I was recently consulting The Media Education Lab’s website for ideas on how to explain the concept of Media Literacy and describe the field of Media Education to a group I was speaking to in Florida. I was delighted to find themediaspot.org listed as one of seven resources linked to from The Media Education Lab’s Key Resources page, where TMS is described as one of their “favorite youth media organizations”!
In 2001, when I came across the article The 7 Great Debates in Media Literacy Education, by Renee Hobbs, Founder of The Media Education Lab, I had been collaboratively producing videos with kids for a couple of years with critical analysis of media in mind, but had never heard of “media literacy”. The 7 debates introduced to me the 5 Key Concepts of Media Literacy, and summarized popular approaches to teaching those concepts to K-12 students. The article helped define our niche — production-based media literacy in the classroom — and understand how it has been approached and received in the field.
We’ve followed Renee’s work ever since, as she has become arguably the most influential voice in the US in the field of media education. We’re thrilled to be associated with mediaeducationlab.com, and will strive to live up to the honor!
The Media Spot 