Navigating the current pandemic requires that young people acquire an increasingly complex set of skills, such as understanding statistical data, evaluating the credibility and truthfulness of health information, analyzing the risks and benefits of a particular treatment or vaccine, and interpreting test results. An essential skill in 2021 is health media literacy.
resources
Use some Common Sense during #MediaLiteracyWk
Common Sense Media is a non-profit, non partisan organization that has been around since 2003. Common Sense caters primarily to three different constituencies: Common Sense Media (parents), Common Sense Media Education (teachers), and Common Sense Action (advocates). Its organizational mission is to “provide education and advocacy to families to promote safe technology and media for children.” While “safe use” can sometimes allude to protectionism rather than empowerment, the Common Sense web site tells otherwise (in both Spanish and English).
We at PLAY think that if there is just one new resource families can add to their media literacy toolkit to commemorate National Media Literacy Week (Oct 21-25, 2019), it should be Common Sense Media. Here are just a few reasons:
Nutrition Education: The Political Version
The Atlantic offers an excellent conversation-starter video (5 minutes) about the myths of nutrition education that have been perpetuated throughout public schooling for decades. A food media literate person investigates the Food Pyramid with such questions as: “Whose interests are served?” “What is left out?” “Whose voices are excluded?” and “At what cost? And to whom?” [click title to read more]
Food for thought . . . literally
If you have just 5 minutes this summer, watching this video by TED-ucator Mia Nacamulli s time well spent. “How the Food You Eat Affects Your Brain” is brilliantly animated and incisive in its information about that old adage, “you are what you eat.” The short video illustrates the direct and long-lasting effect of food on the most powerful organ in your body: your brain.
A Journey to Media Literacy
A big digital knuckle bump to the European Association for Viewers’ Interests (EAVI) for creating a Ning community to magnify the principles of media literacy, especially to…
CyberWise Guide to Media Literacy
This is a simple guide to help parents and educators understand what it means to be media literate in the 21st Century. This is the…
Using Technology to Differentiate Instruction
[download PDF] This highly idiosyncratic Top 10 list was my starting point for a 3-session professional development mini-course (Using Technology to Differentiate Instruction Among Gifted…
A Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy
Two of my favorite media literacy educators are NAMLE founding member Cyndy Scheibe and NAMLE founding president Faith Rogow. They have just co-authored a much-needed…
Heed the Beckon-Ning Call
The eighth annual Northeast Media Literacy Conference, was held at the University of Connecticut on March 26, 2010. Keynote speakers were Dr. Susan Linn, author, and…