Teaching Critical Media Literacy

Now that technology has become such a large part of learning, students are now interacting with media in the classroom, instead of simply in the outside world. This makes it even more important for teachers to educate their students on critical media literacy. Students need to learn to be critical of the things they read and the images that the media presents to them. We need to get our students into the habit of asking themselves "where is this information coming from?"  "Is it a reliable source?" and "What is the purpose that this media is trying to serve?" This will create students who are more aware and who do not blindly absorb information that is given to them. 

In the text "Teaching Popular Visual Culture: Deconstructing Disney in the Elementary Art Classroom," Kevin M. Tavin and David Anderson look at the hidden messages that children can be learning from Disney movies, and articulates the danger in not discussing with children the values and forms of identity that this media promotes.  The article looked at aspects of different movies such as the way the local culture was portrayed in Aladdin, the way Gaston treated Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and the fact that Tarzan took place in Africa, however every character in the movie was white. As educators, Tavin and Anderson argue that we need to help students be critical about the way "corporations such as Disney produce knowledge about the world, distribute and regulate information, help construct identity, and promote consumption in visual culture" (34). If we do not teach critical media literacy to our students then they may develop distorted self images, as well as adhere to false stereotypes about other members of society. 

http://mediasmarts.ca/teacher-resources is a great resource for teaching children about critical media literacy. This website filters lessons based on subject and grade, and discusses a variety of different topics that are displayed in media such as body image, violence, gender representation, etc. It is a great resource and makes it easy to teach children to be critical about the different media messages that are being presented to them. Media literacy is an important topic and is one that teachers need to start bringing into the classroom. If we don't teach students to be more critical of media then the results will be extremely negative.


Source:

Tavin, K. M., and Anderson, D. (2003). Teaching (popular) visual culture: Deconstructing Disney in the elementary art classroom. Art Education, 56(3), 21-23; 32-35.

Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom

      Throughout the years it has been noted by teachers that males tend to perform lower in reading profeciency tests than females do. Many studies have found that this gap in ability has begun to get larger over time. As males struggle with reading they begin to see reading as a task that is unenjoyable and as a result fail to improve. This is a problem that needs to be fixed, and many educators have begun to search for ways to improve male reading and transform it into an activity that males will actually enjoy. Gavigan. K explores a possible solution to this issue in her paper entitled "More Powerful than a Locomotive: Using Graphic Novels to Motivate Struggling Male Adolescent Readers." Here she discusses how using graphic novels in the classroom can help improve male adolescent reading skills and make the activity of reading one that they actually find pleasurable.

       She started her study by creating a graphic novel book club, and she got four boys who struggle with reading to participate in it. The students partook in twelve book club sessions, and in each session they were able to have twenty minutes of silent reading followed by ten minutes of discussion. At the end of the book club the teachers noticed an improvement in the students' value of reading scores, and their reading comprehension. The students even articulated that their motivation to read had been enhanced by the illustrations in the graphic novels that they read. The students said that they prefered reading Graphic novels "Because I can understand mostly what’s happening right away…If you don’t understand something, maybe the picture can help you out a little". Based on this comment we can see that the combination of text and art seemed to help the students make sense of the vocabulary and the content more easily than if they had been reading text-only literature.

      Based on this study we can see that graphic novels are a good resource to bring into the classroom because of their multimodal nature. Students who are not strong readers are able to compensate by creating meaning from the visuals in the text. Graphic novels are a resource that can be used in a variety of different subject areas as well. Subjects such as religion, english, and history can use graphic novels to present information to the class in a way that is more interesting and accessible. Gavigan even suggests that graphic novels can be used as stepping stones, and once a student becomes comfortable with a story, you can give them the text version to read.

      Another strategy that can be used to enhance student learning is to get students to create their own comic strips or graphic novels. The website http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/ is an excellent resource that allows students to create avatars of themselves, as well as make made-up characters and use them to express themselves through their own comic strips. The website also categorizes activities by school subject and contains many creative assignment ideas that you can give your class when teaching a specific topic. This website is great for everything from getting your students to create scenes from the novel they are studying, to creating situations in the science lab where they need to practice safety. This website seems to be very versitile, and is a resource that students will enjoy useing, and is accomodating to multiple learning styles. I think bringing graphic novels into the classroom is a great strategy and is something that will improve student performance.

Source:
Gavigan, K. (2011). More powerful than a locomotive: Using graphic novels to motivate struggling male adolescent readers. Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 1(3).

Technology and ESL Students

Working with students is challenging, and it can be even more difficult when you are teaching a student who is ESL and is not strong in English. This is where it can be very useful to use technology where "text is often much more than communication through the written word, since meanings are constructed through sound, image and gesture as well as interaction" (Davies and Merchant 14). By using technology the student has access to other mediums in which to communicate information other than simply the written word. The student is also able to keep up with the class by gathering information through the use of pictures, music, videos, etc.  To accomodate for these you can use technology in the teaching of your lessons, as well as in the assignment options that you give your students to complete. This will make it easier for these students whose native language is not english to be able to express their knowledge to the teacher and to be successful as a whole. 

Below you will find two resources that I have found that I think would be very useful when working with ESL students:

1.    www.easel.ly

This is a website that allows you to create infographics for students. With an infographic the students get the important information about a topic neatly organized in a poster. They make it easier for students to see patterns or trends, and allow students to get information quickly. Infographics are a good resource to use in a classroom because they accomodate students who are visual learners, and those who may have a short attention span.  This is also a great resource to use when teaching ESL students because it relies a lot more on pictures and diagrams than words to communicate information. This allows students to use the information they already know from their own backgrounds to make meaning of the new objects being shown to them. ESL students will eventually need to learn language skills and to read and write in English, however, this is a resource that will ensure students do not fall to far behind in the mean time.

2.  www.glogster.com

This is a website that allows students to express their knowledge and skills creatively through the use of multimedia posters. Here students can create posters where they can include, audio, animations, texts, pictures and videos in order to share information on a given topic. This website can be used for book reports, research  reports, and assignments in a variety of different subjects. It is a resource that appeals to many different learning styles and gives students a new way to display their knowledge and be successful in the classroom. This is a good resource to give ESL students to help them communicate in a way that does not fully rely on textual literacy. With this tool they are able to use a variety of different multimedia sources to show their understanding. This will help teachers to evaluate students who may not be as successful in essays, or formal research reports. 

These are two neat resources that can be easily used in the classroom to help student learning. Both are free and just require a username and email address in order to use them.  I think it is nice to give students a break from more writing based styles of learning and assessment, and allow them to use their creativity to express what they know. I look forward to trying out both resources in my classroom and seeing what the students create

Source:

Davies, J. &, Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 as social practice. In Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation (pp. 11-22). New York: Peter Lang. 

Technology and Literacy

As technology progresses there becomes new resources available to us that aid in teaching literacy to children. Many scholars have started researching to better understand how electronic devices such as e-books have changed literacy in the early years of a child's development. In this post I will explore the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in reading activities with children through the use of both print texts, and e-books. I will conclude by identifying which resource I feel better promotes literacy for children

In the text "Digital, Hybrid, and Multilingual literacies in early childhood" by Aria Razfar and Eunah Yang we learn about a study that was conducted where a middle class Korean mother reads both print books and e-books to her children in order to identify the differences in these interactions. She observes that out of the two resources, the interaction with the print book lasts longer. This could be because the children are able to physically interact with the pictures on the page and are able to flip the pages themselves. Here reading is a more active activity than when children sit passively and watch a book being read electronically on a device. One strength that I see with print based media is that you have greater control over the pace of the reading. A parent or teacher is able to stop reading if they feel the child needs an additional explaination, or if they would like to ask the child comprehension questions. This is an important part of reading that Shirley Brice Heath discusses in her text "What No Bedtime Story Means." She argues that the most important part of reading with your child is the conversations that take place about the text because this helps children to practice the kind of thinking that teachers demand when they ask questions in the classroom. Heath argues that children's literacy skills suffer when they are "not encouraged to move their understanding of books into other situational contexts or to apply it in their general knowledge of the world about them" (328). Children get less of on opportunity to have these discussions about a book when they are reading an e-book and are listening to it being read to them from beginning to end. 


A strength that I can see with using e-books though is that children who do not like reading may be more inclined to do so if they are able to use a technological device that makes reading more exciting for them. The child's interest in the technology itself, however, can be something that can distract from the actual story. A strength of this resource that is highlighted by Razfar and Yang is the fact that through e-books children become more independent and gain control over their learning environment. With an e-book a child does not need an adult to read with them, and is able to read all on their own. This is positive because it allows children to be less dependent on adults and teaches them that they are capable of doing things on their own.  The negative aspect of this independance, however, is that children miss out on the bonding opportunity of cuddling up and reading with their parent. This closeness is an important aspect of the interactionof reading, and it may have a negative impact on the relationship between the parent and child.


There are many things to consider when deciding which resource is best for helping children to read. I personally believe that both resources are valuable, however there may be situations were one is more appropriate and advantageous than the other. I believe that it may be better to introduce reading and literacy to children using text based books, and then give children e-books once they are older and the foundation of their knowedge of reading has already been laid. This way they do not miss out on the chance to bond with their family, which text based literature offers, and are able to participate in reading as a social activity. This may help to foster a love for reading that will stay with them as they grow.




Sources:

Heath, S. B. (1982/2001). What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school. In A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (pp. 318-342). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Razfar, A., & Yang, E. (2010). Digital, hybrid, & multilingual literacies in early childhood. Language Arts, 88(2), 114-24.

Web 2.0 in the Classroom

What is Web 2.0?

Davies and Merchant describe Web 2.0 as "textually mediated social practice".  This is when the internet is used as not simply a source of one way information, but when it is used in interaction with other people.  Reading a blog post, for example, is not considered a web 2.0 activity, however it is if you are actively engaging with what you have read and are leaving comments for the writer and other readers to see. Web 2.0 sites allow users to collaborate ideas and share their thoughts, experiences, and perspectives on issues.

 How can we use Web 2.0 in the classroom?

It is not enough anymore for students to be asked to read a text and memorize it. Education is now making a turn toward incorporating learning strategies that require students to be collaborative and asks them to interact with the information they are reading, instead of simply absorbing it. This could mean creating a classroom blog where students are able to comment on the readings for that class, as well as other student's posts. This asks students to think about the parts of the text that stood out to them, and discuss why they are so important. It also asks students to think critically about what they are reading and to connect it to the world around them. Here they are also given the opportunity to learn from each other and see how our experiences effect the way we interpret a text. The element of collaboration that web 2.0 offers makes the student's learning experience more rich. This brings new dimension to learning that may not have been present before.

Web 2.0 Resource:

www.edmodo.com

This is a website that allows teachers to communicate with students using a medium that is professional and maintains appropriate student teacher boundaries. Teachers can use Edmodo to post schedules of when assignments are due, post links and videos for students view, and facilitate conversation where students are able to work collaboratively and post directly on each other's comments. Teachers can also use this website to assign assignments and as a place for students to submit their work to be marked.  Students like this resource because it has the appeal of a social networking site, and there is an app that they can download to communicate with the class on their phones. This makes learning more social and collaborative instead of an independent activity which is why it is considered a web 2.0 resource. 

The Edmodo website describes the strengths of this resource by saying that, "Edmodo is designed to get students excited about learning by using an environment that is familiar to them in a familiar environment. On Edmodo, teachers can continue classroom discussions online, give polls to check for student understanding, and award badges to individual students based on performance or behaviour." Another strength that this website has is that it is able to connect teachers to students, parents, and administrators so that all are informed about what the students are learning  in the classroom, and the amount each students is participating.  

The website makes it clear that this is a resource that they want school boards to adapt and bring in to every classroom, however I believe some schools may still be apprehensive of having teachers and students communicating online, even though the site is supposed to be a safe educational resource. I do personally  think that this site is a safe way for teachers and students to interact since it is similar to the "moodle" platform that some universities use, and I have not heard of any issues between professors and students in regards to using that site. Overall this may be a resource that is beneficial to bring into the classroom as it makes learning more appealing to students and gives learning the ability to happen outside of the classroom walls. It allows students to interact and share their thoughts and ideas with each other, while at the same time keeping them organized and on task. 

Sources:

About Edmodo." Edmodo. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. <https://www.edmodo.com/about>.
Davies, J. &, Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 as social practice. In Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation (pp. 11-22). New York: Peter Lang. 

Welcome to Education 2.0!

This blog has been created to explore the role of new technologies in schools and the ways in which teachers can teach and use social literacy in the classroom. As technology advances, we see technological devices creep into the classroom more and more, and this has an impact on the way we teach our students.  Teachers are required to learn these new devices and incorporate them into their lessons in the hope that they will create a learning experience for children that is more engaging, and accommodating to multiple learning styles. Becoming literate on these new devices and finding ways to incorporate them into lessons can be tricky, however, so in this blog I will try and give suggestions for neat resources that teachers can use in the classroom, as well as possible lesson ideas for each. I will also discuss the opinions of scholars who study education and specialize in media literacy and the use of technology in the classroom and give some strategies that can be employed in the classroom based on their research. I hope that you all will find this to be a useful resource, and will borrow some of my ideas to try out in your own classrooms. Remember, teaching is an art  not a science, so get creative, and have fun with your lessons!