Media Literacy

Media Literacy can be define as follow: Media literacy is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of nature of the mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More specifically, it is the education that aims to increase students understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they construct reality. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media products. When looking at those definitions, it is important that we are able to set our students and children up for success with media literacy by focusing on educating them about how to understand and interpret media literacy.

When looking at my own life and the amount of media I consume and the amount I actually tend to believe is true on some level to the real world, I do see a connection to some extent. Many marketing and advertising firms utilize specific techniques that produce the ads that we see each day to make us believe what they are trying to tell us.  When I am consuming these ads, I do make sure to understand what the audience may be, and this allows me to understand if what they are trying to tell me is worth listening in to. When listening to or viewing specific media, I do understand that these are paid professionals that are working to try and make me think they have the next great thing, or the best way to make me believe something. One of the greatest examples of this is with all the work out advertisements that we see, hear, and read about. They will tell us that different celebrities are utilizing this new program and that it is guaranteed to work, yet for the majority of the people in the target audience, it wont.

When it comes to whether or not our students should learn to create multimedia based content, I do feel that it is important that students have the opportunity to choose themselves that they want to learn media literacy skills, or create these types of presentations and programs. The job market is ever changing, and reading and writing is not enough any more. Students can be persuaded to attempt to take these classes, and these types of presentations and multimedia content should be included into lessons, but I ultimately believe it is the students choice to want to learn how to become media literate. If time permits, students should then be presented with a presentation such as one provided on the iTunes U, but it should be incorporated some way with content that is necessary within the curriculum. A great way to do this would be within some sort of visual arts class, technology class, or Civics in a sense because this could provide students a way to become better citizens.

Social Justice and the Digital Divide

As technology develops into more advanced ways of learning, the digital divide has become one of the biggest challenges for many teachers in a variety of school settings. When students are not prepared to utilize the technology in the classroom, or the technology that employers are looking for employees to use, they fall drastically behind their peers. My experiences with the digital divide have to do with my current placement and places where I have tutored, as well as where I grew up. In my hometown school, we were lucky enough to have just built a new high school with all new technology, and thus the middle school was able to be updated as well with computers, projectors, and so forth. Where I tutored at this past year also saw quite a bit of new technology as the district was growing, thus more opportunities were available for funding for the schools. At my current placement in rural West Michigan, I am witnessing what budget cuts can do to limit students. Though each class has an Elmo and projector with computers for teachers to use for their lessons, the actual computers that students use within the labs for various activities are by far outdated and unproductive. As students get to work on these computers, they face challenges that limit and frustrate them because many times they simply do not work.

Growing up I was right at the beginning of the age where internet and computers began to take off. I remember having just as much if not more access to the internet as my peers because my family strongly believed in utilizing technology. I remember getting my first laptop my freshman year in high school, which allowed me more opportunities than many of my peers to work on homework and research because I now didn't have to share the family computer like many others did. I felt like this gave me an advantage not just for school, but also for gaining the necessary skills early that many of the students did not have. Being able to quickly work through word and type papers at a rate that seems much faster than some of my peers has allowed me to have more time to work on editing and reflecting on my assignments.

I did know some people who grew up on the other side of the digital divide, and I do think this hampered them both academically as well as socially. Many of my peers did not get family computers until they were in high school, so while they were attempting to learn how to work basic programs like word and powerpoint I was able to succeed more quickly.

At my high school, it didn't seem to make a difference if you had internet at home or not, because the majority of our students did. If they did not have internet access, we had multiple labs and computers in the classroom that allowed for students to get their work done during seminar hours. Though we did not have a 1:1 initiative, the school was able to provide ample opportunities for those who did not have internet access at home.

Finally, I do feel that it is my responsibility as a teacher to bridge the gap between our students who have technology access and those who do not. The skills, specifically at a young age such as middle school, need to be learned and familiarized so they can be mastered and expanded upon when they get to high school. If we are looking to have our students be prepared for the technology gains of the future, they must be able to master the technology gains of the past in order to be able to prepare and adapt.

Sir Ken Robinson

After viewing these talks about Sir Ken Robinson's view on education, I would have to agree with many of the points that he said. Kids that are naturally creative and do not fit the stereotype of the student who sits in his or her desk all day and takes notes to absorb information, needs to be medicate. Creativity can lead to the most elaborate thoughts and the most dynamic learning possible, yet many professionals are limiting these gains by assuming students have attention disorders. I agree with him in the fact that we need to realize the school systems were developed for a different age, and for a different learner. Students these days are not focused on sitting in the classroom just for the fact that they are being told it will get them a job. The economy has shifted in a way that this is just not the reality, and our students know this. We need to focus our lessons and the education that we put forth in a way that allows the students to succeed in what they want to succeed in, not just what we are telling them they need to do. This comes a lot from the standardized testing that has been pushed forward throughout the past few decades, from people that know absolutely NOTHING about what the best learning practices are, they only care about what the statistics show.

Within my teachable major of Social Studies, I can see various ways to incorporate all of these ideas. Students do not learn by just sitting and taking notes over and over again. To understand what is being presented, they need to dive in to the curriculum and experience it first hand. We can utilize the technology that we have through smart boards to have students see first hand the documents we are discussing, have them recreate voyages that have shaped our earth, and utilize web quests and Web 2.0 technology to turn the social studies into an alive discipline. Students need to experience the information in an artistic way, or a mobile way, and not just listen to our voices blurt out terms and standards that we are being required to teach. If they are not interested, they won't learn, and that will defeat the entire goal of public education.