1. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
Frank Baker media educator
Media Literacy Clearinghouse
March 12, 2007

3. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
With the advent and popularity of YouTube, Current TV, and similar venues, young people have become media producers DIY (do it yourself)

4. Multitasking “digital natives”

5. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“Our students are growing up in a world saturated with media messages…yet, they (and their teachers) receive little or no training in the skills of analyzing or re-evaluating these messages, many of which make use of language, moving images, music, sound effects.” Source: R.Hobbs, Journal Adult & Adolescent Literacy, February 2004

6. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
"With an ever-increasing range of media messages in so many forms, students need to understand the process by which authors convey meaning about socially constructed experience. The use of digital media and popular cultural texts not only stimulates young people's engagement, motivation, and interest in learning, but enables them to build a richer, more nuanced understanding of how texts of all kinds work within a culture."
Source: “Reading The Media,” R.Hobbs

7. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
"Today's students need to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and effective communicators who are proficient in both core subjects and new 21st century skills. I urge educators, business and community leaders and policymakers to work together to create a 21st century skills initiative for every school district in America. We owe our school children nothing less."

8. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“Students will be able to use technology tools (e.g. multimedia authoring, presentation, Web tools, digital cameras, scanners) for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom.”

9. “It would be a breach of our duties as
Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“It would be a breach of our duties as
teachers for us to ignore the rhetorical
power of visual forms of media in
combination with text and sound..the
critical media literacy we need to teach
must include evaluation of these media,
lest our students fail to see, understand, and
learn to harness the persuasive power of
visual media.”
NTCE Resolution on Visual Literacy

10. Alan November author: Empowering Students With Technology
Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“We are faced with the
consequences of not
teaching our children to
decode the content. The
persuasiveness of the
Internet will lead to more
and more students
potentially being
manipulated by the media”
Alan November author: Empowering Students With Technology

11. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
Recommendation: Becoming smarter about new sources of information. “In an age of overflowing information and proliferating media, kids need to rapidly process what's coming at them and distinguish between what‘s reliable and what isn't.”
Dec. 10, 2006
December 10, 2006

12. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
"In school, we spend 13 years on reading and writing. That's great, but how many years do we spend on media literacy? It's virtually zero. It seems like a missed
Dr. David Thornburg, Senior fellow of the Congressional Institute for the Future
opportunity."

13. What is “media literacy?” Take a few minutes to draft a definition.
Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
What is “media literacy?”
Take a few minutes to draft a definition.
Consider its relevance in your
curriculum area.

14. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
"Media literacy is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More specifically, it is education that aims to increase the students' understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they construct reality.  Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media products. " Media Literacy Resource Guide, Ministry of Education Ontario

15. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“A growing body of research suggests that media literacy instruction improves student reading, viewing, and listening comprehension of print, audio, and videotexts; message analysis and interpretation; and writing skills. As students progress, they develop transferable analytical tools for learning and gain concrete connections between the curriculum and their experiences outside of school.”
Media Matters, Access Learning, March 2005

17. Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
“Movies, advertisements, and all other visual media are tools teachers need to use and media we must master if we are to maintain our credibility in the coming years.”
Jim Burke, from The English Teacher’s Companion
video

18. Six Key Areas of Media literacy education
1. Who made this text and why? (Agency)
2. What sort of text is this? (Category)
3. How was this text produced? (Technology)
4. How do I make sense of this text? (Language)
5. Who is the intended audience of this text? (Audience)
6. What does this text say about its subject? (Representation)

19. Five core concepts (U.S.)
All media are constructed
Media are languages with their own set of rules
Media convey values and points of view
Different people experience the same media messages differently
Media are concerned with power/profit
Source: Center for Media Literacy

20. All media are constructions
media construct/represent reality

22. Media use their own languages
The Language of IM BRB Be Right Back PIR Parents In Room LOL Laughing out Loud
The Language of Film Cameras Lights Audio (sound, music) Editing Set Design Costume Actors’ expressions Makeup

23. Cell phone language ROAMING (is this about deer and buffalo?)
SMART PHONES (are there dumb phones?)
DROPPED CALLS (is everybody dropping their telephones?)

24. Media: values and points-of-view

25. Audience negotiate meaning

26. Media= Power + Profit

27. The Big 6
News Corp (FOX) GE (NBC/Universal) CBS Disney (ABC) AOL/Time Warner (CNN) VIACOM

28. Purpose of TV?
This program is brought to
you by the sponsor.

29. Purpose of TV?
You are brought to the sponsor by the program.

30. Revised ELA Standards Guiding Principle 8
Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
Revised ELA Standards Guiding Principle 8
An effective English language arts curriculum provides for literacy in all forms of media.

31. different viewpoints/treatment of a given situation or event
Engaging Students With Critical Thinking & Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills
Current ELA: Communication: Viewing Grades 9-12
Demonstrate the ability to make connections between nonprint sources and his/her prior knowledge, other sources and the world.
Compare/contrast:
different viewpoints/treatment of a given situation or event

32. Media literacy ideas for ELA
Non-print texts (TV, film, music)
Understanding bias & stereotypes
Analyzing techniques of persuasion
(for example– in advertising)
The language of TV/film (camera work, lighting, music)
Visual literacy (photography)
Blogging; graphic novels

33. Media literacy: Social Studies
Analyzing editorial cartoons
Examining historical photographs
Studying past/present propaganda
Understanding bias/stereotypes
History of American broadcasting
Understanding US communications policy
Analyzing political advertising

34. Editorial Cartoon

35. Media literacy: Health Ed
Body Image
Marketing/advertising of food
Tobacco, alcohol advertising
How media influences sex behaviors

36. Media literacy-critical inquiry
Who created/produced the message?
What was the producer’s purpose?
For whose eyeballs is this intended?
What techniques are used both to:
a) attract attention b) increase believability
Who or what might be omitted and why?
Where can I go to verify the message?

37. Approaching media literacy
Still images (visual literacy) Messages which incorporate images (e.g. advertising) Moving images (languages of TV, film)

38. Visual literacy
Applying the critical thinking/viewing questions to historical and other images

39. Images in Advertising Who created it? For what purpose?
For which audience?
Using what techniques?
What lifestyle is promoted?
Where (what publication) might you find this; why?
How does it make you feel?
How might I change the message?

40. Moving images: TV & Film
The languages of TV & film include:
CAMERA
LIGHTS
SOUND
EDITING
SET DESIGN

41. Moving images: TV
TV Commercial: Cell Phones (audio and video) Everyone listens (with their eyes closed)
At the conclusion, open your eyes and
write down everything you HEARD
Script

42. Moving images: TV Critical analysis & deconstruction
VISA commercial
Critical analysis & deconstruction
Setting; Time of day
Role of music
Facial expressions as customer meets cashier
Implied message intended by VISA

43. Process of film making
Would your students know the process of film making? Script or screenplay Storyboard Production Post production

44. Heidi Hayes Jacob Ed Consultant
Film in the classroom
"If video is how we are communicating and persuading in this new century, why aren't more students writing screenplays as part of their schoolwork?"
Heidi Hayes Jacob Ed Consultant

45. Martin Scorsese Film director
Film in the classroom
“Movies are a door to knowledge — knowledge of society, knowledge of history, knowledge of art…..movies (taught to) students (makes them) think critically about film and it provides them with a deeper understanding of this uniquely influential art form.”
Martin Scorsese Film director

46. Moving images: film
Docu-drama Novel Adaptation Opening techniques Opening

47. Activity TKAM screenplay excerpt
Read the opening to Because of Winn-Dixie
In your group, storyboard this scene from your POV

48. Student media production
Animaction: Anti tobacco PSA messages
One camera video production: Vermont

49. Workshops Invite Frank Baker to be a part of your next
professional development opportunity.
(803) Media Literacy Clearinghouse