Digital storytelling with iMovie

In the technology course for preservice teachers that I am facilitating this summer, we spent the past week creating digital stories with iMovie. Here is the story I created. I like it. What do you think?

“Media convergence,” succinctly put

A rare treat — home alone, folding laundry, drinking coffee, and watching CBS Sunday Morning.

Even better, media critic Jeff Greenfield’s segment, in which he attempts to capture the meaning of “media convergence” in under four minutes. It’s an intriguing exercise, especially within the context of the venerated Sunday Morning, a rather conventionally formatted news program that just marked its 30th anniversary on the air.

As we are all too well aware, a lot has changed in media in these last 30 years. What makes Greenfield’s commentary worthwhile are his parting words about “fundamental” values. Do these values endure despite the sweeping changes brought on by digitization, as Greenfield asserts?

It’s a great discussion starter.

Another fun exercise: how does Greenfield’s definition of “convergence” contrast with the definition put forth by media scholar Henry Jenkins? In his 2006 book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Jenkins argues that convergence has less to do with devices and technological advances and more to do with cultural practices and heightened levels of participation and interactivity.

What do you think?

technorati tags: convergence Henry Jenkins media media literacy media education technology

Media lit blog carnival, Feb. ‘08 edition

Nick Pernisco of Understandmedia.com has started a media literacy blog carnival, with the first edition now posted. If you are a newcomer to the field, this is a great way to sample the possibilities that media education offers.

A “blog carnival” is an online roundup of blog posts from different authors relating to a common theme. See Wikipedia for a more thorough explanation of blog carnival.

This month’s theme is a general introduction to the world of media literacy with an eclectic mix of posts ranging from media education in practice to a critique of mainstream media to a funny satire about media figure Maureen Dowd. Two ThinkTime posts are featured. Yea!

Next month’s theme is about using technology in the classroom. If you have a relevant article to share, submit your entry to the media literacy blog carnival.

technorati tags: blog carnivals media media literacy media education

A moment for media awareness, part II

Did you know that news reports leading up to the current Writers Guild strike provided a great moment for media literacy education? Mainstream publications like the Washington Post and USA Today carried stories advising television audiences to prepare for a steady diet of “reality” programming if the writers’ contract negotiations reached an impasse.

So?

Well, in an excellent column at The Huffington Post, Jennifer Pozner argues that this news coverage, while technically accurate, performs a great disservice to the general public by perpetuating the myth of unscripted reality T.V. She writes, “. . . news reports have generally not clarified for readers that these shows do, indeed, involve writers. Non-union writers (and story editors, video editors, and hands-on producers and directors), all of whom collaborate to achieve the networks’, executive producers’, and integrated advertisers’ desired story arcs.”

Noting a general reluctance in the United States to adopt media literacy education, Pozner suggests that regular viewers of reality T.V. simply don’t understand the collaborative process behind television production in which writers and non-writers alike wield tremendous storytelling power.

This is the second in a series of posts in recognition of Media Education Week. Be sure to check out Part I in which I provide brief background on the state of media education in the U.S.

A project of Canada’s Media Awareness Network, Media Education Week is aimed at promoting media literacy activities in homes, schools, and communities.

The phrase “media awareness” makes me think of the old cliche about fish and water. Meaningful contemplation of media is like a fish trying to understand water: near to impossible. We are all too deeply immersed in it.

My Sunday school class touched on the same challenge in a recent study of Postmodernism. How can we step back and critically evaluate something so pervasive and embedded in our society? Someone in class astutely pointed out that we only see the impurities (think: pond scum). And that’s what we all tend to dwell upon.

It is so true; sometimes the only path to consciousness raising is to show people the “impurities.” For instance, the fact that every parent in the U.S. knows about their child’s MySpace account probably has less to do with meaningful dinner conversation about the benefits of social networking and more to do with Dateline’s outrageously popular To Catch a Predator series.

But here is the rub: the best media education is not about villifying technology and breeding cynicism.

Talking about the impact of media and technology on society is part of the equation to be sure, but in the last several decades the paradigm has shifted from one solely concerned with protection against media’s harmful effects to one focused on preparation for lifelong engagement as critical and ethical consumers and producers of media.

What does media education as preparation look like?

The folks at the Center for Media Literacy have constructed an entire curriculum framework around this question.  Part I: Literacy for the 21st Century: An Overview and Orientation Guide to Media Literacy Education presents the theoretical underpinnings, and Part II: Five Key Questions that can Change the World contains a practical collection of lesson plans for cross-curricular implementation. All materials are free and downloadable at the site.

But I think media education as preparation can be as simple as taking Pozner’s column and starting a conversation with students about the different roles people play in television and film production. What does a set designer do? What is a sound editor? What is the job of a producer? Answers to those questions might inspire students to undertake various roles in a video production project in which they experience firsthand how editors’ and producers’ decisions influence the storyline.

Techno wars: Boomers vs. X’ers

Hello, friends.

I am conducting another little study for a statistics class I’m taking this semester. This project is about testing the statistical versus practical significance of two sample means.

Don’t ask.

Just please help out a poor, mathematically challenged grad student and follow the link below to a quick, anonymous online survey. Thanks!

Click here to take the online survey!
Powered by Wufoo

By the way, AFTER taking the survey you may enjoy reading the New York Times column that inspired the survey topic. (I’m withholding comment for fear of influencing the survey results.)

A moment for media awareness, part I

Watch this video of a sleepy baby and his big brother. Watch as much as you can — it takes more than two minutes for the clip to reach its inevitable conclusion:

So, what did you think? Were you amused? disturbed? fascinated? frustrated? provoked? all the above?

Welcome to media literacy education!

Media literacy is the ability to access, read, analyze, evaluate, and create communication in a variety of multimedia and mass media forms. It is the outcome of a curriculum in which media are the focus of instruction, not just the means of instruction. For more details visit the Center for Media Literacy web site.

This is the first in a series of posts in honor of Canada’s National Media Education Week.

As far as I know, we in the United States don’t have an equivalent week to call our own. While several national media education organizations and conferences have emerged in the last ten years, a unified vision of media education — such as what is practiced in South Africa, the UK, and New Zealand and what was articulated by the 29th General Conference of the United Nations Educational and Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) — remains elusive in the U.S.

Robert Kubey has written about the obstacles to media education in the U.S., noting the sheer size of the country and the reluctance on the part of the federal government to overtly drive national curriculum standards. Media educators must also overcome a general disdain for attempts to mix traditional curriculum with elements of popular culture.

On a positive note, a systematic study of state frameworks performed by Kubey and Frank Baker reveals that media education principles have found their way into at least some curriculum standards in all 50 states (as of 2000), mostly in a cross-curricular fashion. Subject areas most likely to include media education elements are health, consumer sciences, social studies, and, of course, English/language arts.

Only seven states offer an actual media education strand.

A systematic approach to media education may be missing in our schools, but opportunities for media education abound, which brings me back to the sleep baby video.

I’m venturing to guess reactions to that video range from mild amusement to moral outrage, and the spectrum of responses invoked by the video point to the varied purposes and paradigms currently underlying national and international media literacy initiatives.

In his book Visual Messages: Integrating Imagery into Instruction, David Considine nicely summarizes purposes of media education as follows:

• protection-teaching individuals how to resist media’s harmful effects
• preparation-guiding individuals to internalize the intellectual and affective skills necessary for processing and filtering the multitude of media messages encountered in daily life
• pleasure-celebrating and cultivating an appreciation for the many surprising and enriching encounters afforded by living in a media-saturated world

Historically, media education’s roots are in the protection paradigm, and that paradigm still has a lot of sway in the U.S. among politicians and advocacy groups. Media education theorists, however, have favored a paradigm shift in recent decades that is less reactionary regarding media consumption habits and more constructivist in approach. And in-the-trenches media educators will swear by the pleasure paradigm as the best inroad for engaging and motivating students.

So, take a moment to reflect on the sleepy baby video: what does it suggest to you about media education?

Media Education Week: coming soon

I am passionate about media education and media literacy. Although, of late, I’ve happily drifted down this path of web-based social and participatory software, I have not lost sight of this passion.

It started, I guess, when I was a student journalist, first in high school and then later in college, where I minored in journalism. It continued as I advised student publications for three years in the early 90s at a high school in Texas.

And it blew wide open over two recent summers when I completed coursework in Dr. David Considine’s media literacy strand within the Reich College of Education at Appalachian State University.

And today, when educators, technologists, parents, and those in mainstream society decry a lack of information literacy, digital citizenship, and ethics among users of the new web, my mind always returns to the overarching principles and paradigms of media education.

I’ve posted about the connection between media literacy and social software before. I invite you to read and comment!

So, in the coming days I hope to devote some space at ThinkTime to celebrate the second annual Media Education Week, Nov. 5-9.

Although the event is sponsored by the Canadian-based Media Awareness Network and is intended to raise awareness within Canadian homes and schools, media education has universal value.

In the United States we have some excellent organizations and resources to advance the practice of media education. Their web site is undergoing a redesign and may not be easily navigable, but the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA) sponsors the National Media Education Conference (NMEC) each year.

For online resources, try the Center for Media Literacy (CML), which hosts a vast archive of free and downloadable classroom materials and readings on every aspect of media education, from faith-based studies to health and body-awareness issues to student-produced media.

Why not watch this CML slideshow illustrating the five core concepts of media education and tell me what you think?

Convergence cabin

I am almost finished reading Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins. I know, I know, it was on everyone’s reading list last year, but I am a latecomer to all of this!

The book is an exploration of the rapid change in our media landscape brought about by two competing and hopelessly intertwined forces, what Jenkins calls “the top-down force of corporate convergence and the bottom-up force of grassroots convergence” (p. 169). If you read my earlier post on Dewey, you might recall the phrase: “the times are out of joint.”

Anyway, as I am reading this book each night, I am telling my husband Ron, “You really need to read this!” I sense that Jenkins’ thesis will have some relevance to Ron’s line of work as a director of a major branded network web site.

Well, while I only read about convergence culture, Ron is living it. He just sent me the link to his site’s newly launched section, DIY Blog Cabin 2007. While perhaps not as sexy as the American Idol, Survivor, and The Matrix examples presented in Convergence Culture, Blog Cabin truly is a study in media convergence down to the series’ tagline, “Watch DIY Network build what you blogged.”

Henry Jenkins, take note!

technorati tags: Henry Jenkins media convergence blogs

Web 2.0 and the primacy of print

I jotted this diagram in my notes last month during a philosophy of education class. The instructor had cautioned us against using labels such as “myth” and “folklore” to describe non-scientific evidence, as these terms are evoked by Westerners who seek to marginalize the oral tradition. Prior to the Age of Enlightenment and the explosion of print, which helped elevate the scientific method, personal witnessing, dreams, prophesying, and story telling were highly regarded forms of truth seeking. Today, the effect of “print primacy” on the flow of knowledge capital and what constitutes literacy is the subject of debate among reading and language arts educators and scholars.

I am still thinking about this. Have we come full circle?

And then there is this video explanation of Web 2.0 by digital ethnographer Mike Wesch from Kansas State University.

technorati tags: web2.0 communication media

Media literacy and classroom 2.0

In the previous post I reflected on Danah Boyd’s article “Social Network Sites: Public, Private or What?” I want to build on the media literacy connection she made at the end of her essay and share one more “ah-hah.”

To review, Boyd acknowledges the challenge the social networking revolution places on educators: how do we embrace these technologies while helping young people to negotiate the shifting line between the public and the private spheres? She recommends educators take the “engage, don’t enrage” approach, to avoid imposing rules on student use and to instead prepare students by talking to them openly about the potential stumbling blocks associated with networking. She writes, “There are different ways to approach conversing with students. The most obvious is through curriculum, under the broader umbrella of media literacy.”

She doesn’t elaborate much beyond this point, except to say that in addition to media literacy curriculum, teachers in other disciplines can stimulate dialogue about the impact of these new technologies on our society. For example, think of the debate topics, writing prompts, or discussion starters a teacher might generate based on this recent report about a high school senior who is contesting a 40-day suspension based on his alleged involvement in the production of a YouTube video that targets a teacher at his school.

Only thing is, I would argue that a classroom teacher who regularly draws on current events and media artifacts to enhance course content in the manner described above is essentially doing media education. In other words, the curriculum doesn’t have to be a separate, add-on course. It’s a big debate in media education circles: should media literacy be achieved through a cross-disciplinary, integrated approach or through media courses taught in isolation?

Personally, when it comes to media education, I wish it was viable for schools to pursue a “both/and” approach. I imagine a foundational class, taught perhaps at the eighth or ninth grade level. This class introduces the essential principles and habits of mind that are the backbone of media education. (Look at this quick conceptual framework at the Canadian Media Awareness Network web site. For a complete introduction, nothing beats the MediaLit Kit from the Center for Media Literacy.) Ideally, this curriculum would be supported by a faculty and school administration who are well-versed in the media education paradigm and continually apply the principles to new media and technologies as they emerge throughout a child’s four-year high school career. Again, I am just imagining the ideal.

Now for the “ah-hah” moment.

Last month when I unveiled my Dreamweaver project site, called Publish Me!, I wrote about my effort to address Internet safety concerns and my fear that, in doing so, I may have degraded whatever shred of the web 2.0 sensibility there was on the site. One question I had pertained to the appropriateness of linking to these “think before you post” PSAs produced by the Ad Council in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice. Do the PSAs possess any instructional value whatsoever, or are they nothing more than scare tactics and hype?

After reading Boyd’s article, however, it occurred to me that the PSAs indeed have instructional value if they are approached through the media literacy paradigm. The obvious solution is to turn the Internet safety buzz (or “hype,” as some would term it) into an opportunity for critical inquiry. Let the PSA target audience, the teens themselves, judge whether the ads are helpful or problematic.

Watch this PSA about posting digital images online and then consider how you might facilitate a classroom discussion about its “constructedness,” its embedded values, its purpose, its intended audience, and so on. You might use this lesson plan template for conducting a close analysis of a media text.

It’s a perfect example of teaching about and through media with the added bonus of integrating web 2.0 principles into the curriculum!