Month: November 2022

Follow-Up from “Fitting In, Standing Out, and Building an Identity: Middle Schoolers and Media Literacy”

As we consider the ways in which we might invite our middle school learners to bring their digital literacy practices into the classroom, we then went into a structured breakout room conversation that imagined what four fictionalized students could be creating — fan fiction, gaming, Tik Tok-style videos, and vlogs via YouTube — and how these practices might inform other academic work that they could do.

On November 30, 2022, I was invited to present “Fitting In, Standing Out, and Building an Identity: Middle Schoolers and Media Literacy” for the Media Education Lab’s on-going series, Media Literacy Across the Generations.

As the session unfolded and participants added their ideas, I appreciated the ways in which our initial chat conversation brought about a list of “verbs” in which middle school students might engage, including:

  • Being Curious
  • Being Entertained
  • Connecting
  • Copying
  • Creating
  • Dancing
  • Emulating
  • Entertaining
  • Making Friends
  • Participating
  • Playing
  • Recreating
  • Relaxing
  • Scrolling
  • Sharing
  • Showcasing
  • Watching

As we consider the ways in which we might invite our middle school learners to bring their digital literacy practices into the classroom, we then went into a structured breakout room conversation that imagined what four fictionalized students could be creating — fan fiction, gaming, Tik Tok-style videos, and vlogs via YouTube — and how these practices might inform other academic work that they could do. Here are the session slides with embedded links to resources, the “view only” digital handout, and the recording embedded below.

Feel free to repurpose these materials for your own professional development sessions or contact me if you would like to talk about workshop and webinar opportunities.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Session Resources from NCTE 2022

NCTE 2022 in Anaheim was a wonderful gathering, back face-to-face after two years of virtual learning necessitated by the pandemic. And, as anyone who has been with me at NCTE knows, over the years, I have tried many methods for keeping slides, handouts, and links from presentations, webinars, and workshops organized.

NCTE 2022 in Anaheim was a wonderful gathering, back face-to-face after two years of virtual learning necessitated by the pandemic. And, as anyone who has been with me at NCTE knows, over the years I have tried many methods for keeping slides, handouts, and links from presentations, webinars, and workshops organized.

And — after using wikis, social bookmarking tools, collaborative boards, QR codes, shortened URLs, and more — I will, of course, keep experimenting with new, digitally-mediated ways to share during sessions. However, a few technical glitches reminded me that, yes, sometimes simply having a website with a list of links is important.

To that end, here is a concise list of the sessions I was involved with at NCTE 2022.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Media Literacy Across the Generations Webinar

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 29th at 12:00 noon ET, I will lead the next in the Media Education Lab’s series of webinars, “Across the Generations.”

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 29th at 12:00 noon ET, I will lead the next in the Media Education Lab’s series of webinars, “Across the Generations.”

My session, focused on tweens and teens, is titled “Fitting in, Standing Out, and Building an Identity: Middle Schoolers and Media Literacy.” You can register from the link on the series home page , or directly via Zoom.

Here is the session overview:

At the same time they are trying to fit in with their peers, tween and early-teenage youth are also working to create their own identities and stand out amongst the crowd. Media messaging — from the social media they consume to the advertisements that are targeted at them — play on this tension, forcing our youth to make choices about how to build an identity while not standing too far away from their peers. In this session, we explore the tensions that youth face as well as teaching strategies to help them become better media consumers and creators.

From Media Education Lab, “Across the Generations”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.