5.) Internet the Lesser of Two Evils?

The Internet Versus Television



A revelation I had after reading both Postman and Carr, was that I grew up in the “dumbest” time period of all. Being sucked into the Internet is far better than the passive, non-verbal characteristics of Television. Our generation was consumed by mindless activity but today children are interacting with each other, reading text and problem solving. In regards to media advertisements, Internet ads (the side bar of my email… facebook sidebar) taunt and persuade me far less than T.V. commercials. T.V. commercials and products being advertised in television shows persuade me without consciousness. Perhaps this generation is regaining a world of intellect, moving in the right direction by learning from each other and less from advertising companies.

4.) The Digital Divide

The Digital Divide



After taking this class, I realized how important it is to address the digital divide in a classroom. Even with high academic standards and fabulous technology equipment, our classroom instruction can not ignore the fact that some students have limited experience with technology and others are consumed by it. I have been looking for ways to bridge this gap. With a world already divided, technology could further alienate poor students. My plan for the next year is to make sure every student feels comfortable with basic web 2.0 tools, being careful in assigning daily homework online, writing grants for one-to-one computers and exploring community opportunities for students.

Presentation

3.) Not So Far Away

3.) Not So Far Away
How far away is the world of FEED? The setting of the book seemed a world away yet oddly familiar. Just in the past five years, technology has made major leaps and bounds. I am waiting for the day, when I can said…“I had to drive 40 miles to work in the winter ON THE ROAD,” and see jaws drop. I am thinking this day may come earlier then I had originally anticipated. I can only hope and advocate that if our world uses technology to better our society and not deteriorate it.


Close to home, flying car trail.

2.) Curriculum Guided by Corruption?

2.) Curriculum Guided by Corruption?
I have been unaware of my surroundings and how media had guided my professional life. Our class discussions, are urging me review the textbooks and educational websites my students are using. What messages are they trying to portray? What agenda are they supporting? Are Houghton Mufflin and Harcourt connected with any of the six major ‘media’ corporations? I must explore this! I hope to God there is never a School TM in my lifetime.

TOP TEN MEDIA REVELATIONS 1.) Arabland

1.)Arabland
I have been unaware of my surroundings and how media had guided my personal life. After watching Reel Bad Arab, I had a revelation. A month ago after seeing the movie, Sex and the City 2, my first thought was “Wow, my little sister was really brave traveling to a Middle Eastern country by herself.” With little awareness, Sex and City 2 made me fearful of “Arabland’, a term coined by Dr. Jack Sheehan. The movie clearly portrayed the stereotypes of suppressed women and dangerous terrorist-type men. With new awareness, I can see through the cloud of entertainment and feel empowered to question the producer’s motives.

Final Project Idea- Telluride Newspaper

HERE IS THE FINAL PROJECT!! This is the website: https://sites.google.com/site/ourtelluride/ The website includes a link to the Unit Plan and the link to the blog on the sidebar.

Title of Lesson: Authors of Telluride
Date: July 21, 2010
Author: Faith (Hubert) Horton
Grade Level(s)/Course: 4th grade
Subject Area(s): Media Literacy, Technology, Social Studies, Writing (All really!)
Time Needed for Lesson: One week introduction, on-going project and lessons through the year

Essential Question (Instructional Objective)
What can we share about the town of Telluride? What are media? As authors of media, what kind of image do we want to portray?

Background/Summary of the lesson
This is an on-going lesson. During the first few weeks of school, we will be getting to know each other, familiarizing ourselves with a class blog and diving into the study of Telluride history. This Telluride Blog will be a great way to energize students to learn about their local community and its rich history. The posts will be about everything Telluride, from interesting historical facts to current events. The blog will be a public site for all of the town folks to enjoy and potentialvisitors. The local news blog will be run by fourth grade students (with hidden identities). After introductory lessons, reviewing examples, participating in media “deconstruction” lessons and establishing an assessment tool, students will be assigned to write one post on the public blog in addition to reading and responding to peers’ weekly posts. There will be about 5 “Question the Media” deconstruction lessons. Students will learn how to question media and create media of their own in constructive ways throughout the unit.
Rationale
The tool Blogger allows students to express their ideas, learn how to safely use technology and respond to their classmates’ writing. The 5 media deconstruction lessons in particular will help students see the intent of the authors and owners of a newspapers/magazines, television and general advertisements. They will discover what kind of media creators they would like to be. The Google Blogger site is kid-friendly and allows for safe use. One of the greatest benefits of blogging is parent and community involvement. Parents can easily log on and see what their child is posting for the community and how they respond to classmates’ posts. It is a great way to keep administrators, parents and the community in the loop with curriculum. In addition, it is a wonderful way for parents to spark face-to-face conversations with their children at the dinner table. When posting information for potential Telluride visitors as well as local community members, students will feel invested and demand excellence from themselves. The Google website allows students to add more information about Telluride than just posting to a blog. I also included Google Earth, Google Calendar and a Google Document on the site for students to become more familiar with other Web 2.0 tools.
http://sites.google.com/site/ourtelluride/home
http://telluridettis.blogspot.com/
ISTE National Educational Technology Standards Integrated:
2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital
environments and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
3. Research and Information Fluency
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
a. plan strategies to guide inquiry.
b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
5. Digital Citizenship Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to
technology and
practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:
a.)advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
b.)exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
c.)demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.
d.)exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

Telluride School District Technology Standards:
• Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems: Use presentation software to identify and show the unique geographic regions
• Communicate and collaborate to learn with others: Participate in online projects, interact with others using email or other communication tools, communicate effectively using digital tools, participate as a class in global online projects that include a wide variety of perspectives, record summer activities in a digital template, tag and share bookmarked sites, participate in class discussions about online safety.
Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students: a. advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology. Identify the consequences of unethical uses of technology. Comply with copyright law when copying and pasting from websites. Use a search engine or an online database to find information. Read classroom website, wikis or blogs.



Objectives, Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes
In regards to technology, I expect that students will be able to:
• Type text
• cut & paste text
• access blogester and google site via typing in a url code in addition to signing in as follower
• edit website to add information on pages
• read and respond to friend’s posts
• research Telluride history and recent news using reliable sources
• citing sources and legally extract information for resources with plagiarizing
• safe internet use
• writing with proper grammar and focus using a graphic organizer to guide writing
In regards to deconstructing media, I expect that students will be able to:
• define media
• Interview media leaders in the community and beyond
• Become more aware of advertisements around their school, community and home using ACME’s 29 Persuasive Techniques
• think critically about magazine/newspaper advertisements by examining the authors’ camera angles, choices of music, special effects and transitions
• Create their own advertisements for visiting the town of Telluride
(ACME: Easy and fun Media Activities & ACME’s 29 Persuasive Techniques)

Criteria for Evaluating Student Learning/Performances/Products:
The most effective way for me to assess students is for them to be part of the assessment creating process. After the introductory lessons, students will review the example I created on the blog. Using the model, students will help me create a rubric on a Google spreadsheet.
- This is an example of what I expect the student-created rubric would look like for the blog.
-This is an example of what I expect the student-created assessment tool would look like for the one minute video advertisement.
Sequence of Activities:
Unit Overview: The Telluride Community/History unit is interdisciplinary and this project will certainly cover all subjects. Students will need to research history, discover scientific facts, critique and evaluate media, interview community members, write expository and persuasive paragraphs, use 2.0 web tools, read posts and research text. Students will work individually on researching and creating their blog post. However, during the writing process students will have their entry peer edited. As a whole class, we will deconstruct media, read weekly blog entries, celebrate and discuss our observations and successes. In small groups, students will create one minute advertisements for the website.
Introductory Lessons on:
• copy and pasting text
• accessing blogs and sites on Google
• on-going typing instruction
• being an effective and respectful researcher
• on-going grammar and paragraph writing lessons
• navigating Google Earth , Google Docs, and Google Calendar
• Social Studies lessons on Westward Movement and Telluride history
• importing pictures and videos
Blog Lesson Overview:
1st lesson-
• Students will navigate through the site and blog.
• Students will review my posted example.
• Students will help create a rubric for the blog.
• Students will assess my blog example.
Day 2-5 lessons-
• Students will start asking questions or pick a topic about Telluride. Their question or topic can be current events or information about history
• Students will be given a graphic organizer to guide their research.
• Students will start researching with on-line resources, newspapers, books or by writing to community folk for interviewing.
• After a few days of research, I will develop a sign up sheet. Students will sign up for a week. Weekly posts will be due on Wednesdays. Thursday morning we will read them at Morning Meeting.
Questioning Media Lessons:
(All document are Google Documents and linked on the Our Telluride, google site)
1st lesson- Day 1 What are Media?
• Teacher will help students come up with a definition for media using the Frayer Model Worksheet.
• Teacher will read over the section and explain expectations.
• Students will work in small groups to complete the worksheet.
• For the definition section, students will need to use the dictionary and interview a school community member. (ie. teacher, staff or student)
• The small groups will share their findings in a whole class setting.
Homework: Collect media from home to bring in the next day. * I’ll need to review them before use.
2nd Lesson- Day 2 Advertisements Around Us
• Students will collect examples of advertisements around our school in addition to what they collected at home.
• In a whole class setting, we will pick three or four mediums and count the advertisements graphing them on a chart.
• In conclusion, we will look for trends on the graph and make observations.
3rd Lesson- Day 3 Dissecting Advertisements
• Start the lesson with a “Bermuda”-like commercial to engage students. (Yes, Postman would blame me for be amusing them!)
• Discuss the authors’ choice of camera angles, choices of music, special effects and transitions.
• Using ACME’s 29 Persuasive Techniques, I will example and show examples of the following techniques: symbols, flattery, bribery, bandwagon, rhetorical questions, humor, repetition, warm fuzzy, beautiful people and timing. I decided to only teach them 10 at this point.
• Students will use one of the advertisements from the previous day to analyze using these techniques in small groups. Students will use this checklist to guide their assessment of each advertisement they choose.
4th Lesson- Day 4 Interview Media Creators
• Students will develop a list of questions want to know about media. Teacher will type questions into a google document on the SmartBoard for all to see.
• Students will print out the list of questions to interview their designated media creator (local, state or nation)
• The following week, students will share the responses they received.
• Students will use this information to guide the final lesson.
Final Lesson- Becoming Media (This will take probably a week)
• Students will draw on the last four lessons to create a media project.
• Student will create a one minute advertisement video for our class blog using i-movie. Note: Students already have experience with making a short video.
• The video will be advertising our town and encouraging travelers to visit.
• The rubric will serve as a guideline for the project as well as the assessment tool. Students will created this with me, however I provided an example of what I expect it to look like.
• The video will need to include at least 3 persuasive techniques from the 10 persuasive techniques from ACME.
• Students will then embedded their video to our class blog.
Materials:
• PEN and PAPER
• Smartboard or LCD projector to read the weekly blogs
• advertisements from magazines, newspapers and television (you tube)
• local newspapers
• computers
• access to email to contact interviewees
• parent permission forms
Note on Student Privacy: If students are not using their own pictures, I will teach students how to search for images that are safe for reuse. I will also teach students how to site sources and will address plagiarism in many writing lessons. In addition, to have an authentic audience this site and blog needs to be public. I will have to brainstorm with my new administrator on ways to keep the students’ identify safe. I gather we will create fake names for the entries.

Example Student Product: Attached is a sample of what a completed student blog would look like. http://telluridettis.blogspot.com/

Gold, Zinc and Lead but no Tellurium?
Gold was first discovered in 1858 but it wasn't until John Fallon's gold discovery in 1875 that the town of Telluride started to flourish. In 1878, the town was founded and named Columbia. The post office often confused the name of the town with Columbia, California and decided to change it to Telluride in 1887. The word Telluride derives from the chemical element tellurium that is often found near gold deposits. The interesting things is that tellurium was never actually found her the town of Telluride! Regardless, we the name of our town is perfect for such a breathtaking place rich with golden history.
Posted by Faith at 5:27 PM 0 comments


Expectations/Reflections:
I realize that this project may never happen due to administration and parental resistance. I will need to be prepared with articles and examples to prove that this is a worthy unit, good use of technology and safe for students to participate in. Regardless, I know I will be able to use parts of this unit.
The blog project may be extremely hard to manage and could become a weekly nuisance. However, I think the benefits outweigh the hard work. It will also be a way to pay special attention to one student per week and include parents into our classroom community. The advantage of the on-going project timeline is that it allows for sufficient time for those students who need to use special programs and need extra adult support to be successful.

Faith's Blog

This is my blog for the class Remote Control-Self Control.