Journal Article
The article read was on the Edutopia website and was titled: Media Smarts by Ken Ellis (url: http://www.edutopia.org/media-smarts). He proposes that since studies show that the average student spends over six hours a day plugged into some type of media versus homework time of less than one hour, schools need to inform students how to think about media more critically. Media literacy means a variety of things to different people ranging from graphic design, critical analysis, to encouraging schools to have more student-centered projects and coursework. The article cites resources that teachers can use to teach media literacy.
George Lucas (one of the founders of the Edutopia site) is quoted as saying, "it's time to change 'English' class into 'Communication' class, where students learn the grammatical rules of graphic arts, film, and music along with English grammar. It shouldn't be taught as some esoteric, arty thing. Communication skills should be taught as very practical tools that you use to sell and influence people, to get your point across -- especially in this age, where kids are, more and more, using multimedia."
I think that students view so much media that the critical skills are a necessity and they learn it very quickly. Teachers also need to learn and develop these skills as they learn to teach with technologies. Also the technologies are changing and growing so fast these days that an open discussion must be established with students so they can learn to navigate in an ever-changing environment. It's tough to keep up with it sometimes but it's increasingly necessary as part of a literacy education.
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