My Digital Story

Melda N. Yildiz

myildiz@kean.edu

Kean University

Digital Storytelling Across Cultures and Throughout

History: From Awareness to

Action in Teacher Education

Reasons using new mediaProvides: • Access-- Liberate teachers and students from

textbook format. Provide alternative resources- Teachers and students will be able to research through online resources.

• Global Point of View-- Students and teachers will participate online discussion groups, weblogs, wikis, and listservs.

• New tools for classrooms– Students and teachers will be able to produce media presentations, learning objects, interactive teaching material.

Course has three main parts• De-construct: (Read Media) Media Literacy

Activities (deconstructing webpages, news, advertisement, and newspapers; POV (point of view) exercise, etc.)

• Research: (Use Media) Information Literacy (Library Skills, researching internet resources, etc.)

• Construct: (Write Media) Media Production (Create an oral history project, video documentary, website, webquest, weblog, and multimedia presentation)

Documenting Preservice Teachers’ Experiences

• Theories on teaching and learning

• Literacy theories• Assignment from 335

– Tutor students– Reflective journal on tutoring

sessions– Curriculum project

• Media review• Learning object• Response to course reading

Application

• Preservice teachers teach, learn, and produce literacy using 21st century tools

• Websites students visited

Application (cont.)

• Preservice teachers create a learning object for their students.

Transfer/ Connection to K-12• Preservice teachers create

learning opportunities for their students using 21st century tools

Resources/ Presentation Slides

Media Literacy Resources

Presentation Slides/ Course outlines

http://medialiteracyproject.blogspot.com/

How to Teach Media Literacy

Yeh- Shen: A Cinderella

Story From China

Low Self-Esteem“92% of girls want to change at least one aspect of their appearance.Dove believes all girls deserve to see how beautiful they really are and is committed to raising self-esteem in girls everywhere. That's why we created the Dove Self-Esteem Fund.”(www.campaignforrealbeauty.com)

http://www.thriveoncreative.com/clients/seejane.org/pdfs/where.the.girls.arent.pdf#search='findings%20of%20the%20study%2C%20Where%20the%20Girls%20Aren%27t‘

• The study examined 101 animated and live-action films made from 1990 to 2004. It found only 28 per cent of speaking characters were female and, in crowd scenes, only 17 per cent were female.

• Among the films studied were Finding Nemo, The Lion King, Monsters, Inc., Chicken Run, The Princess Diaries, Babe, The Santa Clause 2 and Toy Story.

Findings of the study, Where the

Girls Aren't • Children's films

devalue women by making most characters male, says Geena Davis

• http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/news/article345283.ece

•  Half the Population, a Fifth of the News     By Sanjay Suri     Inter Press Service

•     Wednesday 15 February 2006 •     London - More and more women are now reporting the news,

but still only about a fifth of the subjects are women, a new survey shows.

•     "What we see in news subjects is that whilst women make up 52 percent of the world's population, they make up only 21 percent of news subjects," Anna Turley from the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) told IPS. WACC is a non-governmental organisation that promotes communication for social change.

• http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/021506WA.shtml

As we enter the twenty first century, it is essential that the schools be places that help students better understand the complex, symbol-rich culture in which they live in.

A new vision of literacy is essential if educators are serious about the broad goals of education: preparing students to function as informed and effective citizens in a democratic society; preparing students to realize personal fulfillment; and preparing students to function effectively in a rapidly changing world that demands new, multiple literacies.

Renee Hobbs, 1997

It is no longer enough to simply read and write. Students must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Our children must learn how to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliché and distinguish facts from propaganda, analysis from banter, important news from coverage.

Ernest Boyer

Media Education is both essential to the exercising of our democratic rights and a necessary safeguard against the worst excesses of media manipulation for political purposes.

Len Masterman

The aim is to develop an awareness about print and the newer technologies of communications so that we can orchestrate them, …. And get the best out of each in the educational process.

Without understanding of media languages and grammars, we cannot hope to achieve a contemporary awareness of the world in which we live.

Marshall McLuhan

"I learned how to deconstruct commercials, how to use the camera equipment, and how to create a public service announcement. Most importantly, I experienced that every message can be interpreted differently. Depending on the era, personal experience, each sign makes different meaning to different people.Prior to taking this course, I simply watched a commercial at face value. I never really looked at the details or asked myself what target audience the advertising company was aiming for. Since class, I have been a commercial-analyzing junkie. I look at the color scheme, the logo, the endorser (if there is one), choice of music, and the intended target audience.”

“I am happy to have met you,

because you have given me

much more to think about than

just the content of this class.

… More than learning video

production, this course gave

me the chance to reflect on my

own viewing habits and I

learned something about

myself.”

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection, not an invitation to hypnosis.

Umberto Eco (l979)

Teacher’s Role

• Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

Paulo Freire

Construction of Meaning

Sign

ExperienceMeaning

Construction

Time/ era

Context/ place

L.A. Times Photographer Fired Over Altered Image

• http://www.poynter.org/resource/28082/asdf.swf

• http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=28082&sid=29

• I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrdwaht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

• The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Circle of Life

Mickey Mouse Monopoly

• http://www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MickeyMouseMonopoly

Production is crucial because

• Students need variety ways to present their ideas.

• Different learning styles demands different ways to present a project besides essays. (Gardner, 1993)

• Teaches Media Literacy skills• Gives students different perspectives and

point of view to look at the world/ surroundings- Multiculturalism

• Media Production is an essential component in education

• Teachers education needs to include media production techniques and pedagogy

• Media Literacy skills are important component for multicultural education

Bloom's Taxonomy and Critical Thinking The goal is to go beyond Knowledge/ Comprehension

Knowledgerecall

List fact Worksheet Chart Oral recitation

Receive

Comprehension understand

Report Review SummaryDiscussion

Respond

Application use, practice Map Model InterviewDiagram Illustration

Value

Analysis dissect, generalize

Graph SurveyQuestionnaireResearch Plan

Organize

Synthesiscreate, combine

Role Play MuralVideo ProductionNewspaperStory Advertisement

Produce

Evaluationappraise, value

Panel DiscussionEditorial Debate Mock Trial Book Review

Judge

Why Study Media?

• Media Saturation• Media Influence• Manufacture and Management of Information• Media Democracy/ Critical Autonomy• Increasing Importance & Emphasis• Privatization of Information• Educating for the future

Media are symbolic systems; not simply reflection of reality which must be accepted, but with languages which need to be actively read, and interrogated.

Len Masterman

Main Questions

• Who produces it? Originator, creator, or author

• Who are the stories intended for? Target Audience

• What is missing?

• Whose point of view is being presented?

The discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie, …. Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else.

Umberto Eco

• Video (TV) is helping or hurting education?

• Can school video production efforts compete with commercial endeavors?

• Are teachers using video effectively?• Can students learn anything from

planning or producing their own videos? (Valmont 1995, p.1)

In schools, Media (video) production is considered to be time consuming

• Reasons not to have production in the curriculum. Lack of:– equipment– technical knowledge to be able to use the

equipment– support department– interest– time allocated in the curriculum