Media Literacy, 21st Century Skills and Science

Nicole Laura & Joyce Pixley

What is media? What media do you use?

Media is defined as…• “Methods of mass communication”

• Does this change your answer?

Media can be…

and yes, even…

“Media” can be many things

• Electronic (iPods, computers, TV)• Print (books, newspapers, brochures)• Digital (internet-based)• Analog (radio, traditional TV)• Social (Facebook, Skype, Twitter)

Media can be used for many things

• Communicating• Creating information• Sharing information• Advertising

Media is growing. • With the advent of the internet, media is

• We (and our students) need to become smart consumers of media

• How can we tell what is true and false?• What is the reason certain types of

media are made? • How can we use media?

exploding

Let’s see how savvy you are:

See if you can answer the following questions…

– Evaluate the following statements and give your best answer.

– How do you know this is the right answer?

– If you don’t know…how could you find out?

Most lipsticks contain fish scales

TRUE!

Who is more likely to be struck by lightning?

MEN!

What word in the English language has the most definitions?

SETThe word “SET”

has over 450 definitions

What object do Americans choke on the most?

FOOD

How did you do?• …and more importantly, how do you

know that we’re giving you the right answer?

Media Literacy• Media literacy is a set of skills that

allows you to critically analyze, evaluate, use, and create media.

• Media literacy teaches you how to question the message, purpose, and method used to create what you read, hear, and watch.

An example of a media literacy task might be…

Critically evaluate these two images. What do you notice?

Some questions to consider…

• When were these images created?• How were they made?• What was the purpose in creating these

images?• Who created them? Who paid for them?

Why?• What information do they tell us about:– The time period?– The person portrayed?– Are they from the same time period?

Did you notice what’s the same in both paintings?

No eyebrows!

Project Look Sharp• Based in Ithaca, NY• http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/

Media Literacy Units• Project Look Sharp has many pre-

made units for media literacy. • Let’s check a few out.

Library Science Teacher Alliance• Joyce and Nikki participated in 3

workshops/sessions to learn about media literacy and to design a collaborative media literacy/critical thinking/science unit

• http://lsta2011.wikispaces.com/Home

Here’s our project…• States of matter + Cartoons?• We designed a lesson that combined

clips from Fox Kids’ Spiderman and science lessons on the states of matter (specifically, water)

What did this lesson look like?

• Joyce taught a whole unit on states of matter first, so the students were well-versed in the necessary vocab

• Nikki and Joyce co-taught for two sessions: one for the lesson, and the other for assessment

• During the lesson, students watched video clips, then made observations/discussed science comprehension & media literacy questions as a group

• Here’s some examples of questions and responses:

Student Observations about Clip 1

• Prompts: What did you see? With what you know about matter, could water act like that?– “He was a puddle and he came up out of the water”– “It’s not possible for water to go up like that”– “Water doesn’t have teeth, hair, or clothes”– “Water can’t stand up like that”– “This isn’t real”– “Water doesn’t have a shape”– “He just magically came up out of the puddle and

became a person”

Media Literacy Questions• Why do people make cartoons?– Because they’re fun– Because they’re entertaining– To make people addicted to TV!

• What happens to the people that made the cartoon if you get addicted to TV? – They get money

• Why would they show things in the cartoon that aren’t real?– To make it more entertaining for kids

Media Literacy Questions, Part 2• Did they make this cartoon to teach us about science?

– Lots of “no’s” and a few “maybes”• Did you learn anything about science from watching this?

– “Yes”• What did you learn?

– That water can’t really do those things• Is there anything water could really do that you saw?

– It can knock people down– It can be spread out on the floor– It can move

• What were we doing when we watched this cartoon that you wouldn’t normally do?– We only watched a small part– We asked QUESTIONS!

Talking about water with a force• Gave examples of the ocean, water

guns, and the 2011 flood• “Water can knock someone over, but

not like the movie.”• “Water can’t come out of someone’s

arms.”

Student Observations about Clip 3

• Prompts: What did you see? With what you know about matter, could water act like that?

• “That was water vapor!”• “He melted in the sun”• “He went up on the roof and the sun

was so hot that he melted and then he disappeared”

Discussing evaporation• Can ice melt? Can water evaporate?

– Yes!• How long did it take for the ice to melt when we did our

experiment?– Half a day

• Could it happen as fast as it did in this video? Why or why not?– It couldn’t. It would take a long time.

• Why would they make it happen that fast in the cartoon?– It would be boring for kids to watch the water evaporate

• What did it look like when the water evaporated in the movie? What about when we did our experiment?– There were lines in the movie– We didn’t see lines when we did our experiment– They made the lines so people can see what the water is doing

Assessment• For the assessment piece, students

were given a Garfield cartoon to view and analyze

Questions?

Images from:• Slide 4 iPod http

://www.flickr.com/photos/dantaylor/87397283/sizes/m/in/photostream/

• Slide 4 Laptop http://www.flickr.com/photos/jespr/3594274451/

• Slide 15 Mona Lisa http://www.news.discovery.com

• Slide 15 Queen Elizabeth • http://www.englishhistory.net• Slide 29: http://www.silvitablanco.com.ar