After reading the article "Media Literacy in Higher Education," by Jennifer Fleming, think about the different definitions of media literacy. Also, consider her example of implementing media literacy in the classroom.
Respond to the following questions by commenting on this blog post. Feel free to comment on the response of your fellow institute attendees.
Going by one of the many definitions of media literacy presented in the article, do you currently implement media literacy in your classroom? If so, in what context? If not, how do you think you could encourage media literacy in your course?
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Since one of the institute leaders played a key role in a multimedia assignment in my most recent class, I'll go back a semester. I was the principal creator of a group media assignment for my fall INTG class. I think the assignment worked as far as encouraging critical thinking skills, but reflecting on it in light of the readings I don't think it was so successful in implementing media literacy. I did devote part of a class session to showing the students a video on an aspect of the topic (capital punishment) and leading a discussion on what made the video successful in encouraging critical dialogue, but I don't think this sufficiently prepared the students to "produce information for specific outcomes" (Fleming, p. 138), which was supposed to be a key objective of the assignment. The 5 questions that Fleming asked in her Image of War assignment would have come in handy. I'm not sure that production necessarily needs to be part of the definition of media literacy for everybody, but in this case it ought to have been, and more intentionally integrated into the class.
ReplyDeleteEven before reading this article, I knew that I have not incorporated media literacy into my classroom. This is confirmed with Hobbs definition of media literacy, which includes "the process of accessing, critically analyzing and creating media messages using media tools."
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of ways that I could bring media literacy into the classroom, but the ability to do it correctly and effectively is what has held me back. However, the question is how can I encourage media literacy. By offering students the ability to select a multimedia response to an assignment, they would have the freedom to choose the method or product with which they are most familiar.
The piece of the article that I appreciated the most was "Putting Theory into Practice in the College Classroom." Students want to know why what they are reading/doing/writing is relevant or important to them. I understand that. By using the example of "The Image War" exercise I saw how this exercise in relevance could be taken to a new level using media tools, a level that enables students to engage critically with already seemingly familiar material.
ReplyDeleteI do use videos in my classes, both text provided as well as sites like youtube to stimulate discussion and learning. Having read her article now, perhaps paying more attention to what she outlines would provide a better learning experience.
ReplyDeleteI have used full length movies, photographs, political cartoons, short videos from youtube to teach critical thinking, argument, literary analysis in my classes. students have also submitted mulimdeia powerpoints, videos, and even a graphic novel for assignments. I would like to create more opportunities to do this and tie those opportunities directly to the learning objectives.
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