flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycsignstory/

lesson planning

For the final project I'm having a few ideas and about what to do with a group (pick me pick me)

• I've never made a lesson plan, so I should definitely be in a group with someone(s) that have had experience doing such things.
• I have planned things before events, talks, conferences, etc... so I think I can bring some "planning" to the table.

Now that those two points are out of the way more about what I'm actually thinking

• I would like to focus the lesson perhaps on 4th-6th graders.  
• I would like the lesson to involve a lot of hands-on learning, more physically then moving into using more technology as the lesson progresses.
• The focus that I am leaning towards for the lesson itself is teaching about sources of medias, having a find/seek different entities that own the local newspaper, who owns the company of their favorite movie, who is the CEO of Twitter.com... learning more about these I feel would be a fun and enriching lesson that will leave them to start feeling savvy about the media.
• Hands-on - Bringing in newspapers, books, etc... Using resources in the library (maybe at a public level an open learning session or in a school where other reference tools are available)
• Tech - going to maybe the same newspapers website and seeing the newspaper's history listed there or on the more fun side: video games and determining the different categories that video games and the large company behind these categories.  It seems that most video game companies always release the same sort of categorical material (movie/tv show promos, serious game, games targeted at girls, sports, etc...)

Well those are my initial thoughts I hope I can find a little niche of people who would like to incorporate a little of this or all of this into what we do at the end.

social clique - cliche

It's somewhat funny how close the two words clique and cliche are, I know they aren't actually that close, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same person thought them up and perhaps at the same time. Although this is all very unlikely. Well they probably are both french.

I was thinking about the convergence of media/cultures and media cultures for that matter, and how so many things and places want to be connected now more than ever to tap into all of these different cliques and cliches. For example the new cable ad that appears that a guy wrote a song a taped it for youtube that utilizes many of the common themes from music videos and youtube in one and sneaks in some video game themes, to sell cable tv. That definitely seems like a convergence right there.

Here's that video:


So why cliche, cliques... I know that most mediums are trying to focus their focus on one group of people in order to create a hype within that community and this seems to be working really well, and because of this many people can see that media is actually getting better. Television shows aren't boiler plate specials anymore throwing in the kooky neighbors, they are focused and try to create an interactive fan base. This is making more money for the industries and also keeping the market happy, we all win right?

spoiler on spoiler

Interview with Chillone by Reality News Online

In doing a bit of research after reading the first chapter, led me to this interview, which is pretty interesting.
but could be a spoiler for those who haven't read it, so wait! or don't. that's the beauty of it all.

consider the source.

To begin to think of the implications of teaching media literacy in a library, my first thought is to educate those who come into any library setting about the sources of the books or media they are wanting to check out. The source for any media is many of things, for books it is the author of the book, but beyond that it is also the publisher and anyone else who may have funding production of the book...

Doing this I believe immediately can open the eyes of patrons to understanding the value of the messages of what they are reading. If a health/diet book is funded by McDonald's you can immediately tell that something fishy is going on with that book.

But other media can be broken down this way as well... for example, many local papers are funded by the grocery store advertising, and with equally less frequency there is not discussion of grocery stores/food safety in many papers because they do not want to lose this crucial funding. There seem to be a great load of articles on this topic at this website I was going to specifically link to this piece, but think it may be a bit to research/science based to prove the point I was looking for but I suppose I am doing it anyway: http://www.medialit.org/pdf/ADAmedialiteracy.pdf

Thinking about education of media sources, I think this starts to get the discussion going, determining who publishes certain video games or romance novels or whatever it may be is a great way to get people to start thinking about the media they are consuming, similar to the nutrition fact labels on food product, many disregard them and don't realize what goes into food anymore... the same is happening with our media sources.

Oh this reminds me of this commercial that i'm unsure if anyone who grew up outside of st. louis ever got to watch, but it was on the christian public station, 24. They showed sort of PSA announcements in between their shows, and they had a commercial (that i can't find anywhere online) that showed two kids laughing and enjoying tv and having some junk food, then this garbage man walks into the home and the mom says hello and the kids say hello, and then he dumps a garbage can full of garbage into the television, as if that was the food on which the television relied on to be able to work... and the kids were extremely happy to have this deposit and the garbage man leaves and they get to watch tv some more. Its a pretty strong message and it has stuck with me for quite some time, my BA is actually in media studies, and its interesting how things can stick with you. As in McLuhan he describes with music and hearing, "The ear favors no particular 'point of view.' We are enveloped by sound. Certain ways of learning are stronger through these media and it is important to recognize that as educators, and if we can somehow figure out a way to implement these stronger learning methods than we can perhaps really change and progress the way that people use their minds.

Medium-Media-Me

A medium is a tool that connects people together. I think that this definition can apply well to anything that can be defined as a medium.

A medium can and will be replaced by something that can connect people more quickly or more reliably.

The only instance of a medium going backwards is text messaging through cell phones. It seems that that is a bit of a reversal of technology, when you can call someone and have a direct conversation versus having a conversation that you must wait for the text for does not seem like a logical leap, but it is wildly popular.

I think Postman believes with every step that the medium goes forward through is degrading our society one step further. Almost everything has two sides though on which you can see the positive and negative possibilities. There are many many possible ways to communicate and connect with people now and that ultimately has to be much better for all of us as a whole. I remember waiting for my mom in high school to pick me up after I would call her collect and do that "we-had-a-baby-its-a-boy" thing during the state your name "i'm-out-of-school-come-get-me" etc... and now that's not something anyone would think of as a solution... it's fun.

Computers are made for printing.