NCTE Fall Webinars on Pop Culture & To Kill A Mockingbird

Date: October 2    Time: 4-5pm ET
Title: Using Popular Culture & The Media to Teach 21st Century Media Literacy Skills
Description: The media remains a dominant force in the lives of today’s students, yet the 21^st century classroom still gives media a backseat to print. Media are texts, designed to be read (analyzed/ deconstructed) as well as written (produced/created). NCTE consultant Frank W. Baker examines standards that include media and offers recommendations for engaging students with popular culture and the media
Registration opens soon at http://www.ncte.org/seminars/ccss_media

Date: November 8   Time: 4pm -5pm ET
Title: To Kill A Mockingbird-The Film: Helping Students Appreciate the Language of the Moving Image
Description: Many educators teach the novel and use the film, but how many know how to use the filmto teach film literacy? Teaching film techniques ( lighting, symbolism, sound, camera angles) is part of the new Common Core ELA Standards. Join film and media educator Frank Baker, an NCTE consultant, for this new look at engaging students in film education. Registration opens soon at:
http://www.ncte.org/seminars/mockingbird

MNet's New Toolkit Addresses Bias and Hate in Media

Media Awareness Network (MNet) has unveiled, The Diversity and Media Toolbox, a new suite of digital and media literacy resources to help educate young people about how media representations can negatively influence how we view certain groups in society. The program is broken into two distinct but complementary topic areas: online hate and media portrayals of ethnicity and race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and Aboriginal people.

'The Hunger Games': What the movie missed about the book

If students are still conducting a "compare and contrast the novel with its film adaptation" in classrooms, then this analysis by a writer for Entertainment Weekly magazine will come in handy.

Teaching Advertising As Part of Media Literacy

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about advertising.  So here is another one of my periodic columns about the topic for USA TODAY'S EDUCATION BLOG.

Saying Yes to Digital Media in Preschool and Kindergarten

HuffPost Reports: The NAEYC, the largest trade organization for early educators in the country, has just released a statement in conjunction with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media about technology and young children (up through age 8). Though the groups discourage "passive screen technology" usage -- like TV and DVDs -- with children under two, they don't suggest a ban on screens for preschoolers or kindergartners as some child-advocacy groups have suggested. Nor do they say teachers should avoid using technology with young kids. Instead, the groups puts the onus on teachers to make smart decisions and use technology appropriately. (Dr. Faith Rogow adds: "What Guernsey's article doesn't say is that this is really a hallmark for media literacy education. Media literacy specialists were consulted as the policy was being developed and much of our input was integrated into the final statement. As a result, this is a clear call for media literacy education in early childhood settings and early elementary classrooms.")