Media Literacy Update

Nicole, Darlene and I are doing our media literacy project based on Alcohol on the web. We have already met once to discuss our topic, layout of our lesson plan, and what resources we will need to teach this lesson. We are meeting again tomorrow to gather our information together to see how much we have succesfuly completed so far.

second life

Second life is spreading through colleges and being used in classrooms. Will this resource latch on to middle schools?


http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20363

No more laptops

For some reason, I can not say that I am totally suprised that Liverpool has decided to get rid of their laptops in the classoom. If they do not see any academic improvements, then why continue to invest in such a large purchase?

However, it did not sound as though they were even trying to use the laptops for educational purposes. Have they even heard of Will Richardson? I did not read one thing about a class blog, a class website, students making their own wikis, podcasts, newsletters, enhanced power points (etc). Obviously grades are not going to increase if all students are doing with the laptops are typing papers, checking their email or looking at porn while in school.

No matter what, there will always be that one student who will break through the security and have access to sites which are not appropriate. Although I imagine it would be hard for a teacher to know what every student is doing on their laptop, but where were the adults while students were hacking buisnesses and looking at porn? If you ask me, the only people to blame for the termination of the laptops are the educators. They allowed the situation to get out of hand and they clearly never took a technology course if they don't know how to integrate the internet and computers into their lessons.

It is unfortunate that this is happening because there are so many students that would be incredibly engaged in blogging and having the ability to publish their own content. The school is at fault here. It is as simple as that. I would love to mail them Will Richardson or Friedman's book so they can realize what a huge mistake they have made. They just decreased those students chances of being Untouchables. How sad is that when we are busting our butts to make sure we know how to make our future students are untouchables? They had the tools and they failed.

That school just cost someone their future career.

Video games

Apparently it is true...video games a beneficial!


http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingfeature?eid=513460&page=0

The "Interview"

First of all, I would take a deep breath and try not to freak out. Being put on the spot is not easy at all.

• The first thing I would do is show the princpal how to create a class blog. I would discuss the benefits of the class having one and the benefits of each student have their own. I would demonstrate how to incorportate educational links into the blogs and explain that the main importance of having the blog is so that learning and communication continues outside of the classroom.

• My next step: Show the principal how to make a newsletter. I would be able to explain how I used this program in college for my classmates to read articles on a conference I attended and well as making a theader view for an English class. I would show all the different ways you can introduce content and why this would be a useful tool for students to use.

• Next : Demonstrate an enhanced power point. Show a variety of tools students can use within this program, how you can add content from the internet into the power point...etc.
  

Chapter 4 - Hobbs

In the text "Reading the Media" by Renee Hobbs, I think the most important part of the chapter is titled: "The Power of Dialogue".

"Teaching about media and commication didn't work with that kind of predictabilty because students felt confident to bring their own experiences and knowledge into the classroom. They weren't timid."

• I am not sure if I read this incorrectly, but this section of the paragraph sounds as though Hobbs is feeling negative about this fact. In the even she is being positive about it, isn't this what we want for our students? Don't we want them to be confident in their school work and with what they do in the classroom? Not too long ago we read and article about how to use criticism/constructive criticsm in the classroom and how the students confidence affected their grades. The fact that students are confident with using technology is wonderful because the only reaction from confidence will be positive!

"...many teachers like to be the experts-the ones doing most of the talking in the classroom about the topics they care about."

• This is the wonderful thing about technology! The teachers no longer have to pressure themselves into thinking they need to know everything. Students can finally learn about the things they want and they can control how they learn based on technology resources. Teachers no longer need to be afraid of asking the students questions because they are also becoming the experts in the classroom. Sound familiar? It should!This has been an ongoing topic all semester!

"As a result, teachers relied on their expertise in using critical questioning and articulation techniques."

• This is where we need to be experts. We and other teachers need to allow the students to control the lesson and the classroom. We can further challenge them by asking questions and speaking to them as though they are finally the professionals.

This week's project...

This week in class, Ashley, Theresa and I will be demonstrating an Enhanced Power Point based on the topic of book trailers. The Enhanced Power Point is very tricky to work with that first because as we know with mac computers, nothing appears with just one right click. I really enjoyed making this power point and our group is excited about sharing it with you. For those of you that were in 374 last semester..there is a suprise at the end :)