Week Fourteen: Finished Digital Story

Double Entry Journal 13

Question 1: Should media education have an explicit political and ideological agenda?

           I believe that media education should have an explicit political and ideological agenda, because media education should incorporate the inner workings of the things that students see through a variety of multi-media sources. This way, students will be able to gather information and be able to aptly apply it to whatever decisions they may make on the subject. We want our students to be critical thinkers, and not people who follow the crowd. Popular culture would be an excellent tool to help attract students to the curriculum. It’s something they know, and it makes the subject material relevant to their daily lives.

Question 2: Based on your reading to date in this course, would you teach critical media literacy in the classroom?  Why or why not? 

            I don’t think I would teach all of the subject matter necessary to inform and create critical thinkers in the classroom; it would take a whole semester to cover everything. However, I would incorporate certain aspects in my class, such as what Hobbs’s stated in his article as “key concepts that are essential instructional points to be explored whenever media texts are used in the classroom (Hobbs, 1998):

1.      Media messages are constructed

2.      Media messages are produced within economic, social, political, historical, and aesthetic contexts

3.      The interpretative meaning-making processes involved in message reception consist of an interaction between the reader, the text, and the culture

4.      Media have unique “languages,” characteristics which typify various forms, genres, and symbol systems of communication

5.      Media representations play a role in people’s understanding of social reality”

These concepts are the essential to media literacy instruction within the classroom. We, as teachers, must be able to help students analyze multi-media sources they use and see every day. In order to “prepare students for the emerging information age, we must help them comprehend and communicate through both traditional and emerging technologies” (Semali, 2001).

There is media out there that tells students how to dress, behave, feel, and how much they should weigh. These negative influences that diminish students’ self-esteem need to be sifted out in a safe environment, such as a classroom. Teachers can educate students on media literacy by introducing them to the following questions that they should ask themselves when facing a media outlet (nb5619, 2010):

1.      Who created the message?

2.      What is the message?

3.      How was the message delivered?

4.      What is the impact of the message on me?

5.      What is the impact of the message on society?

“Critical literacy gives individuals power over their culture and thus enables people to create their own meanings and identities and to shape and transform the material and social conditions of their culture and society” (Kellner & Share, 2005).

Reference:

Hobbs, R. (1998). The seven great debates in the media literacy movement. Journal of Communication. 48 (1) p.16

Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2005). Toward critical media literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 26(3), 369-386. Retrieved from nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

Semali, L. (2001, November). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Reading Online, 5(4). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=semali1/index.html

Week Twelve: Digital Story

Double Entry Journal 11

Quote:

“some of the purposes driving the uses of digital tools in this course:

• building social relationships 
• learning argumentative writing
• collaboratively constructing responses to media texts
• critically analyzing media representations 
• analyzing genre conventions in print and media texts
• understanding how audiences construct meanings through media ethnographies”

(Beach, 1953)

Reaction:

It seems like you would have to have an entire semester class that focuses on digital and media literacy, in order to cover all the aspects and skills needed to understand and decipher the literature that is presented to our students daily. I find it hard to pick out the key concepts of what students should learn about media literacy. Ultimately, they need to know what they can and cannot believe, and how to find out the truth when they are given information.

Reference:

Beach, R. (1953). An american perspective: justifying uses of digital tools to foster critical media literacy. The Journal of Media Literacy, Retrieved from http://www.journalofmedialiteracy.org/index.php/current-issue/145-an-american-perspective-justifying-uses-of-digital-tools-to-foster-critical-media-literacy

Related Resource:

I found a website that is a good resource for teachers who want to use digital tools within their curricula:

Digital Tools for Teachers

Digital tools for teachers [Web log message]. (2011, July 17). Retrieved from http://digitaltoolsforteachers.blogspot.com/

Week Eleven: Storyboard

Double Entry Journal 10

Quote:

“The seven elements of digital storytelling:

1.      Point of View—what is the perspective of the author?

2.      A Dramatic Question—a question that will be answered by the end of the story.

3.      Emotional Content—serious issues that speak to us in a personal and powerful way.

4.      The Gift of Your Voice—a way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.

5.      The Power of the Soundtrack—music or other sounds that support the storyline.

6.      Economy—simply put, using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer with too much information.

7.      Pacing—related to Economy, but specifically deals with how slowly or quickly the story progresses. (Robin, 2005)”

Reflection:

This was very helpful to me when trying to create my storyboard from the interview with my grandmother. I didn’t know that there was supposed to be a dramatic question that is answered through the digital story.

Reference:

Robin, B. R. (2005). The educational uses of digital storytelling. Retrieved from http://digitalliteracyintheclassroom.pbworks.com/f/Educ-Uses-DS.pdf

Related Resource:

I found this website, which helped me with more of my questions about Digital Stories. Within this website, it also explained the different elements of a digital story, like the one I quoted above.

Frequently Asked Questions about Digital Stories 

Barrett, H. C. (2011, June 03). Frequently-asked questions about digital storytelling. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.com/digistory/faq.html 

Week Ten: Historical Interview