Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Blog #3 Media Literacy

An article from Youth Media Reporter by Erin B. Reilly & Alice Robison gives an excellent scenario of how teens are creators, connectors, communicators, and collaborators rather than simply consumers of media.
"A teen listens to her music on her iPod when her friend sends her an instant message with       a link to a recently uploaded dance video on YouTube.  She stops working on her Yankee/ Red Sox rivalry mash-up video for history class to check it out.  Her friend knows how much she loves to dance and how she's always looking for the next new moves to try. The next day, the teen and her friends watch the downloaded video on her iPod and try to copy the routine.  She quickly masters it and adds a few steps to make it her own.Her friends contribute more steps until together they have created a new dance routine. Between classes, they videotape each other doing the new dance and load it back on YouTube.  When the teen gets home from school, she logs online and tags her YouTube video. She comments on the video that influenced her new moves and links her video to her MySpace page to share with her friends.  By the end of the evening, over 10,000 people have viewed her video."

The MacArthur Foundation has brought together media scholars, educators, librarians, lawyers, public policy advocates, and others to create a field of research focused on youth and digital learning.  New Media Literacies(NML), part of the MacArthur Foundation, joined together with schools to aid students in acquiring important skills in teamwork, leadership, problem solving, collaboration, brainstorming, and communication.   
The 11 new media skills listed in this article are identical to those listed on FSO. 
            
play: experimenting with one's surroundings as a form of problem solving 
performance: adopting alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation discovery
 simulation: interpreting and constructing dynamic models of real-world processes
appropriation: sampling and remixing media content in a meaningful way
multitaskining: scanning one's environment and shifting focus as needed to salient details
distributed cognition: interacting meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
collective intelligence: pooling knowledge and comparing notes with others toward a common goal
 judgment: evaluating the reliability and credibility of different information sources
transmedia navigation: following the flow of stories and information across multiple
 modalities
 networking: searching for, synthesizing, and disseminating information
 negotiation: traveling across diverse communities, discerning and respecting
 multiple perspectives and gasping and following alternative norms    
      
NML will emphasis these skills and make them more accessible in a variety of learning settings.   
   
Reilly, B. & Robison, A. (2006). Extending media literacy: how young people remix and
transform media to serve their own interests.  Youth Media Reporter. Retrieved 
August 12, 2009, from http://newmedialiteracies.org/blog/2008/11/10/YMRarticle_
February08.pdf

Faith Rogow addresses the issue of media literacy and early childhood education.  Common concept of media literacy is the ability to analyze, access, and produce media which is completely out of reach for preschoolers.  For example, a three-year old sees a character on TV and wants that character from Sesame Street to attend her birthday party but just can't understand that it isn't real.  Media strategies have been designed mainly for high and middle school students.  What does media literacy mean in the context of early childhood education?  The author identifies three areas:
Identifying Storytellers
Preschoolers aren't developmentally capable of mastering the skill to analyze media's 
messages.  They can however, tell who the storyteller is with respect to the 
developmental stage and literacy level.  For example, a youngster watching Theodore
Tugboat on TV would name Theodore as the storyteller.  An older child might realize that 
there is a narrator who is making the voices for the characters.  
Understanding Stories
Asking preschoolers to re-tell a story is a way to check comprehension.  What they 
focus on tells us a lot about who they are and what is on their minds.  
 Learning the Language
Zooms and close-ups are the ABC's of image-based media.  Film and video makers use 
shots like authors use words.  When a preschooler becomes aware of shots, he/she
will notice the things in the background that make up the set.  The language used in 
television includes sound which may be the easiest part of media language to 
understand.  Listening to sounds with eyes closed and guessing what makes the sound
helps youngsters understand the importance sound is to storytelling and how it 
 influences what we feel.   

Center for Media Literacy. (2007).  ABC's of media literacy: what can pre-schoolers learn?
Retrieved August 12, 2009, from http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article566.html
     


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