Brainstorming My Media Literacy Autobiography

Growing up with parents that weren’t “tech savvy” always made for an interesting time when they just bought new cell phones or a desktop for the family. I am the youngest in my family and I am always the one that my parents and sister go to for technology advice. I am the type of person that would try different things and click different buttons to see what would happen. Now I look for YouTube videos when I am stumped on technology things.

I am just like my mother when it comes to reading books, magazines, etc. I love getting wrapped up in a good novel and escaping the real world for a little bit. Learning how to navigate through the Internet and finding what is and isn’t reliable was something that I have taught myself. When I was in high school I finally started learning more about reliable sources and finding educational websites that could help with research.

Looking back now I used the Internet for entertainment purposes rather than for educational purposes. I don’t remember having to write a paper or researching a topic until later on in high school. I had AOL and the instant messenger that it had. Going through high school I had a MySpace account until I graduated then I moved up to the Facebook world. Changing your profile picture, adding music to your page, or showing everyone what your favorite movies are is something that I like about social media.

As an educator, I feel like it is my job and responsibility to incorporate different aspects of the media into my teaching. I want to utilize all of the media that we have available to us and share it with my students. Being a librarian, I can help my students become media literate before they get out of high school. There are so many things that I can do with teaching media literacy. I feel that this is one of the best jobs where I can utilize everything from print and online materials to show students what they need to know before they go off to college and into the real world. This course has given me so many sources that I could use in my library and with my students. I want students to not only know how to evaluate media sources that they see but also to show the world who they really are. The media is a great outlet for expressing yourself and this class has shown me that.

My Digital Story

I made a few changes to my Digital Story. First I changed the beginning to show the title with an image that is faded in the background. I wanted the text to show up more than the picture. I changed one of my slides around to be at the end rather than the beginning so that us winning the title was not given away just yet. I paraphrased some slides that Dr. Lindstrom helped me with. I also added music throughout the movie to give it a little beat. Recording my voice with the story was fun and it motivated me to talk with an upbeat personality.

My digital story is about my cheerleading squad winning regionals for the first time in school history. My digital story includes personal images and music from The Script.  In this digital story I talk about how hard it is to practice and prepare for regionals and that cheerleading is a difficult sport. I show the excitement of winning a competition and claiming your plaque.

I think that my digital story creates an alternative to a stereotype typically portrayed in mainstream media. Everyone thinks that cheerleading is not a sport and that girls just stand around all day being prissy. Cheerleading is a sport and it is very dangerous as well. Flyers have to trust their bases to catch them when they are in the air. We don’t wear pads or helmets to protect us when we are flipping and stunting. I have fell on my head a few times from being dropped by a base and it is not fun. I hope that this video enlightens people on how hard cheerleading really is and that it takes hard work and dedication to become great.

Digital storytelling can help individuals develop critical media literacy because you have to interpret what the creator is saying and what they want you to take out of it. You have to be able to interpret the images and take away a meaning for them.  By creating our digital stories we were able to use a movie making software, that we may or may not have been familiar with before then.  Once we created our stories we had to provide our fellow classmates with feedback. By commenting on our fellow classmates stories we were able to look at their story and identify the purpose, dramatic question, the economy, the emotion, etc.. All of these things that we did with this activity helped us develop critical media literacy. We are able to look for different things when viewing the story and take out different points as well.

My Digital Story (Rough Draft)

Everyone Around You Has A Story the World Needs to Hear TED Talk

Write a 100 word reaction to the video.

Dave Isay ‘s video was very inspiring. I think that his idea of having people share their life experiences is a great idea. We need to share our stories, because I think that by sharing we can find others that are experiencing the same things. StoryCorps travels all around the world and listens to thousands of stories that allow people to share who they are and where they are from. People are able to know that they do exist and they are being heard. “Every single life matters equally and infinitely” is what Dave ended with and I completely agree.

Everyone Around You Has A Story the World Needs to Hear

Storyboard for Digital Story

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11sN62qUtv_ex5eFw1UXrP2EESYZI_qfZRhL9p3SpjrY/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter 9: Infusing Digital and Media Literacy Across the Curriculum

Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom

By Renee Hobbs

Chapter 9: Infusing Digital and Media Literacy Across the Curriculum

“Leadership and vision are critical components of the process of bringing digital and media literacy to secondary education” (Hobbs, pg.170).

I completely agree with this quote from our text. When educators are considering digital and media literacy for their classrooms they must have a vision of what they want to happen. They either need to be the leader for making it happen or go to the leader at that school that has already been implementing that vision. When an educator already has knowledge and background with technology they are able to help other educators become more familiar with it and help them use it in their classrooms as well.  Leadership is very important when it comes to educators and bringing in new technology sources.

“Teachers need a community of support to aid them in exploring the full range of possibilities associated with using digital and media literacy in the classroom” (Hobbs, pg. 172).

There are so many sources and resources that teachers have available to them on a daily basis. In order for them to take full advantage of those sources they must have the support from their school and get the proper training on how to utilize them for their classrooms. For teachers to be successful today they need support from their fellow teachers and their administrators. This quote reminds me of our professional development sessions that we have had in the past. Teachers are helping other teachers learn new skills and how to use different technology sources in their classrooms.

“Many educators have a love-hate relationship with the Internet filtering at their school” (Hobbs, pg. 178).

I am one of those educators that have a love-hate relationship with our school Internet filtering. There are so many wonderful sites that I would love to use in my library, but I cant get to due to the filter. I use Pinterest for different ideas in the library and I cant even get on the website because it is blocked from our school.  Our county does have WebTop available that teachers can use to bypass the filter for YouTube videos, etc., but sometimes WebTop doesn’t always work either.