Post #7

I was recently introduced to the following website for Project New Media Literacies: http://newmedialiteracies.org/. A point that this website makes, and something that I have been considering lately, is about a recent shift in teaching media literacy. The focus has gone from only teaching students how to critically analyze messages aimed at consumers, to also teaching students how to participate in a culture that creates material for others to consume. This is the idea of the participatory culture in which we are all capable of adding our own thoughts, pictures, and artwork to the public realm pretty easily. And the research shows that kids are doing just that. In order for kids to be literate participants of this culture, the website suggests a few skills that teachers might want to focus on in the classroom. Therefore, the following assignments are based on some of these skills and the idea of the participatory culture.

Assignment #1 – Keeping a Blog

Objectives for Learners:
-Students will know the technologies necessary to start and maintain a blog.
-Students will understand the social norms and writing styles essential to successfully maintaining a blog.

Anticipatory Set:
-Students will search the web for 3-5 blogs noting similarities and differences between them. Students will then share the blogs in a small group setting and discuss what constitutes a successful blog. In a large group, we will debrief and establish class criteria for successful blogging.

Lesson:
-Students will be instructed through a variety of mini lessons how to set up and maintain a blog using a secure server provided by the school. Students will ensure that they have access to all class blogs.
-Students will maintain the blog through a unit of study on short stories. On most days, students will use the blog to post their thoughts about the reading including summaries, questions, connections to the outside world, etc. Also, students will read and post on all class blogs to encourage dialogue about stories. The posts will be required homework due before the in-class discussion on the reading.
-Other assignments that might be posted on the blog include researched information about the author, time period of the story, allusions found in the story, etc.

Assessment:
-I will comment on students’ blogs providing informal ongoing assessment.
-I will use a rubric to score quality of posts and to hold students accountable for posting on other class blogs.

Assignment #2 – Credible Sources

Objective for Learners:
-Students will be able to distinguish between credible and untrustworthy information found online.

Anticipatory Set:
-I will show examples of credible websites and databases and examples of places where information is not necessarily reliable. I will explain what constitutes a credible source.

Lesson:
-Students will choose a topic of interest to research. This could be a famous person, a medical condition, a historic event, etc.
-Students will visit a variety of websites and databases to collect information regarding their topic.
-Students will analyze this information for accuracy and note any inconsistencies or questionable information.
-Students will report their findings to the class.
-*This assignment will be done as a precursor to writing a major research paper. Since the point of this assignment is simply to get students thinking about credible sources, the topic they choose could be anything and the format that they present the information is informal.

Assessment:
-I will use a rubric to score students based on how many websites they visited and analyzed. The rubric will also assess students’ ability to share their findings with the class.