Quote: "The tools of visual, media, and information literacy must be taught in school because they will
(or won’t) be used at home."
Reaction: As a parent, the first experience of teaching my son to evaluate and analyze media manifested itself in the form of television advertisements. Watching the toy rockets zooming 100 feet in the air, matchbox cars making triple loops around a plastic track, shoes that make you jump higher than anyone on your team... It took much practice and determination to make him realize that he needed to read the fine print, and that a particular company was trying to use persuasive tactics to get money. Now, at age 16, he still needs to be reminded when getting "tweets", instant messages, "pushes from media sources" that he must verify that an event has actually occurred.
From the teacher perspective, we must be cognizant that our students are being saturated with media in various forms. They report to school with sensationalized stories and pictures that they believe to be true. We do our best to provide techniques and strategies to prove that these stories and pictures are valid. It can be difficult to get this point across when they live in environments that accept the "news" as the gospel truth. Critical media skills must be built into our curriculum and activities provided for students to practice these skills in the classroom. Thus, teachers need to be informed and given the opportunities to learn effective strategies to implement.
Finally, are we going to be parents and educators that teach our children to use a "monocular" and bring visual, media, and information literacy up close and in focus? Or, will we allow the "eyepatches" to stay in place and allow ourselves to accept forms of media as it is presented?
Abilock, Debbie // Multimedia Schools; Nov2003, Vol. 10 Issue 6, p30
I really love the "monocle" analogy because we, as teachers, need to focus on practicing certain media tactics to make the students understand the effects of right and wrong media information. Teaching our students to point out what is real in the media and what is not will better them in their future, which will cause them to know what to believe and what to research more about concerning the press and other media sources.
ReplyDeleteI also love the monocle analogy. Sometimes it's easier to hide what we don't want to see. But children especially should be taught to critically analyze all forms of media.
ReplyDeleteI agree that kids need to be taught how to be skeptical with the media, but I am not so sure that they believe everything as much as they are entertained by it. The news media has become so caught up in ratings that anything goes. For example, when a child disappears, it is instantly on shows like Nancy Grace. It is not a tragedy it is almost like the modern day "freak show".
ReplyDeleteI agree Erica. The media tends to normalize and depersonalize tragedies. Mary Jo, it's the commercials that motivate me to limit T.V watching in my house. The constant push to buy things...buy things that nobody needs and don't work!
ReplyDeleteI also think that news shows are losing credibility because of the constant sensationalizing of events. The latest east coast earthquake for instance.