Apr 23, 2009

Why Students Need Access to Web 2.0 and Why Teachers Need to Master It!

A fellow LMS in my district shared some great news with me this week. The National Council for the Social Studies released a position statement on media literacy. Social Studies gets it. Will the other professional organizations be far behind?

Below are some key quotes from the statement. Below these quotes is a link to the site.
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“The 21st century world is media saturated, technologically dependent, and globally connected. We live in a multimedia age where the majority of information people receive comes less often from print sources and more typically from highly constructed visual images, complex sound arrangements, and multiple media formats. The multimedia age requires new skills for accessing, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and distributing messages within a digital, global, and democratic society. The acquisition and application of critical analysis and media production skills are part of what constitutes media literacy. The Internet and the everyday use of social networking technologies, together with the expansive growth of corporate entertainment media and the integration of popular culture, also require us as social studies educators to link participatory media literacy with civic education.”

“These changes in society and the experiences the students bring into the classroom challenge social studies teachers to change both how and what we teach. One reaction is to fear these changes and try to protect our students from things we don’t understand or appreciate. Such an approach is neither helpful nor pedagogically sound. Another response is to take advantage instructionally of the wealth of experiences that young people have making media choices by respecting those choices when consistent with democratic principles.”

“Since young people overly rely upon commercial venues for information, the 21st century social studies teacher should guide students to explore different sources of information such as independent blogs, open source sites, wikis, podcasts, and numerous new resources that offer alternatives to corporate media. Teaching students to think critically about the content and the form of mediated messages is an essential requirement for social studies education in this millennium.”

http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/medialiteracy

1 comment:

  1. It occurs to me that teaching social networking sites in school might be an excellent way to end the trend... :)

    ReplyDelete

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