As is wont to happen on the Web, I found this terrific quote by scientist John Seeley Brown by way of this article about communities of practice at The Learning Circuits Blog, which I found by way of this post by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach about virtual communities. In an interview with Line Zine editor Marcia Conner, Brown spoke eloquently about learning, knowledge, and the relevance of constructivism:
We tend to forget that learning and sense-making go hand in hand: we tend to forget that for the learner, the student, there’s always this sense-making going on even if we, as teachers, think everything is clear. Now, suddenly, teachers have been thrown into the same kind of chaos as their students. This has created a symmetry that really focuses on how we need to jointly learn together.
What a gift it is to celebrate balance and harmony amidst "chaos"!
Nominations for the 2007 Edublog Awards will be accepted through Nov. 20. Voting should begin around Nov. 24. Here are my picks for some, not all, categories:
Best individual blog Dangerously Irrelevant by Dr. Scott McCleod Dr. McCleod is a generous, selfless, and responsive member of the edublogosphere who deserves the recognition.
Best group blog Leader Talk sponsored by CASTLE (Center for Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education) What a treat it is for me (a teacher/learner) to read the perspectives of education administrators who also struggle with the theory and practice of technology infusion.
Best designed blog Newly Ancient by Arthus a beautiful blog written from a student perspective
Most influential blog post The Ripe Environment at Discourse about Discourse by Ben Wilkoff Without question this award will go to Did You Know/Shift Happens, the slideshow by Karl Fisch that went viral last spring. It was phenomenal and deserves credit for the impact it made within edtech circles and way beyond. Nonetheless, I have referred to Wilkoff's post on a number of occasions here at ThinkTime, and I have cited Wilkoff in my independent inquiry about Web 2.0 and new teacher induction. "The Ripe Environment" combined with George Siemens' powerful post It's not about tools. It's about change, have served as guideposts for me this semester.
Best educational use of a social networking service Classroom 2.0 founded by Steve Hargadon on the Ning platform My first foray into social networking has been a wholly positive experience because of this amazing virtual professional development community nurtured and maintained by Hargadon and a host of volunteer moderators.
The Illiterates of the 21st Century The fact is, that most of those working in education, in politics, in the civil service are the equivalent of modern day illiterates. Without understanding how to read and write on the web, there is no other way, really, to describe this state of being. This is why media literacy teaching and learning need to be the top of every school's literacy strategy. Reading and writing is about more than pen and paper these days.
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?
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.
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!
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.)
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.
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.
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?
