particular theme (Educause Learning Initiative [ELI], 2009).

It certainly does seem to be a wonderful tool for the self-directed learner, but what about the student who just doesn?t seem to be interested in anything but what about the student who did not learn to read well in the early grades and is just drifting on through the grades, perhaps disrupting the class or barely getting by one way or another? Or what about the student who is only interested in video games?

No, I do not believe that technology is enough. I believe that the PLE is a great tool, but there are other more fundamental changes that MUST be made in the way that we educate if we want to reach most students. Michael Wesch (2009) makes the argument for educational change in his article, Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance. He says, ?Students ? our most important critics ? are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education? (p. 5). Wesch gives a wonderful example of how he created interest and helped students find significance in his college level Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class. The PLE would be a great tool to use here and it appears that he DID use what he called "a hacked mix of online social media like wikis, Twitter, Jott, and Facebook" (p. 6). He went on to call these "little more than simple parlour tricks. They make up a rather creative and interesting means of learning, but not a reason for learning. They do not address that most significant problem, the problem of significance" (p. 6).

Based on the assumption that the educational systems as we know them do not work for the vast majority of the students moving through them, what would work? What are the key components you would include in new schools? Pull from your learning and the sources you have already acquired to support your answer. What are the key components for 21st century schools and learning beyond the test?

I agree with Wesch that a PLE is a wonderful means of learning. I can see that I will love using one myself and I will find it a wonderfully valuable tool for use with students, but somehow the underlying relevance must be found for students to have interest in learning. How will this kind of thinking change our schools? One factor that we will need to address is how we can take the learning outside of the walls of the classroom. The classroom is fine for certain practice exercises and learning, for example, first graders practicing their reading or making art. What about other topics like how to shop? Or what does a fireman do? Or how to clean our room? Or how to make lunch? Or why can we not just take what we want from the store? Much of this would be better taught in the actual environment. Perhaps we would have a small fleet of "classroom buses" with a driver/assistant and one third or so of "learning time" would be taught on the go. Once students had a level of literacy and real world research skills AND interest in specific topics, then a student could be taught enough to use a PLE as a research tool. As each student became more self-determined and self disciplined, the student could do quite a bit of learning via a course management system, implementing that learning into an active life just as online students of Full Sail University such as myself are doing now.

I believe that some of the key components for 21st century schools would be:

• Relevance of material to the student at every level
• Great instructional design that includes at least as much training of the body or mind and body as it does the mind
• Use of learned skills in relevant activities on a regular basis,
• Cooperative group activities with training on how to successfully work within a group as well as on individual projects. This might included training in communication skills, manners, personal integrity, logical reasoning, as well as how to run a business or manage a family
• Study and research skills taught and used for all learning which address more than just verbal learning -- [a great resource for this is found on the Applied Scholastics International website: http://www.appliedscholastics.org/ ]
• Instructor as manager/ facilitator, not teacher (this would require a change in the systems in which we train ?teachers? [Teacher training in this type of method is also found on the Applied Scholastics International website in 2 or 3 day workshops or more intensive programs: http://www.appliedscholastics.org/educator_programs.php]
• Incorporating the arts into as many facets as possible such as the use of music in advertising, graphic arts for web design, etc. as well as engendering a love of drama, art, music and all forms or art for the love of aesthetic communication

Students will not be in the same age classes. Different students will be ready for independent research at different times. Classes, if we call them that, will be fluid, with different students moving through and moving on once the skills or material or jobs have been mastered. Wonderful tools like the PLE or other learning skills will be taught and used to address student interests and basic living needs. The Delphian School in Oregon incorporates these ideas and more as does Delphi Academy of Boston. The philosophy of these school can be found on the following links:

http://www.thedelphianschool.org/page.cfm?p=277

http://www.delphiboston.org/our_philosophy.html

There will be more than one way to address these concepts. I would love to hear the ideas of others on the subject as I continue to explore them also.

References

Wesch, M. (2008). Anti-teaching: Confronting the crisis of significance. Education Canada, 48(2) 4-7.

Educause Learning Initiative. (2009, May 12). 7 things you should know about personal learning environments. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7049.pdf