The Media Spot

In April we helped TMS friend and consulting educator, Joe Destefano (a.k.a. Mr. D) wrap up his third annual "Tech Turnoff" week with his Colorado high school students on the The Heritage 47 website.

Each year, we help Mr. D set up his Wordpress-based website and blog, brainstorm some media literacy themes to discuss, and cut him loose in his threaded discussion with his students. This year, for the first time, Andy and I entered the discussion with some questions and reflections of our own. The results are archived on the site, and are worth a look -- meta-discussions on what it means socially to disengage from such a large part of our culture; critical comparisons of Huxley's Brave New World and our own mass media consumption; analyzing lines between participatory "web 2.0" culture and mass media sources, and more!

Mr. Destefano, a friend and consulting educator for TMS, is at it again with his high school class in Littleton, Colorado: the 2008 Tech Turn-off.

Each year Mr. D asks his class to forgo TV, movies, text messaging, email and other communication technologies for a week, and journal their experiences on their class blog. The class always generates thoughtful discussion of the role these technologies play: the ways they help and hinder us; the ways they interconnect and isolate us; the effect they have on our physical, social, and emotional landscape.

A high school English teacher at Heritage High in Colorado ran his annual TV Turnoff on a Wordpress-powered blog through consulting with TMS. The TV Turnoff is part of a media studies unit that Mr. D has incorporated into his high school English class for a few years now, but this was the first time that the students' experiences were documented online.