By Sunday January 20, a whirlwind of events that could aptly be described as a nightmarish mix of cultural conflict and media-based miscommunication and distortion began to be seen as “a fuller and more complicated picture … of the videotaped encounter between a Native American man and a throng of high school boys wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ gear outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.” (New York Times, Sarah Mervosh and Emily S. Rueb) For interested educators, here is a link to a highly developed lesson plan related to intersections between social studies and media literacy that concerns this controversial current event: from PBS Newshour’s Daily Video – Lesson plan: Covington Catholic incident through a media literacy lens. For another piece on media literacy related to how news can be distorted or how actual video sources of news reporting can skew reactions to events, you can also consult the piece Media Literacy and the problem with the term “fake news,” with NAMLE executive director Michelle Ciulia Lipkin. Finally, for perspectives on how this intense encounter became a viral moment, check out this podcast from The Daily, The Confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial.
Posts Tagged ‘NAMLE’
Media Literacy Week Pledge
Posted in Media Literacy, Social Studies, tagged Media Literacy Week, Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, NAMLE, politico.com on November 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »
It’s national Media Literacy Week hosted by our professional association NAMLE! Sign the pledge to be media literate! And here you can check out NAMLE Executive Director Michelle Ciulla Lipkin talking about Giving Kids A Voice During Election Season on politico.com.
New Books by Media Theorist Douglas Rushkoff
Posted in Chapter 5, Media Literacy, tagged A.D.D., Digital Nation, Douglas Rushkoff, Goran Sudzuka, Laughing Squid, Merchants of Cool, NAMLE, Program or Be Programmed on January 5, 2012| 4 Comments »
Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff, primarily known as the media theorist who has written some of the most important books on digital media and the Internet, and who coined phrases such as “viral media,” “digital native,” and “social currency,” has created some of the most interesting and thought-provoking materials for classroom lessons about contemporary media, including the documentaries The Merchants of Cool (which I have used many times in conjunction with my teaching with Moving Images) and Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, and his most recent book Program or Be Programmed (this Laughing Squid blog page features videos and an excellent intro to the book). Last summer, Rushkoff was a keynote speaker at the 2011 NAMLE conference in Philadelphia at which I presented a workshop on integrating media literacy and digital production in the classroom. Rushkoff’s speech was engrossing and quite funny; moreover, I was impressed by his participation in the conference – he paid close attention to the people and events over the course of the weekend and was clearly connected to what others had to say and do.
A.D.D.: by Rushkoff and illustrator Goran Sudzuka
At the end of this month, a graphic novel he has written with illustrator Goran Sudzuka, A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division, is being released by Vertigo. What a perfect concept for Rushkoff – a cyber-driven story composed of text and visuals about adolescent gamers who are being manipulated by a future society and must uncover the secret agendas and codes of their world! Graphic novels continue to be one of the most dynamic media around – one of the nice surprises that as the world goes digital, drawing continues to make a comeback in innovation and inspiration – and the relationship between comics and moving images offers boundless potential for visual storytellers and learning scenarios. There is an excellent interview with Rushkoff about the book on his website.
Common Core State Standards and Media Literacy Education: Initial Thoughts
Posted in Media Literacy, tagged CCSS, Common Core State Standards Initiative, Education Week, Implementing CCSS, LearningMedia, Media Literacy Education, Moving Images, NAMLE, PBS on September 29, 2011| 2 Comments »
Common Core State Standards Initiative
Many educators across the country have been, are, or will be busy reading, dissecting, evaluating, and debating the Common Core State Standards as a new guide to developing benchmarks, lessons, and assessments across K-12 curricula.
The development of higher order thinking – as reflected in reading and writing, analysis and creation – is at the core of the CCSS. As one reads through the standards, it is clear that the development of a framework for evaluating and creating media – whether print or non-print – is at the core of the skills highlighted in the standards. These skills are the cornerstones to every chapter in Moving Images, and this should be seen as welcome news by the National Association of Media Literacy Education and other groups that have developed standards for media literacy based on higher-order skills.
Specifically, in the Anchor Standards, media educators must note a standard listed under “Integration of Knowledge and Ideas”: “(7) Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.” In addition, the use of technology is noted in numerous anchor standards, particularly “digital sources,” and comparison and contrast with visual media is noted in multiple anchor standards. In the Speaking and Listening Standards, under the section of “Comprehension and Collaboration” students are asked to “(2) Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g. visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.” This mirrors common media literacy education standards such as those established by NAMLE, and these goals reflect many of the essential questions posed in Moving Images, such as those investigated in Chapters 1, 5, and 6.
There are clearly countless questions and challenges that exist and will arise for educators as they wrestle with this major new mandate. In particular, the stress on non-fiction texts already has many English teachers concerned about the effects of implementing these goals on the study of literature, and the lack of effective integration of creativity in these goals is also a source of profound frustration for many educators.
Update: here are articles and perspectives from Education Week on current status of CCSS. And here is a Common Core photo blog.
Update 2: Here is a more recent blog post about the CCSS for a presentation I made at the 2013 Northeast Media Literacy Conference.
Update 3: Here are resources by PBS’s LearningMedia initiative that provide information and materials related to media literacy and implementing the Common Core.
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