10 Ideas to Integrate Technology into a Media Literacy Unit

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Our Grades 4 and 5 classes are about to work on a media unit as part of a How We Express Ourselves PYP unit. As part of my role as technology coordinator, I have been working with the teachers to integrate technology into the Units of Inquiry. We’ve just started planning this unit but I can’t go to the planning meeting this week, so I decided to create some brief notes for the teachers. I’m sharing it here to give you ideas, and also for feedback, suggestions. I know that there are many more web2.0 resources that we can use. One of my challenges is finding websites that allows users who are under the age of 13. I look forward to reading your suggestions in the comments.

There are a number of activities that teachers and students can do that integrates technology in the study of media. In an elementary classroom, you can have students use technology to do the following things:

• Create a poster advertisement in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Google Docs.
• Create a presentation to analyze an advertisement (newspaper, magazine, radio, television or web).
• Complete a webquest to learn about ads. Create the webquest from scratch, find one online, or modify one such as http://ideas.wisconsin.edu/ad101/
• Search for images of poster ads using http://search.creativecommons.org and create an ad collage, in general or by theme
• Analyze the presentation of online material, such as news, and compare/contrast them e.g. what are the similarities and differences between online news/magazine sites and is it possible to classify the type of news/magazine from the site layout?
• Create a collaborative timeline of media types e.g. using http://xtimeline.com or Voicethread.
• Use a voice recorder to interview parents about the type of media that they used as a child. You may want to focus on media for entertainment communication, etc. Students can then write a parallel description of media in their time. Students can create a poster, chart, diagram, glog etc. to illustrate the similarities and differences.
• Create a Did You Know presentation that relates to media in Japan (or elsewhere), relating the range of media and/or the reach of media over time.
• Create a news report on the media, treating media as a criminal or a good Samaritan, or another character that allows them to present the characteristics of media
• Create a dialogue of a conversation between two types of media as a means of comparing/contrasting them. This dialogue can be transferred into a skit, animation, comic, etc.

Lessons

• http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=247

Websites

• (Grades 3 – 6) Online game to help students understand and decode ads – http://www.admongo.gov/
• (Grades 3 – 5) PBS site to help children evaluate and analyze the media messages that they see/hear
• Media Literacy Clearinghouse – http://www.frankwbaker.com/default1.htm
• News and Newspapers Online – http://library.uncg.edu/news/
• Educational Games and Lessons for Media Literacy – http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/education_resources/index.cfm
• Common Sense Media http://commonsensemedia.org
• Use map signs and symbols to explore an island – http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/adventure.html

Technology Tools

• Voicethread – http://nagoyais.ed.voicethread.com
• Digital voice recorder
• Computer with Internet
• Video camera
• http://xtimeline.com – Teacher has to make the account since terms of use specifies that only users over 13 years old are allowed
• http://edu.glogster.com
• Powerpoint, iMovie, Windows MovieMaker, MS Photostory
• http://goanimate4schools.com
• http://bitstripsforschools.com