Collaborative Media Literacy Presentation

For my group's project, we came up with a lesson plan in order to teach high school level students about media literacy. We designed the lesson plan to focus on internet video (specifically YouTube, due to it's popularity and ease of use). We came up with the plan together and then divided it into sections in order to prepare and present.

My role was perhaps the most flexible of the group, as I was responsible for introducing our lesson and explaining the rationale (including the manner in which we based our lessons upon the Buckingham and Gee texts), came up with examples of youtube use in the real world as a way of explaining/teaching students the actual hands-on uses for what they learned, and wrapped up the presentation.


The real-life examples I presented:

Mary Cummins of Animal Advocates:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MaryCummins#p/u/1/KbP0BQCbWK8
http://www.youtube.com/user/MaryCummins#p/u/15/1SqBdS0XkV4

Police using youtube to help catch a killer:
http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3031


The specific quotes which I drew upon as part of my discussion:

Buckingham, page 81
the advantage of simulations is that they can help students get a hands-on experience, as teaching media production often relies on heavily on information and students can become bogged down by the sheer amount of information and facts. It can also provide a concrete way of approaching media, which can sometimes appear very “abstract”.

Buckingham, pg 81:
PHOTOPLAY
“students are given a series of still images and invited to select and sequence them to form a storyboard for a moving image sequence”

Buckingham, pg 81:
“such activities can be used to explore how editing is employed to construct mood and atmosphere; or to construct different types of narrative from the material”

Gee, pg 41
“Learning about and coming to appreciate design and design principles is core to the learning experience.”

Gee, pg 41
“Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions, symbols, artifacts, etc) as a complex system is core to the learning experience.”

Buckingham, Pg 129:
“media educators have often sought to use production – particularly in the form of photography – as a means of exploring how the ‘self’ is constructed and represented”

Buckingham, pg 81:
“The personal immediacy of a simulation can make it hard for students to distance themselves from what is happening, and to reflect upon the consequences of the choices they have made. Debriefing is particularly important in this respect: students need to be encouraged to evaluate their own and each other’s work.”