Welcome, all educators to my language arts blog!
This week, I will be focusing on media studies, which is a very important strand, as the Internet has changed media studies dramatically. With the prominent use of the Internet nowadays, it is especially important to teach children how to be good digital citizens when on the internet, to know how to detect fake news, as well as how to search effectively. In my opinion, all three of these are most important for students in a classroom to learn, especially before gaining privileges to use the Internet in the classroom.
Digital citizenship is very important, because, just as we teach our students to be respectful and empathetic citizens or students in our classroom, we should also be teaching them how to be good citizens online. This ties into digital and media literacy, as that, entails using tools such as newspapers, radios, television and the Internet for literacy purposes, for instance, Twitter or connecting text to facts occurring in the newspaper today. While, Media smarts, is how to be safe and know what and what not to do on media today. All tie into digital citizenship explaining the importance of being a good citizen when online and thinking before you click sites or sign up for things online. This video attached below is an example that I would show a grade 6-8 class teacher, on how to inform students on being a good digital citizen, teaching them about the risks of being unsafe online, and modeling this to them.
(Common Sense Education, n.d.)
This video is a good tool for teachers of a junior intermediate division, as it teaches them how to engage students in a digital world, and model the ways in which they can be ethical/ good digital citizens in the process of teaching them digitally.
Detecting fake news is very important for all students to learn how to do. As it builds on being a good digital citizen, students should also know how to decipher what to believe and what not to believe when searching the web for information. The source attached below is a great tool for grades 6-8 students to use when searching the Internet, as it provides them with guidelines to consider when online and searching for reliable information.
(Edutopia, 2017)
I would recommend going over this webpage with students and explaining the guidelines of 5 important questions to ask themselves when questioning whether or not this information should be used or not.
In addition, this connects to the grade 7 curriculum for instance, as by the end of grade 7, students are expected to understand a variety of media texts, explain the techniques used within them, create their own media texts, as well as be able to reflect on the strengths and areas with room for improvement of media texts (Ministry of Education, 2006, p. 133). All of which follow the guidelines students should follow in order to determine fake news on the Internet, a form of media.
How to search effectively, is my last point for the topic of media studies, I believe this is very important, much like knowing how to detect fake news, students should know how to effectively search for the key points they are looking for.
(Brock University, 2014)
This is important for students in grade 7 and 8, as they will be using databases very commonly throughout high school, this video above is something I would show students to explain how they can better search scholarly databases. This teaches students how to extract important content (key concepts) from the question they are asking, in order to find relatable data.
Finally, attached below is a link to a site that teaches literacy and media in correlation to the Emmy’s. This, in my opinion, is a fantastic way of tying in shows and movies that students in the intermediate level relate to, and using them in course content. This method of pretending the class is on the Emmy’s, and investigating shows and taking polls while using course content is a great engaging method. In addition, it ties into course curriculum for grade 7, as it is required that students propose and audience, make inferences and interpret messages, respond to and evaluate texts, respond to audiences, see the point of view, production perspectives, as well as conventions and techniques (Ministry of Education, 2006, p. 133-134). All of which can be done through using examples of shows and movies either shown in class or being watched at home by students either as comparisons to coursework or be used within the class to decipher different works, points of view, character traits, etc.
(Baker, 2018)
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