Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Media Savy Kids

Great article I found at during today's Powerful Voices Open Door session...

“How do we prepare kids for living in a society where almost all their information and entertainment comes to them through a screen?” asks Renee Hobbs, Ed.D., director of the Media Education Lab at Temple University in Philadelphia.

  The answer: We teach media literacy, which trains children to think critically about both the overt and subtle media messages that wash over them every day. Media literacy — the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms — is growing in importance in schools across the country.

Click on the side link for additional resources including...

5 Media-Savvy Questions That Kids Should Ask

  1. Who created this message?
  2. What creative techniques are used to get my attention?
  3. How might different people interpret this message?
  4. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are in this message? What was left out and why?
  5. Why is this message being sent?

Posted via email from The Connected Classroom Posterous

6 comments:

  1. You should also know there are LOTS of other critical thinking/viewing questions out there:
    http://www.frankwbaker.com/media_messages.htm

    Frank Baker
    Media Literacy Clearinghouse

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  2. Thanks Frank...I share your resources OFTEN especially the connection you have made to State Standards which Include Media Literacy All too often teachers use the excuse they "don't have time" or "there is too much curriculum to cover" but when you look at the number of places IN the state mandated curriculum that media literacy lives you will realize that if you are USING MEDIA with your students, you NEED to teach them media literacy strategies...THANKS for sharing!

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  3. As a library media specialist for grades 7-12, I am concerned that we as educators are always running to keep up or catch up either with technology and making effective use of it or with the students who have been immersed in it seemingly long before us. I try to provide information literacy to those I serve, but after reading your blog, I can see that I have not focused much on the media literacy component other than "Who created this and what is their agenda?". Thank you for raising this point with us and for bringing to our attention the "5 Media-Savvy Questions That Kids Should Ask" and other great media literacy links available at teacher.scholastic.com that will greatly assist us with this serious concern.

    Betty Fraser

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  4. Anonymous11:36 AM

    Kids are becoming more savvy at using the internet to get information from the media and to learn in general. For example, kids are creating their own material on user-generated sites like http://memorize.com rather than consuming what is fed to them by the authority figures.

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  5. I love that this is about educating children on technology and the way that we get our information. Seeing the resources from Frank helps as well. Very important stuff!

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  6. I certainly enjoy the prospect of integrating technology into the classroom and find media resources a great strategy to hook our students to a subject. I also agree that we should help them distinguish from real to fantasy, yet are these all just one form of learning style, mainly visual? In trying to reach those state standards and curriculum, I would hope that more than just visual media is being used, even though technology is so popular to use.

    John A.

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