Media Literacy: 21st Century Learning
Media LiteracyMedia Literacy: 21st Century LearningBy Frank W. BakerThe media, for better or worse, deliver us thenews and the gossip; they entertain, educate andinform. The media tell us what to buy, what toeat and drink, what brands are cool, what to read,who or what to listen to, and who to vote for.Unless you are media literate, you may not thinktwice about the powerful and influential role themedia have on our lives.The media have not always been in Americanclassrooms. Yes, teachers teach with media, butrarely do they teach about the media. It’s calledmedia literacy. Most of our students are notreceiving adequate media literacy instruction,mostly because their teachers have not beenadequately trained—neither at the college levelnor through professional development.You might be asking: What is media literacy?My favorite definition comes from the OntarioMinistry of Education’s Media LiteracyResource Guide:“Media literacy is concerned with helpingstudents develop an informed and criticalunderstanding of the nature of mass media,the techniques used by them, and the impact10LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTIONK-5 6-8 9-12of these techniques. More specifically, it iseducation that aims to increase the students’understanding and enjoyment of how the mediawork, how they produce meaning, how they areorganized, and how they construct reality. Medialiteracy also aims to provide students with theability to create media products.”5 Media Literacy Education recognizes thatmedia are a part of culture and function asagents of socialization.6 Media Literacy Education affirms thatpeople use their individual skills, beliefs, andexperiences to construct their own meaningsfrom media messages.The National Association of Media LiteracyThe following essays represent some of theEducation (NAMLE) also advocates six corebrightest minds in media literacy education.principles through their project The CorePrinciples of Media Literacy Education (CPMLE): I encourage you to consider how theserecommendations can enhance what you and your1 Media Literacy Education requires activeteachers are doing for media literacy instruction.inquiry and critical thinking about the“The Core Principles of Media Literacy Education.”messages we receive and create.National Association for Media Literacy Education2 Media Literacy Education expands the conceptof literacy (i.e., reading and writing) to includeall forms of media.(NAMLE). a Literacy Resource Guide. Ontario Ministry ofEducation. 1997.Frank W. Baker is a medialiteracy educator fromreinforces skills for learners of all ages. Likeprint literacy, those skills necessitate integrated, South Carolina.interactive, and repeated practice.3 Media Literacy Education builds and4 Media Literacy Education develops informed,reflective, and engaged participants essentialfor a democratic society.January/February 2011
Media LiteracyInquiring Minds Want to Know:Media Literacy Education for Young ChildrenBy Faith RogowI read recently that there are now more than200,000 available iPhone applications. Thatis quite impressive considering that just fiveyears ago there was no such thing as an iPhone.Half of the top one hundred applications aretargeted at preschoolers (Shuler). These tidbitsunderscore the challenges of keeping up withan unending array of media technology optionsand the need to prepare even the youngestchildren for life in a media rich world.Inquiry-based media literacy is anincreasingly important component of aneducator’s toolbox. My own concerns aboutdefinitions of media literacy have givenway to a focus on establishing clear goalsfor media literacy education. The NationalAssociation for Media Literacy Education(NAMLE) articulates these goals:“The purpose of media literacy educationis to develop the habits of inquiry andskills of expression needed to be criticalthinkers, effective communicators andactive citizens in today’s world.”January/February 2011“Library media professionals are logicalcoordinators for inquiry-based media literacyeducation efforts.”No matter what the next new gadget is,students will need to be able to analyze thecontent to which it provides access, reflect onthe meaning of that content for themselves andothers, and evaluate its utility for accomplishingtheir own communication tasks. The essenceof inquiry-based media literacy education isasking questions. Lots of questions. All thetime. About everything, but especially aboutmedia. That is what NAMLE means by “habitsof inquiry.”Developing Habits of InquiryPeople who automatically ask questions as partof their daily routine are primed for higherorder thinking skills. Imagine the iconic sceneof a department store Santa Claus asking achild, “What would you like for Christmas?”Children are able to provide easy answersbecause they know that the question is coming.In the weeks before Christmas, the anticipationof being asked what they want serves as a filterthrough which many Christian children seethe world, evaluating nearly everything theyencounter—a friend’s toy, the neighbor’s dog, aclassmate’s video game, a pop star’s outfit—interms of its desirability as a possible gift.What if, instead of material-based questions,we offered children predictable opportunitiesK-5 6-8 9-12LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION11
Media Literacyto respond to (and ask) analytical questions?As educators, it is not our place to use holidaygifts to motivate students, but by giving thema chance to share what they think and payingattention to what they say, we can offer the verysubstantial reward of making each child feelvisible and appreciated.A New Role forLibrary Professionals:Integrating InquiryLibrary media professionals are logicalcoordinators for inquiry-based media literacyeducation efforts. To call attention to that role,I propose a new job title. Imagine that everyschool had a “Chief Inquiry Officer.” Theprimary responsibility of the people working inthe library would be to promote active inquiryin every facet of school life.Media literacy is an expansion of traditionalliteracy, and books are media (yes, just likeelectronic or screen-based technologies, booksare media). The Chief Inquiry Officer’s huntfor opportunities to integrate inquiry mightbegin by looking at instruction involvingbooks and reading. When students come tostorytime knowing that they will be asked,“What in the story (or in your experience)makes you think that?” they understandthat they will be expected to give evidencebased answers, or in more developmentallyappropriate terms, to name the specific cluesthey are using to form their ideas. Like theanticipation of the question from Santa, thisexpectation changes the way that childrenlook and listen, drawing their attention toimportant details in the media document. Askthe question enough times and children willbegin to ask themselves and one another.Add Questions and StirIn preK and the early grades, adults serveas especially important models for how andwhen to ask analytical questions. The creativechallenge for teachers is to determine how toask important questions in developmentallyappropriate and curriculum-relevant ways.A helpful starting place is the list of mediaanalysis questions included in NAMLE’s CorePrinciples of Media Literacy Education in theU.S. Within each of the categories (authorship,purpose, economics, impact, response, content,techniques, interpretations, and context),teachers are encouraged to adapt the languageof specific questions to meet their needs. For12LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTIONK-5 6-8 9-12“Resistance to (or a lack of access to)technology should never be an obstacle tomedia literacy education. When media literacyis about developing ‘habits of inquiry’ or ‘skillsof expression,’ many substantive activitiesrequire no technology at all.”early childhood educators this might meanrephrasing a question like, “Why was thismade?” which assumes an understanding ofunseen players and motives, with the moreconcrete, “What does this want you to do?” or“What does this want you to think?”A teacher who uses the KWL process (whatstudents know, want to know, and learned)might think of the initial step as a two-partquestion: “What do you know?” and “Wheredid you learn that?” In many cases, the answerwill be traceable to a media source (e.g.,knowing that mice eat cheese because thatis what children have seen in Tom & Jerrycartoons). Follow up with, “Is that a goodsource of information on this topic? Whydo you think so?” and you have a readymade opportunity to help students builddiscernment skills.Media Literacywithout TechnologyResistance to (or a lack of access to) technologyshould never be an obstacle to media literacyeducation. When media literacy is aboutdeveloping “habits of inquiry” or “skills ofexpression,” many substantive activities requireno technology at all.For example, a kindergarten teacher mightuse a video game paradigm to assess students’recall of a lesson on healthy eating. She asks herclass to imagine that they are going to createa video game. She shows them a picture of afunny looking person sitting at a table filledwith different kinds of food. Based on whatthey have learned about nutrition, studentsdecide what should happen when a playerclicks on each food and drags it to the person’sgiant mouth. They sort the items according towhich foods would earn a lot of points, a fewpoints, or no points at all. There could evenbe a category for items that would be unsafeto ingest that would result in a player losingpoints. Using the scoring system allows ateacher to engage in a discussion with childrenabout how scoring is linked to values. Thingsthat score highly are valued highly. From thereit is easy to help students make the connectionbetween their activities in class and the videogames they play at home.In a world where more than half of four- tosix-year-olds play video games and one in fourplays several times a week or more (KaiserFamily Foundation), the ability to look ata scoring system to determine the valuesembedded in a game has great consequence.Media literacy provides a way to integrate skillsand content so that a lesson’s benefits extendwell beyond classroom walls.Making MediaMedia literacy education would be incompleteif it instilled “habits of inquiry” without alsoproviding “skills of expression.” In today’sworld, that means learning how to use commonelectronic communication tools. Whatdistinguishes media literacy education froma simple “how to” approach is that it infusesproduction activities with opportunities toanalyze and reflect.Creating media offers concrete, hands-onlearning opportunities that can include, butdon’t necessarily require, the ability to read orwrite words. Consider, for example, a first gradeteacher who is helping her students use digitalcameras to document their day in preparationfor an Open House presentation. Before shehands out cameras, she engages her students inJanuary/February 2011
Media Literacyplanning. She introduces the vocabulary term“documentary” and guides the students as theygenerate a list of all the things that would beimportant to include if they wanted to givepeople an accurate portrait of a typical day intheir class. Once they have a master list, theytalk about the types of pictures that would bestconvey the essence of each item on the list.Without realizing it, these first graders arealready learning about editorial decisionmaking, but the teacher knows they arecapable of more. As students begin to practicewith their cameras, she goes through theroom, asking children to describe picturesthey have taken. This gives the studentsa chance to exercise their speaking skills.Children also provide evidence-based answersas she prompts them to explain exactlywhat it is that makes the picture a goodrepresentation of the class activity.By the time the students have taken theirfinal photos, they have made decisions aboutframing, angle, representation, and more. Inother words, they have gained a sense of therather complex media literacy concept that“media are constructed,” though they probablyare not yet developmentally ready to start usingthat phrase.Some classes might stop there, but a ChiefInquiry Officer might encourage the teacherto go one step further. Is there something thathasn’t been photographed? The teacher mightnotice that no one has photographed the trayof seedlings in the window. She asks why theyare missing. The students respond that theclassmate assigned to watering the seedlingsdid his job before they had a chance to takepictures. The teacher calls the class together tosee if they can help solve this team’s problem.Can they think of another way to documenthow the class works with the plants?One student suggests that they recreatethe scene, but the team rejects that idea asdishonest because it wasn’t what actuallyhappened that day. After a short discussion thatincludes not wanting to drown the plants bywatering them again, they opt instead to showa student measuring the height of the seedlings,a task that will occur later that afternoon. Theyagree that this shot will show how they includethe plants in their math and science lessonsand is therefore better than the watering shotanyway. Before the group moves on to the nextactivity, the teacher congratulates the studentsfor working through their dilemma andobserves that journalists, people who report thenews, have to make the same kinds of decisionsas the students.ConclusionsBecause media literacy education with youngchildren is still relatively rare, we lack a richresearch base to assert its efficacy with absoluteconfidence. But that is beginning to change.Jeff Share’s research on the SMARTArt projectat the Leo Politi Elementary School in LosAngeles is chronicled in his book MediaLiteracy Is Elementary: Teaching Youth toCritically Read and Create Media (2009). Sharefinds that inquiry-based media literacy helpschildren build the capacity to act as criticallyautonomous thinkers.Just as Vygotsky observed that students learnbest when we push them just a bit beyondtheir current abilities, teachers (and ChiefInquiry Officers) can challenge students to askever deeper and more sophisticated questions.In that kind of atmosphere, young childrencan learn “habits of inquiry” and “skills ofexpression” as surely as they learned to washtheir hands or brush their teeth.Inquiry comes naturally to most children.When media literacy education provides anoutlet for young students’ voracious curiosity,children embrace it enthusiastically, because, asthe old advertising slogan goes, inquiring mindswant to know. They just need some help fromtheir local Chief Inquiry Officer.“The Core Principles of Media Literacy Education.”National Association for Media Literacy Education(NAMLE). e, Jeff. Media Literacy Is Elementary: Teaching Youthto Critically Read and Create Media. Peter Lang, 2009.Shuler, Carly. “iLearn: A Content Analysis of theiTunes App Store’s Education Section,” Joan GanzCooney Center, 2009.“Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives ofInfants, Toddlers and Preschoolers.” Kaiser FamilyFoundation, 2003.Faith Rogow, PhD, is aneducational media specialistat Insighters EducationalConsulting in Ithaca, New York,and founding president ofNAMLE. She can be reachedvia LinkedIn.Learning Tunes: Promise and Pitfallsof Pop Music in the ClassroomBy David Cooper MooreOpening the floodgates to popular musicin the classroom is a daunting prospect formany teachers. The venues through whichchildren find music have changed dramatically,with complex online information networksincreasingly taking the place of more centralizedsources like music videos on television andradio. Though music charts still play a majorrole in shaping young audiences’ listeningJanuary/February 2011habits, the charts themselves have becomewildly unpredictable owing to the inclusion ofdownloading programs and streaming audiointo the traditionally sales- and radio-basedbarometer of Billboard’s pop charts (Mayfield).It is more difficult than ever to know exactlywhere students are hearing the music they like,which puts an impetus on educators to activelyget to know individual students’ tastes throughopen discussion rather than merely scanning thepop charts or music on television.Music is also an integral part of the everydaymedia experiences of children and adolescents.In the 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation surveyof media use among children and teenagers,research found that overall reports of musiclistening are up nearly an hour a day fromK-5 6-8 9-12LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION13
Media Literacythe previous two studies in 2004 and 1999(Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts). Even thatfigure does not include probable multitasking;many students listen to music while playingvideogames or using other forms of media.Beyond its seemingly increased prominence,music is a crucial aspect of identity formation.Musical taste is both unifying and divisive,clustering a given classroom by gender, status,and maturity level.Popular music can be a rich and engagingteaching tool. Children often intuitivelygain complex layers of experiential meaningmore readily from music than other formsof plot-driven media where their narrowfocus on literal interpretation and plotrecitation can bring thoughtful conversationto a halt. Though the academic applicabilityof intuitive understanding should not beoverestimated (a sense of meaning does notnecessarily translate to an ability to expressthese meanings), we found that pop music wasthe only entertainment media we used in theclassroom in which having students identifya plot rather than an abstract idea, tone, orfeeling was actually a problem. Instead, studentsimmediately wanted to talk about what wethought were key media literacy topic areas thatwere harder to engage in activities involvingtelevision or film—audiences, themes, motifs,and participatory social contexts. It was onlythrough training and discussion that studentsdeveloped the vocabulary to articulate andverbalize these ideas, but the potential forabstract thinking was obvious.Music puts us in a position of interpretationand analysis automatically, and eachinterpretation of a song may be quite differentaccording to point of view, experience, andvisceral impact. Understanding how differentaudiences interpret media differently is a widelyrecognized core concept in media literacyeducation (NAMLE), and acknowledgement ofdiverse audience tastes is immediately apparentin any general discussion of a pop song in theclassroom. Children quickly judge themselvesand imagined “other” fans in heated debate.I personally found that the risks associatedwith using popular culture as a text for mediaanalysis are outweighed by rewards in students’personal investment, and the willingness withwhich they can begin, with teacher guidance, tothink abstractly about representation, identity,target audience, and how interpretation can bedependent on social position and point of view.With careful lesson scaffolding and instructordirection, popular music can be a valuable toolfor media literacy learning precisely becauseof the strong feelings, reactions, opinions, andideas it often elicits in listeners of all ages.Mayfield, G. Billboard Hot 100 to Include DigitalStreams. 2007. 20 Apr. 2010. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article display.jsp?vnu contentid 1003619084.National Association of Media Literacy Educators(NAMLE). “Core Principles of Media LiteracyEducation in the United States.” 2007. 27 Jan. mlew-questions.pdf.Rideout, V., Foehr, U., and Roberts, D. “GenerationM2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds; AKaiser Family Foundation Study.” 10 Apr. avid Cooper Moore isprogram director of the PowerfulVoices for Kids enrichmentprogram at the Media EducationLab, Temple University inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania,and can be reached atdmoore1@temple.edu.Exploring
Media Literacy: 21st Century Learning By Frank W. Baker Media Literacy. January/February 2011 K-5 6-8 9-12 LIBRARY M EDIA CONNE C TION 11 . Media literacy provides a way to integrate skills and content so that a lesson’s benefits extend well beyond classroom walls. Making Media
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Traditionally, Literacy means the ability to read and write. But there seems to be various types of literacy. Such as audiovisual literacy, print literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, web literacy, technical literacy, functional literacy, library literacy and information literacy etc. Nominal and active literacy too focuses on
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Alex Rider had made his own choices. He should have been at school, but instead, for whatever reason, he had allowed the Special Operations Division of MI6 to recruit him. From schoolboy to spy. It was certainly unusual – but the truth was, he had been remarkably successful. Beginner’s luck, maybe, but he had brought an end to an operation that had been several years in the planning. He .
