Week three - Thoughts on A Portal to Media Literacy Video

This was an amazing video -  I was first impressed that he was a professor of cultural anthropology.  He started out by speaking about the portal or area that is designed to bring students together to work.  The traditional class in a typical college or university.  He stressed that the room was not set up to include discussions in the classroom.  The room is set up for the  the expert and or authority was at the front of the room  He surveyed his students to ask what they were doing while the class was happening.  The survey showed that they were not engaged in their education, but looking at their e-mail or other internet site.    I like how he addressed that "something was wrong and we needed to do something else".

He talks about the crisis of significance, the students really only want to know how many points are on a test, how long does a paper need to be, these types of questions.  They are almost telling us, we want our learning to stop or just get to a specific point.  They are not finding meaning in their education.  Only looking at what their grade will be.  I see this type of behavior so much in high school.  So many of my students are stressed out about their GPA because they are or soon will be applying to college.  Colleges and many of the scholarships have become so competitive that our high school students end up spending their last years of high school worried about their grades.  I have even seen students not sign up for classes that they are interested in because they want to meet the college or university recommended classes to take in high school.  I think it is sad, that they feel they need one more year of science and do not have room for a pottery class or something that they are really interested in.

I did like the quote from Barbara Carson  "  Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them"  Wow..  For those of us who have children in our lives, our own or somebody else s this is an amazing quote.  We need to care about these children to help them better learn.   We also need to learn how to use the media to help our children educate themselves and not just entertain themselves.   I try really hard in my classroom to always find ways students can use the technology in an educational manner.  I was glad to hear him speak of the importance of this.  I am also glad that I really do this.  It takes me longer to find interesting things/activities online.  It is much easier to just assign the questions at the end of the chapter.  But,  I can see that this can help to make a difference in my students education.

I really think his idea on creating platforms for participation is so important.  Getting the students involved in a digital way to help them digest material is so important.  I found this website called "captivate" http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate.htmlhttp://www.adobe.com/products/captivate.html.  I am not sure of all of the ins and outs of this software, but it looks like you can have very interactive power point type of presentations.  You can also include narration and up load videos.  oh, and you can use a drawing tablet and write on your presentation as it is happening.   I think it is important for teachers to bring the "playing field" of education to the students level.  We live in a digital cultural and have digital students. We need to meet them on their turf.