Edu 422 Journal entry #5

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Media Smarts:From consumers to Critics and Creators
Journal entry #5 Edu422

A recent study of 8-18 year olds found that students in grades 3-12 spend an average of six hours, 21 minutes plugged into some type of media each day. If you add in multi-tasking, it changes to about four hours of TV, and forty-nine minutes of video game play. Homework gets less than fifty minutes.

This digital generation is still taught that the written word is the only means of communication worth studying. There are many new companies that disagree with the “old style” of teaching, and believe that by applying literacy skills to media and technology it empowers students be both critical thinkers and creative producers using images, language and sound.

Teachers must use the students interests to aid in the teaching of media literacy concepts and production skills. It’s believed that students perform better in their core-curriculum subjects as well as improve in all areas, when exposed to media literacy.

1. Do you agree with George Lucas that it’s time to change “English” class into “Communication” class, where students learn the grammatical rules of graphic arts, film and music along with English grammar?
I agree that with the increased technology in all areas, including film and music, it would be advantageous to address communication in all areas. The problem would be coordinating all this together, and fitting it into the typical school day.

2. Do you think packages like “Flipping the Script: Critical Thinking in
a Hip-Hop World” offered by Just Think would be a useful teaching
tool for students?
I think it sound like a fun way to teach students. Like the article
says, “ They either love hip-hop or they hate it, but they have
opinions about it, as opposed to some piece of 19th century literature
they get in English class.”