Final Project

I am a technological immigrant.  I don't fear technology in the classroom. I am very well aware, since it has been forced down our throats, that it is here to stay whether we want it to or not or if we have the budget to incorporate it within our school.  I'm not blinded to the benefits of using it to enhance a lesson or teach a concept but I am a traditionalist at heart.  Change does not come easily to me so I was a bit apprehensive about taking a Media Literacy class.  I  knew it would be beneficial but I was uneasy about exposing my novice to all the ideas and tools that technology has to offer.

 When the final project was announced I immediately decided I wanted to take advantage of this course and create something that would be very useful to me and my students.  I figured, if I was going to struggle to create a tech project, I wanted to make sure my sweat equity went towards something concrete and useful for years to come.  I quickly decided to recreate and enhance my unit lesson on the Homeless Bird, which is a novel about child brides in India. As I began to recreate this lesson I decided to take a different approach.  Instead of changing what I already had regarding the book I would create an entirely new introduction set of lessons leading up to the novel.   This proved to be the best idea I've had in awhile.  Over my 13 years I have gathered a tremendous amount of materials regarding this subject matter.  It has always been eyeopening for my students to learn about this practice, but I was never convinced that it was as impactful a message as it could be.  To my surprise I really liked what I was able to produce in the time constraints that the class had.  Of course I will add more to the lessons, but what I chose to produce, at this time, has the shock value that I was looking for and that is entirely due to the videos I was able to pull up from you tube, and the visual slide presentation that went along with my poem that I produced via photostory. I have, for the past several years, shown them photos of child brides and what happens when you refuse an arranged marriage, but something was always missing.  There was no continuity as I took one overhead projector sheet and replaced it with another.   The visual story photo slides provides the impact and natural progression of ideas that I was looking for, coupled with the poem I wrote and voiced over the slide presentation, the powerfulness of the lesson is apparent.

   I believe the biggest impact and change to the lesson I was hoping for comes from the ability to use the you tube videos on child brides BRIDES.
To actually see and hear the horrors of their culture and traditions is more instrumental then any article they may read or any story I can tell them.  Most students I have experienced in the last several years are visual learners.  They "get" more from the films and photos I show them then notes they take or books they read.  To see actual girls married off to men much older then themselves makes it very "real" for junior high students.  I was also thrilled to find you tube videos on an organization entitled girleffect.org I DARE YOU, which speaks to the value of girls and women in society,which will be a great addition to the whole year, since I concentrate on women's rights around the world.  I wanted impact and I believe I may have produced such a lesson.  I also chose to produce a PowerPoint presentation because I like the flow of PowerPoint and for my students final project I fell it would be easier for them to produce this then a prezi.

   The course themes that my lesson and use of technology comes from is the book.  I very much enjoyed reading this book and wish we as a class could have discussed more of it.  It included great articles on stereotypes and gender bias that I included in my lesson and where I came up with the idea of using the you tube videos from girl effect.org.   Anchor number 2 from our course syllabus, critical pedagogy and educational reform provided the idea that " needs of creativity, innovation and learning. public schools should be driven by a commitment to social justice, equity and inclusion that values all learners".  Unfortunately due to increased standards and testing I have gotten further away from the creative part of teaching and only taught in the traditional sense, knowing that not all students can learn this way.  I felt I didn't have the time for innovation and exploration in my classroom due to the time constraints that have been placed upon us.  But this course pushed me to see that it is vital to students educational growth to have a more diverse way of presenting topics and that they see and learn differently then when I was in school according to the article "The Old Revolution"  we read from Mike Wesch.

   Prior to taking this class I know I would not have thought of presenting this topic differently, even though I acknowledge that its impact could have been greater and my students needed more "real" life stories and visuals to send the message home with them about different cultures and traditions.

TRADITIONS  also because I was very weary and inexperienced with all sources of technology and I wasn't sure if my inexperienced and immigrant attempt at creating a more visually pleasing and impactful lesson would be beneficial.  I love photostory and will include this with more of my unit lessons, because the ability to tell a story in a voice they are familiar with provides the reality they so desperately desire and need to make sure that what they are learning effects them.

   The projects that were presented in class the past 2 days have provided me with some great ideas on how to innovate and modernize my classroom and instruction.  One tool I hope to include is Kellys lesson on infographics TOOLS.  As a novice, I'm not sure how great it will be, but I like the idea of presenting information in a fun way that will catch my students attention.  Sarah and Ron also had great ideas on the creation of a web page to display information and create a communication vehicle.

WEBPAGE.  One tool that I know my students will love using for projects is xtranormal site  TUTORIAL.  This not only will be a fun and new way to present their projects but it will also help them to discover their creative part.  It makes teaching and learning more fun, and that's what so many students today say is lacking in the traditional classroom.  Sir Ken Robinson's talk on killing creativity in the classroom is a piece I have seen before and hopefully will be able to avoid in the future.  I don't want to stifle my students I want them to grow and experiment and explore and I'm hoping with what I have learned in this class and what my classmates have presented i will be able to introduce my students to a whole new way of learning, baby steps, but steps in the right direction nevertheless. CREATIVITY.

Sherry Turkle- The Flight from Conversation

Great article.  This is exactly how I feel.  I am not anti-technology and I know and have seen the benefits of it, but by the same token I have also witnessed the negative impact it has had on society.  Turkle points out that the skill and intimacy of face to face conversation no longer exists and that while people feel they are connected to their 100 friends on Facebook they really are not truly "connected" to one another.  Being "connected" today has created companionship without the demands, and feelings of hurt, anger and  frustration.  But being "connected" has also eliminated the ability to trust, self-reflect, bond,feel compassion and empathy.  We are quickly becoming a society that doesn't want or need human interaction.  Some will become completely satisfied with a more interactive Siri-Apple Assistant or sociable robots therefore they do not have to be themselves but an altered version of who they would like to be.

   Turkle speaks of a student saying that the greatest skill is to text while making eye contact at the same time.  The student suggests its difficult, but can be done.  The better skill to learn, which seems to be a lost art form, is to engage in meaningful conversation, with another human being,  where you are exposed for who you really are, you are forced to make eye-contact and learn the skills of patience and dialogue.  That should be class all college students must take; 3 credit course entitled The Art of Dialogue- Eye to Eye.

   I still believe there is room in the classroom and workplace and society for both the Traditionalists and Progressives.  We need a new revolution.  We've had the technological revolution in this country no we need the "Back to Basics" revolution.  We are forgetting our interpersonal skills as well as forgetting ourselves.  Many get so engrossed or lost in their Tweets or Facebooking that they become very lonely and isolated.  We need to stop hiding from one another behind a keyboard and come up for air every once in awhile. 

Sherry Turkle- The Flight from Conversation

Great article.  This is exactly how I feel.  I am not anti-technology and I know and have seen the benefits of it, but by the same token I have also witnessed the negative impact it has had on society.  Turkle points out that the skill and intimacy of face to face conversation no longer exists and that while people feel they are connected to their 100 friends on Facebook they really are not truly "connected" to one another.  Being "connected" today has created companionship without the demands, and feelings of hurt, anger and  frustration.  But being "connected" has also eliminated the ability to trust, self-reflect, bond,feel compassion and empathy.  We are quickly becoming a society that doesn't want or need human interaction.  Some will become completely satisfied with a more interactive Siri-Apple Assistant or sociable robots therefore they do not have to be themselves but an altered version of who they would like to be.

   Turkle speaks of a student saying that the greatest skill is to text while making eye contact at the same time.  The student suggests its difficult, but can be done.  The better skill to learn, which seems to be a lost art form, is to engage in meaningful conversation, with another human being,  where you are exposed for who you really are, you are forced to make eye-contact and learn the skills of patience and dialogue.  That should be class all college students must take; 3 credit course entitled The Art of Dialogue- Eye to Eye.

   I still believe there is room in the classroom and workplace and society for both the Traditionalists and Progressives.  We need a new revolution.  We've had the technological revolution in this country no we need the "Back to Basics" revolution.  We are forgetting our interpersonal skills as well as forgetting ourselves.  Many get so engrossed or lost in their Tweets or Facebooking that they become very lonely and isolated.  We need to stop hiding from one another behind a keyboard and come up for air every once in awhile.  

Media Education Foundation

Very interesting site.  The MEF site provides videos, handouts and articles on a wide array of subject matter from consummerism, to sexism, to stereotypes in the media.  What I really like about the site are the supplemental pieces of material that go along with the video.  A teacher can present a topic and provide the students with a visual and then give them an article to read along with a set of reflective questions to answer that coordinate with the topic.  The sample videos and film clips provided give great insite to the problems facing our kids and society today.  This site and its materials would provide a great visual lessons on tolerance with the film Reel Bad Arabs, since I teach the Middle East and try and teach my students to questions based on being manipulated by the media in consumer kids. It would provide a great lesson for students to actually see how the pros work them and make decisions for them.  It would provide the students with insight and an eye on what to watch for, so they are not sucked into an advertising trap of believing they are something they're not or want something they don't need.


   Issues with the site, film with its supplemental materials are very expensive.  Films average, at a discount of 125.00 a piece.  And they don't provide a rating or age group that the film is marketed towards.  I'm sure some films like the Hip Hop films which talk about sterotyping women and sexifying them may not be 7th grade appropriate.

I feel that my students would be fascinated by some of the videos and shocked at how they have been manipuated since they believe themselves to be incredible savy.  My female students would be embarrassed and angered at the way girls are viewed and used in society, media and advertising.  At the delicate age of 12 and 13, girls are just trying to figure themselves out  and looking for that comfort level; to actually see ads and videos depicting women as objects and victims of violence, assault and ridicule may be harmful or enrage them enough to make a stand.  I feel the students would be fascinated by how much sex and body image and sterotyping is involved in everything they watch and read in this culture.  They are either too naive or too desensitized to the images at this stage in their life, but making them aware would be a big first step.

Beyond Pink and Blue

My chapter entitled Beyond Pink and Blue focuses on a fourth grade class who become fired up about Pottery Barn's gender sterotypes.    The section starts off in Ms. Cooleys 4th grade class and how upset and offended they are because the  Pottery Barn magazine has categorized and sterotyped boys vs. girls.  Boys are blue and girls are everything pink.  Ms. Cooley had been teaching the students to locate sterotypes in their enviornment and work toward changing the attitudes of those involved as well as understanding how sterotypes are created and reinforced .  By the end of the school year they, as a class, had written letters to the president of Pottery Barn about their concerns, such as; boys not just girls should be depicted in the magazine playing with dolls and stuffed animals, and the boys rooms showed sports trophies and no books.  They were pleasantly surprised to receive a letter back from the President thanking them and stating that changes would occur in their magazine.  But as Ms. Cooley told them, change is slow so be patient. 

   What I enjoyed about this section of the book is how Ms. Cooleys class was able to distinguish the "cycles of oppression that creates and reinforces sterotypes".  Their passion about this injustice was refreshing.  Too often mainstream America, after seeing certain things over and over, come to believe that is the way it should be.  We become desensitized to the inequality and sterotypes in the media.  The chapter points out that consumers are surrounded by messages that reinforce these sterotypes (boys can't play with dolls was the example given).  But what is even more interesting is that the family, mom and dad, are victims of this sterotype saturation and come to believe that media and advertising know best.  There was a story in the section that told of a boy who wanted a doll, but he was teased by friends and FAMILY, because it wasn't seen in mainstream ads.  His family (parents) refused to buy their son a doll, only his grandmother came to his resuce and gave the boy what he deisred and was the only one not hung up on whats "normal".   Are we as consumers victims or are we willing accomplices who reinforce sterotypes in our society?

   The class also learned about the sterotypes of what is considered a "normal" family and how, in most literature, and media and advertisements, the "traditional" family still consists of a mom and dad as the head of the house.  The students were introduced to a couple of books that shattered the idea of what/ how a family is made up today.  This is still the slowest change to take place in media and advertising, the different ways families are made up today, be it 2 moms, or 2 dads, single parents or being raised by grandparents.  Me feelings toward this are mixed.  I am a single mom by choice.  I have always been  in favor of and a supporter of  the "traditional" family, mom and dad, but I unfortunatley did not meet my Mr. Right.  This is how I grew up and it worked very well.  It was all I was surrounded by growing up, friends in a 2 parent household.   There is something to be said for the traditional 2 parent household.  Is it my imagination or did America seem better when that was the norm?  We seem to be a very divided and segregated nation today constantly at odds with what is different.  I do understand why stores and businessess continue to depict what they sense is the "traditional' family, because that is what, I believe, mainstream America wants. 

   I recently received the summer 2012 Potter Barn kids book and am happy to see some changes, like books in the boys rooms and the boys actually reading them, but like Ms. Cooley told her students change is slow.  I'll prove it to you tomorrow. 

There goes the fairytale

My relationship with Disney has been a loving, familiar and respected relationship.  While I have seen every Disney movie made I don't recall my princess fascination.  Maybe because the products weren't jammed down our throats or maybe Disney didn't realize during the 1970's the billions of dollars that could be made by convincing little girls that they too needed to find thier prince in order to find true happiness.  Maybe it was there, but I don't recall.  I never dressed by like any of the princessess, or had princess pull ups or princess vitamins or princess plates and cups.  What I do recall is that most Disney princess moves scared me in the beginning, made me upset in the middle and euphoric by the end.  For as long as I can remember Disney culture brought my family together.  Whenever a film showed up in the theaters, we were there.  Whenever they were being shown on tv, my sisters and I planned our night around it.  And every Golden Book that came out that dealt with a Disney film was immediately bought. 

   While I do not recall a total obsession with all things Disney during my childhood, I do see it with my daughter who will be 3 at the end of July.  I never wanted her to be a princess little girl.  Those girls who were obsessed with dressing up like a princess and who every year wanted a princess costume for Halloween, but try as I might, she fell in love with the whole idea.  Yes I bought her the Disney movies that were out.  They were cute, funny, there was singing and dancing, but I knew what lurked beneath, and I still went out and purchased the films.   She loves them.  Her new favorite is the Princess Frog and Tangled.  I see these two as not so Disney "typical" because the women are a bit stronger even though they both tend to need  man to help them and end up finding love which is the "ultimate" happiness and getting married.  But what is most shocking is sheer number of products available and my daughter wants them all.  Are girls just destined to want to be a princess no matter how hard we try as parents to avoid that syndrom?  Are girls "princess prewired"?   Ireland has the princess vitamins, princess pull ups, disney character figures that she can dress up, Disney plates and cups, books, toothpaste, ect.. It's everywhere, its impossible to ignore.  I'm to blame, I know this, because I introduced her to Disney, but Disney films were a childhood must growing up in my house, and it elicited so much joy I wanted to share that with her.  I don't want to focus on the negative but highlight the positive.  Finding out all the negative implications about Disney is like finding out there is not Santa, or Easter Bunny.  Some things are better left not said or analyzed.

   Recently  during bath time Ireland has begun to play princess, where the evil King as locked her up in  a castle and its the prince who comes to save her.  After reading the section tonight and discussing the Disney issues in class, I immediately said to her "you are a very smart girl and don't need the prince to rescue you, you can do it all by yourself".  It was met with great resistence.  What have I done?
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Wesch - Lets blame the Russians

While I believe technology has led to some of our problems in education and society I am keenly aware that this is not a "fad" that is going to disappear anytime soon.  It has it benefits and pitfalls though.  Technology lets students reach far beyond any avenue they can receive in the classroom and learn about anything their heart desires, yet at the same time technology is intrusive, invasive, dangerous and has led to a digital society that is so "connected" they cannot function without some technological contraption. 

Wesch states that the education system is in  a tug of war between the Traditionalists and the Progressives.  One is content centered the other student centered with an emphasis on teaching relevant issues.  I say we can and must co-exist together.  I know students are wired differently today, but there is alot to be said for the way things have been taught in the past.  I was taught by traditionalists and I turned out very well.  I take into account that students today want relevance to themselves.  Its very important to see how things, people, events will affect them directly.  I get it!  I also know that life doesn't always revolve around them and they need to have some knowledge about aspects of history, sciene, math, ect.. I know we can peacefully exist together,

What I found very interesting about Wesch's article is that educational reform has been around for decades.  We should blame the Russians for all the educational "reform" by "experts".  If they hadn't launched into space first, who knows where would be now.  I think the scientists had it right, the educational system needs to teach students how to think, look where we are in 2012, we have students who do not know how to think, or create or disect information, because it is all done for them by a machine.  The one thing that I agree with is the lack of creativity within the classrooms today.  Unfortunatley, due to standardized testing, we do not have the time or ability to let the students experiment or explore, because instead of trying to catch up with the Russians in science we are now trying to catch up with the Asians in math, science, technology, ect., Funny how history repeats itself. 

It is interesting to read Wesch's article and discover that educational "revolutions" happened in the US when our society experienced something significant.  The Russians beating us into space- lets focus on teaching kids how to think; the Vietnam War - students "buck the system" and want more control over what they are learning; the economic depression of the 1970's- educational budget and growth towards progress is greatly hindered; US lags behind most of the industrialized nations of the world-lets focus on math, science and how to write.  Is it working yet?

We can incorporate the "back to basics" with the new and improved method.  I believe there is room in every classroom for both. 

Wesch's youtube video placed a great deal of emphasis on the digital information age and how accessible everything and everyone is, both past and present.  This can be a wonderful thing as students and all of us can expore,  search, learn about the world around us and we can focus our attention to those subject areas that interest us.  However Wesch also points out that the world wide web of information can be just as intrusive, invasive, harmful and unethical.  It can also become a very dangerous tool in the hands of the inexperienced or the diabolical.