Welcome To my Literacy Blog!
I am a teacher candidate in my fifth year of concurrent education J/I at Brock University. In the next couple of weeks, I am going to be talking about some resources for educators to bring into the classroom that focuses on the four strands of literacy. Some of the resources I have used personally and other resources I have seen other educators use in their classrooms.
Media Literacy
This week I am going to be focusing on the Ontario Elementary Literacy Curriculum strand Media Literacy. I am not tech-savvy and with a lot of media being online today with society becoming more technologically advanced, I am scared to teach this strand in the classroom. Although, I find it to be a vital component to teach in literacy as I myself have seen a fake post on social media and believed what I had been reading (I hate to admit, but more than once!). Students need to develop a critical lens when looking at media and be able to detect the reliability and biases of a resource.
Resource on What is Media Literacy?
I have used this resource myself when creating lesson plans for some of my classes to understand what media literacy is. This resource I find is for educators more than students. Jean Kilbourne has an EdD and is an expert on media literacy. In her YouTube video, she states the importance of educating students
on media. I find this resource to be vital in understanding the importance of being literate in media. Kilbourne
states that “95% of the information we get is controlled by only 5 major
corporations who are in the business of marketing”. I interact with news stories every day on social media. Sometimes I share these stories with other educators on my social media accounts. Knowing that the media is controlled by such few corporations, I will now be more careful about what I share with other educators and how I present the information.
Resource on #FakeNews
This resource is a great video that gives a lesson plan on how to teach about
credible sources online. Emily Cook a teacher of grades 6 and 8 teaches her
students on finding sites that are trustworthy and reliable to use for
research. Emily Cook assigns her students a site where they must evaluate
whether it is trustworthy or not a credible site to use. Emily Cook gives her
students a chart that they must fill out while exploring the website. The chart
gives them guidelines on whether this site is a good resource to use or not a
trustworthy site. Emily Cook to make sure that her students are understanding
the task has a class discussion on the sites that the students explore. Emily Cook’s
lesson plan would be a good introductory lesson to Media literacy that
especially focuses on the topic of fake news and credible resources. This activity
lines up with the specific expectation of media literacy in the Ontario
Elementary Language Curriculum of students being able to “demonstrate an
understanding of a variety of media texts” (p. 14) and “identify some media
forms and explain how the convention and techniques associated with them are
used to create meaning” (p. 14). I would incorporate this lesson into a grade 5 or 6 classroom. I find that it is a vital tool students need to have when conducting research.
An additional resource that can be useful with Emily Cook’s lesson is the Nike
Commercial of Kobe Bryant jumping over a car. I would show this commercial to my students to show them that not everything they see on TV is
true. The Nike Ad shows Kobe Bryant jumping over a speeding car but in reality,
that jump is a highly dangerous stunt and impossible. I would also then show them the next YouTube video shows how the real commercial was filmed and how camera ticks can make the stunt look real.
Resource on Biases in Media
Media Smarts is a great resource that teaches different aspects of media. On Media Smarts they provide a resource on
marketing advertisements and the strategies that corporations use in their ads
and social media sites to target different groups of people to buy into their
product. The resource sets out the Canadian laws on media and how corporations
follow these guidelines while still reaching out to their targeted audiences.
The Ontario Elementary Literacy Curriculum specific expectation for the media literacy
strand is students being able to” identify some media forms and explain how the conventions and
techniques associated with them are used to create meaning” (p.14). This resource
covers that expectation as it teaches the techniques behind different media
forms. I went to an arts conference in September and one of the speakers discusses using Media Smarts in their classroom. They showed me how Media Smarts can help students understand the elements used to create media so that students could create their different media platforms. I find that Media Smarts provides resources for all different age groups from grades 1 to 8.
Additional resources that can be used with this source:
Animoto https://animoto.com
Animoto
is a free video maker. This tool can be used in helping to teach media studies
as educators can have students create their own commercials to sell a product
of their choice. I would incorporate this tool in grades 4 and up. This will allow students to meet the expectation in the curriculum of being able to “create a variety of media texts for different
purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques”
(p. 14). In grade 11, I used Animoto to create a movie trailer for a book I read in English class. I liked how this tool is free and easy to use. If you use the pictures or music provided in Animoto they are copyright free so you do not need to get permission to use them or cite them.
This game is created by Media Smarts
an organization designed to teach about critical media. The game is targeted
for a young audience and it gets children to pick the gimmicks that they want
to use for their cereal advertisement. As children pick their choices the game
describes how cereal companies use these techniques to get children interested
in buying their product. When playing this game it definitely was targeted for a grade 1 to 4 audience. The game uses simple language and cartoon images that younger children would love. I enjoyed how the game described the different aspects of the commercial that I designed and why commercials incorporate these aspects.
Stay Connected!
I will be posting in the next couple of weeks on resources that I have discovered or used that connects to the other strands in the Ontario Language Curriculum. Please comment below of any resources that you have used in your classroom to teach media literacy!
Resources
[Common Sense Education]. (23 Oct 2014). Using
Critical Thinking to Find Trustworthy Websites. [Video file]. Retrieved
from https://youtu.be/c3vzNooWqPA
Kilbourne J.
[Kids in the House]. (7 Oct 2013). The Importance of Teaching Kids
Media Literacy - Jean Kilbourne. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/cz-zatefhIs
[MixtapeLink].
(18 Feb 2011). How Kobe Bryant Jumped over a Speeding Car?. [Video file.] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/OyUXG_LUJVs
Media Smarts:
Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy. Marketing and Consumerism. Retrieved from http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/marketing-consumerism
Media
Smarts. (2019). CoCo’s AdverSmarts. Retrieved
from http://mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/games/coco/flash/start.html
Ontario
Ministry of Education. (2006). The Ontario curriculum grades 1‐8: Language
[Program of Studies]. Retrieved from
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
[rockboy1138].
(29 May 2009). Sport Science: Kobe Jumps
Car Part 2 of 2. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/NUzryIW-MLo
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