In the past, media literacy was about “getting consumers to think critically about what they were watching”. Now with huge numbers of people producing and publishing media, the need for media literacy has more relevance than ever.

This includes developing:

• judgement about the information available online,
• effective communication skills in different fora
• how to appropriate information and remix it in meaningful ways
• skills that evolve freedom of expression and citizenship
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Students in my Year 9 History class have produced quality videos that express their understanding of genocide in the 20th century, from case studies of the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, Rwanda and Sudan. These are samples of how students can use primary and secondary visual sources to construct multimedia texts that express their understanding of, and responses to, complex world events and issues.

From Edutopia

Glass’ advice is that it takes years before you can produce work that is where you want it to be in terms of quality. One of the big issues with the whole “digital native” idea is the associated misconception that if we give students a computer, camera and an editing suite and they will intuitively be able to produce sophisticated videos, podcasts, article, websites etc. Experience tells me that students do not intuitively know this stuff. The danger is that when students’ work is, in Glass’ words “kinda crappy”, it all seems too hard and we subsequently avoid including media production in our classrooms. We revert to analysing other people’s work rather than providing students with opportunities to create their own.

Glass says that it is “totally normal” for people to become disheartened by the lack of quality in their work and that “a lot of people never get past that phase – a lot of people at that point quit and the thing that I would like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting, creative work they went through a phrase of years that it didn’t have that special thing we wanted it to have.”

His advice is that “the most important thing is to produce a lot of work”, to “put yourself on a deadline so that every week, every month you create one story… It’s only by going through a volume of work that you catch up and close that gap and the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.”

As Clay Burrell writes, the message for teachers from this video is that we shouldn’t “grade blogging, podcasting, and other things too harshly.” For students, the message is that being creative is hard work and that it takes time and practice to produce quality material. The message for me is that students can only get better if I provide them with the opportunity and time to do so.

Interested in History? Keen to explore the past?

Based on the BAFTA award-winning TV series, Timelines.tv is a free, new and exciting on-line history resource.
“It offers a wealth of quality TV documentary, arranged on interactive historical timelines that put you in control of your journey through the past. Timelines.tv spans the centuries. It’s rich in detail, full of great stories and fascinating flavour. But more than that: it shows how those details ‘connect’.”

I love finding a new history resource, and with a keen interest in British history, I think this site is fantastic. Beginning with the Norman Conquest, 1066 and ending with the Death of Industry, 1984, Timelines.tv has a wide range of video material from the Medieval Manor, Magna Carta, the first parliaments, The Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Shakespeare’s World, The East India Company, The Rights of Man, the Peterloo Massacre, The Tolpuddle Martyrs, The Dawn of Democracy, The Rise of Labour, A Golden Age 1900-1914 and more.

This is a history lovers’ treasure trove.

Via Doug Belshaw

Via Open Thinking and Digital Pedgagy

Another instalment from Digital Ethnography. According to the creators: “This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.”

I inwardly cringed as I laughed at this video because I am, like, totally guilty of this “disarticulation … ness”.

For these reasons, I like the term “information literacy”, which seems to be have particular currency amongst library specialists. Information literacy is not as narrow as “digital literacy” and also helps overcome the “if it’s not on the web it doesn’t exist” idea that many of my students subscribe to. The best metaphors for information overload in our culture are, in my opinion, being lost in a data smog or trying to drink from a fire hydrant – the vastness of information that surrounds us can be overwhelming.

Via Hey Jude:

Information literacy defined can as “the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.”

Information Literacy includes:

Media Literacy

Visual Literacy

Cultural Literacy

Digital Literacy

Alphabetic Literacy

Image: http://chs.smuhsd.org/community/information_literacy.htm

“The world is moving at a tremendous rate. Going no one knows where. We must prepare our children, not for the world of the past. Not for our world. But for their world. The world of the future.” John Dewey

Via the 21st Century Collaborative:

“Dewey’s thoughts have laid the foundation for inquiry driven approaches. According to Dewey, all learning begins with the learner. What children know and what they want to learn are the very foundation for learning.

Dewey’s description of the four primary interests of the child are still appropriate starting points:

1. the child’s instinctive desire to find things out
2. in conversation, the propensity children have to communicate
3. in construction, their delight in making things
4. in their gifts of artistic expression.”

It is a worry that 70 years on, this is still “progressive’ rather than “mainstream”?