The Media Spot

Daniel Storchan and I will be co-presenting at the 2009 National Association for Media Literacy Education Conference in Detroit during the first week in August. The theme of the conference is "Bridging Literacies: Critical Connections in a Digital World", which is right in our wheelhouse. Dan and I have been working for the better part of the decade in a variety of capacities to bridge traditional learning environments with new media and technologies.

Whether it's called "Educational Technology" or "Media Literacy Education", fundamentally our objectives are the same -- to help educators and students access, analyze, evaulate and create with a variety of media in order to become lifelong learners, informed citizens, and compete in the 21st Century job market.

Our presentation, Media Literacy in the '21st Century School': Integrating Media Literacy Education with Technology and Traditional Standards, will focus on how recent editions of learning standards in traditional disciplines incorporate language familiar to the fundamentals of media literacy and national technology standards (NETS). We will use digital examples, resources and testimonials to outline how we have helped schools integrate, or "bridge" ed tech and media literacy with traditional curricula.

Here's our official pitch:

The Obama administration has declared that it is their intention to bring our schools into the 21st century by helping them integrate technology into their curricula. To date, national standards for educational technology have been broad, allowing curriculum developers to address them according to their overall teaching and learning priorities, available technology resources, and level of teacher training. Simultaneously, new standards for literacy and social studies are increasingly mentioning the development of '21st century skills' among student outcomes. This environment provides ripe opportunities to bridge the core concepts of media literacy with the integration technology within the transformation of school curricula.

For the past decade Rhys Daunic and Daniel Storchan have consulted and collaborated with New York City schools to integrate media literacy and technology into traditional curricula. This presentation will demonstrate how the schools they work with are transforming curricula and school culture through integrated curriculum mapping, whole-school planning, and units of study involving digital media production. Participants will see how focused professional development has helped learning communities bridge technology and media literacy concepts with existing standards, and created interdisciplinary teachable moments to build capacity while preparing students to compete and thrive in their media-saturated world.

See you in Detroit!