Blog #3

Blog #3: Media Literacy

Media Literacy today is about collaboration and communication. With all of the new Web 2.0 tools available that our students already use to communicate, these resources can be channeled into the classroom through forward thinking individuals, school administrations, and school districts.

Media is about the various means of communication available and literacy is the ability to understand and then communicate that understanding.

With social media and Web2.0 tools, the opportunity to play and learn at the same time is now more abundant and available to the masses. When I say that these technologies are available to the masses, I understand that not all of the people in those "masses" have Internet connections, computers, or even electricity to run these technologies that make social networking and social media sites work. Without a computer and the Internet one cannot reach the many social media and networking sites available on the Internet. That is a problem that needs to be solved, however not in this discussion.

Social Media and networking sites can be addicting as evidenced by the popularity of sites such as Facebook and MySpace. People of all ages are becoming addicted to social networking and playing the games on those sites. What I would enjoy doing is learning how to create a game on my own social networking site, however the game I would create would be educational and geared to meeting the California State Standards for a given grade level. I enjoy teaching Social Studies, specifically about the California Gold Rush and would love to create a game on that topic. For my media project I will be creating a social network on Ning.com about the California Gold Rush for 4th grade students in California.

Now, you are probably asking why she is writing about social media and networking sites when the topic is Media Literacy. Well, for one thing I am interested in those topics, and I believe that through engaging students with the use of social media and networking their literacy skills will increase as well as their media skills. As long as the site has higher order thinking opportunities and is based on a topic for which they are responsible for learning I believe students will want to learn. Students will want to read the instructions, they will read each others posts and e-mails, and through this process they will be increasing their skills without knowing they are doing so. It is so much easier to learn something while you are having fun.