The Media Spot

In some schools, students in 2006 are learning about how to critically analyze news and advertising using artifacts and examples from the early 1990s. Sometimes this works--- but often it diminishes one of the major strengths of media literacy: its perceived relevance in bridging the gap between the classroom and the culture. But this problem is challenging to address, because it's hard for teachers to continually adapt their curricula to match the changing media environment. Few have the training, knowledge, resources, time or tools to do this.

...parents and children should be guaranteed access to the Internet -- it's fundamental in a democratic society.

If you lack the technical skills to utilize these communications tools [the Internet, and "web 2.0"], you can't participate online and catalyze civic influence. And if you lack the media literacy skills to understand how other people are creating content or what their underlying motivations are, you face the possibility of being manipulated. As Spiderman learned again and again, with great power comes great responsibility. The Internet is a powerful tool, and if you don’t learn how to use it effectively, you yourself may end up being used.

Learning what's appropriate to say or post in a public forum, how to discern truth from fiction, and how to evaluate potential threats are lessons that are critical for today's cyber-citizens. What better way to learn these skills than by working with educationally, age-appropriate tools? Simply ignoring the issue inside the schoolhouse will not make our students safer in the real world. Some of the legislative options that have been suggested could have had the potential of blocking tools and sites that could help teach these lessons. As the Internet continues to evolve, educators must keep pace with the latest tools and threats to develop policies that strike a balance between safety while still allowing teachers to use the tools that are a part of everyday life for our students. And of course, many of these same doubts were raised about the Internet itself in its early days.

To produce a media literate citizenry, media literacy education will have to be included across the curriculum and at all grade levels, including higher education, with each educator doing an appropriate piece, and each piece being valued for its contribution to the ultimate goal.

Media literacy is the best way to integrate critical thinking instruction into instruction with and about technology. Along with technology, media literacy has the potential to link educators across disciplines. It can become a framework that makes educational content and practice the basis for technology integration. A technology plan that does not also integrate media
literacy will be little more than a glitzy shell.

Recognizing that an investment in teacher education and training is an important component of building media literacy instruction in K - 12 education, media literacy teacher education has emphasized the following components:

1. broad, rich intellectual training in media studies and education, and not simply "show-and-tell" about specific resource materials;
2. emphasis on an exploration of the theoretical and practical issues around engaging students in media analysis and media production activities in the K - 12 classroom; and
3. time to plan activities and collaborate with colleagues in designing a program of classroom activities that can be sustained over time and that map onto the context of existing instructional practices and curriculum.

Likewise, you can do things like insist that your schools do media literacy, and real media literacy. There's two types of media literacy. There's the type that actually teaches you how the system works, what advertisers are trying to do, understand it to be a critical participant. Then there's the type that the media companies want to do, which is basically to train you to like certain types of shows, but not question the system.

The greatest digital divide is between those who can read and write with media, and those who can't... Our core knowledge needs to belong to everybody.

...since the mid-1990s, Australian language teachers have been required to teach nonprint media from kindergarten through the 12th grade. The Canadian province of Ontario has required media education in grades 7-12 since 1987. In England this year, approximately 25,000 students took their national gcse exams (for 16-year-olds), and 14,200 university-bound 18-year-olds sat for their A levels, or advanced-level exams, in media studies. And Scotland is ahead of England in media education. ...America comes in last among the world's major English-speaking countries in teaching for this crucial form of modern literacy.