Here’s How Educators and Lawmakers Are Working to Set Students Up for Success Online
Michael Danielson gives students in his ninth-grade media literacy class a simple piece of homework each night: Pay attention.
The assignment is meant to prod them into thinking critically about the countless messages that bombard them every day. They report back to their teacher and classmates at the start of each class with “media literacy moments,” explaining how they discovered hidden motives and attempts to manipulate them or sell them products.
Seeing his students apply five core concepts about media to what they see on Netflix, at the movies and online is Danielson’s favorite part of his job. It’s how he knows he has altered the way they consume media.
“I’ve changed them for life,” he said.
Danielson teaches at Seattle Preparatory School, a private Catholic high school. In addition to the required one-semester media literacy class, he teaches yearbook and theology classes and advocates for media literacy as chair of Action 4 Media Education, a Washington state-based group.
Media literacy is a broad term that encompasses a wide set of skills ranging from thinking critically about news and opinion articles to dealing with cyberbullying to creating and sharing content online. The idea of media literacy is not new, but experts say it gained new momentum following the 2016 presidential election.
Across the country, lawmakers, educators and advocates are working to elevate the issue of media literacy in legislatures and schools. Washington state has been at the forefront of the movement.
In 2016, lawmakers in Washington state passed a bill with bipartisan support that created an advisory council to study media literacy and make recommendations to the legislature based on its research. The following year, legislators passed a law — based on the council’s recommendations — requiring the state superintendent’s office to survey educators and district officials about the state of media literacy in schools across Washington.
Now, lawmakers are considering a bill that would provide grants for educators to create curriculum for media literacy and to allocate money for the state Department of Education to hold two conferences on the subject.
The initial Washington measure to create the advisory council is now the basis of a model bill used by Media Literacy Now, a nonprofit organization that advocates for media literacy, to help lawmakers get the topic on the agenda in their states.
Other states have taken their own approaches to making media literacy a priority, some more forcefully than others. For example, Californialawmakers passed a law that requires the state Department of Education to provide a list of media literacy resources on its website by July 1. In a stronger move, Minnesota in 2017 added “digital and information literacy” to its required K-12 education standards.
For the rest of the article and a Media Literacy Legislation map tracking 15 bills in 12 states: The 74
written by Laura Fay, staff producer at The 74
April 8, 2019
Net Neutrality’s Title I vs. Title II
Digital Divide Remains
Despite bipartisan talk, consensus on legislative solution continues to elude legislators
The new Democratic-led House Communications Subcommittee weighed back into the still legally muddy net neutrality waters Thursday (Feb. 7), led by chairman Mike Doyle, who led the unsuccessful House effort to follow the Senate and nullify the net neutrality reg rollback under current Republican chairman Ajit Pai.
The main takeaway from the hearing was that both sides of the aisle sounded like they were looking for a way to “yes” on bipartisan legislation to restore FCC rules against blocking, throttling and (anti-competitive) paid prioritization as a way to provide certainty for consumers and broadband investment, but that the Title II vs. Title I digital divide appeared to be as wide as ever, threatening that bipartisan spirit.
Republicans talked up at least three legislative proposals that would restore the rules, but not under Title II, including legislative proffers from Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), ranking member of the subcommittee, and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.), that would restore rules under a non-Title II framework.
Net neutrality activists monitoring the hearing quickly fired off e-mails shooting them down as fake bills backed by “telecom shillls.”
Read more at Broadcasting & Cable
By John Eggerton
Copyright? Fair use? Creative Commons? This invaluable guide was just released October 25, 2018. You’ll want to save, bookmark, and keep for reference.
Introduction to the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
Preamble: No Easy Answers, but Guidance
Teachers who live and work in a world dominated by new media are asking many questions about literacy classroom practice:
- Can my students use copyrighted music, images, or video clips in their video projects?
- Can my students and I repurpose a copyrighted image as a meme?
- Can I show a movie via Netflix in school?
You might be hoping that a document about fair use will present you with answers to these kinds of difficult questions. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers—but there is guidance.
The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education (which was adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee in 2008) provides guidance but does not prescribe practice. As literacy educators, we each bear the responsibility to educate ourselves and our students about our relationship to existing media as learning tools. You can use this Code of Best Practices as a foundation to understanding the principles of fair use. Its continuing relevance is a testament to the importance of a shared understanding of these issues within a community of practice.
History of This Document
This Code of Best Practices developed from a grant awarded by the MacArthur Foundation in 2006. At the time there was fear about potential lawsuits in documentary filmmaking. When presented with challenges to copyright, judges look to creative communities for guidance on what is considered acceptable use of existing media, so the development of this Code was necessary to establish norms for a community of educators. Many stakeholders were included in its development with the overarching question: What is fair?
The document was reviewed by legal scholars and intellectual property attorneys. It represents a consensus of a knowledge/practice community, and co-signers included organizations that cross literacy fields. It presents normative practices in the field and focuses on the user’s rights. Its longevity is a strength if a copyright challenge comes forward.
Fair use is applied and understood differently in various contexts. The best practice model provides the guidance needed to navigate those contexts by offering a set of principles and clarifying common myths. Teachers continue to encounter such scenarios similar to those described above in the preamble; when deliberating about such situations, reading the Code can provide some guidance.
Read more at the National Council of Teachers of English
Originally adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee, November 2008, introduction added October 2018
By: National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), Student Television Network (STN), Media Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME), and Visual Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA)
Teachers and parents can be at a loss on the topic of media literacy. We know it’s important—our young people are bombarded with messages constantly. How can we help them understand what they’re seeing, reading, and hearing? Let alone creating and sharing themselves! How can we help them evaluate the messenger as well as the message?
Click the image below to open it in a new window.This guide for teachers and parents has been created as part of Media Literacy Week by two AME board members, Ethan Delavan (high school IT director) and Janith Pewitt (high school classroom teacher). Michael Danielson, board chair (teacher and EdTech director) designed the publication.
Guess what, you’re already teaching media literacy!
Professional journalists face more scrutiny in today’s crowded information marketplace because readers confuse them with bloggers and a cadre of online opinion scribes.
Journalism’s essence is a “discipline of verification,” according to Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute. This means that journalists pursue verification of facts as the first order of business. If the journalists do not follow these standards, their careers and reputations are on the line.
Readers should understand there are important differences between professional journalists and everyday bloggers. Journalists are held to higher standards. They are required to get specific training through journalism degrees and are held to employment standards that ensure they serve their audiences by providing relevant and reliable stories that matter to their communities.
Read more at The Free Press
By Kevin Krohn and Austin Moorhouse July 14, 2017
A new US study by Pearson has found that 60% of Gen Z kids prefer YouTube for learning over printed books, but still value “traditional” methods of instruction.
New field research by global education company Pearson has revealed that Gen Z kids in the US like learning from YouTube more than printed books.
Conducted for Pearson by New York-based global market research firm The Harris Poll, Beyond Millennials: The Next Generation of Learners surveyed 2,587 14- to 40-year-olds to examine the differences between Generation Z and Millennials in terms of their outlooks, values, education experiences and technology usage.
According to the study, nearly 60% of Gen Z respondents prefer YouTube for learning compared to 47% who prefer printed books. Millennials, meanwhile, prefer printed books (60%) over YouTube (55%).
Read more, with a link to the full version of the Pearson study at kidscreen
By Jeremy Dickson August 27, 2018
We finally have some answers on the alleged DDoS attack on the FCC’s commenting system
Net neutrality, but questions remain about how seriously the Federal Communications Commission considered comments from the public. The FCC’s system for submitting those comments was
Two million of the 22 million comments submitted, some for people who were dead, including actress Patty Duke, who died in 2016. Nearly 8 million comments used email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com. About half a million were sent from Russian email addresses. And of the emails that came from legitimate email addresses, the vast majority were form letters originating from the same pro- and anti-net neutrality groups.
Then there was the controversy over athat temporarily shut down the platform on exactly the same day thousands of net neutrality supporters responded to comedian John Oliver’s call to flood the agency with comments.
That supposed cyberattack, after more than a year of speculation,, as a statement from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai revealed on Monday.…
FCC officials declined to comment for this story.
So what does it mean for the controversial repeal of net neutrality? Could the tainted public record on net neutrality help in efforts to restore the rules? To help you understand what really happened and what it all means, CNET has put together this FAQ.
By Marguerite Reardon First published June 29, 2018 Update, Aug. 6, 2018
It’s no secret that public schools, despite getting baseline funding from the State of Washington, vary widely in the money they have to spend. In the ongoing struggle to provide equitable access for all students, school libraries play a critical, and often underfunded, part.
An article from the Seattle Times (May 7, 2016) made these points:
- Washington state school libraries are not guaranteed any money for books or materials.
- In 2016, for example, 75% of Seattle Public School library funding was provided by PTAs, book fairs, and grants.
- The rest came from Seattle’s district office, averaging $2.55 a year for each student (less than the cost of one magazine).
- The statewide average was from $1 – $10.
- The national average was $10.
- Seattle schools reported a range of $1.69 – $29.88 per student, per year.
But why such a difference? Wealthier schools have PTAs that raise money for their libraries. Other schools face difficult challenges, especially, of course, poverty: families working long hours for low pay, limited English and mobility, and the shocking reality of increasing numbers of homeless students.
Schools with inadequate funding, in fiscally challenged communities, may not have a PTA to pitch in and provide money for their libraries. They have to find the money for competing, substantial needs. These schools depend on grant money, or donations from partner school PTAs and book fairs. Underfunded school libraries with out-of-date books and materials are the rule, not the exception.
In 2016, teacher librarians requested equitable funding for all schools, with full-time librarians in every school. They asked the state to allocate $10 per student for library materials each year. Well, here it is, 2018. Did they get what they wanted?
Teacher Librarians get what they wish for. Almost.
Good news! After the passage of Senate Bill 6362, starting in fall 2018, each school district will be allocated $20 for each full-time student, per year, for school library materials.
With some school libraries spending $29.88 per student, while others scrimp by on $1.69, the chance of every library having $20 per student is a dream come true, right?
Not so fast. That amount isn’t mandated, so it’s up to each school district to decide whether or not they will comply.
Also, the 2018 Legislature didn’t actually make any new money available: since 2009 it’s been in the budget, under “other supplies.” But now the legislature has made it clear that this allocation is to be used specifically for library materials, and has provided reporting accountability.
What happens next?
- You can help! Speak to your local school principal and ask about library funding. Share your strong support for the school library and, especially, the state’s newly identified library allocation.
- Contact your local school board members to thank them for their service. Ask how the district will address this new legislative directive.
- Contact your state elected officials to thank them for the allocation. Explain that without the mandate to spend the money on library materials, you’re concerned that this money may not be spent as intended. Tell them you would appreciate stronger language that mandates the money identified in SB 6362 is spent on library materials.
- Spread the word to other interested parties and ask that they take action too.
Advocates in the school library community, like members of the Washington Library Association, are gearing up to ensure this opportunity isn’t lost in “other supplies.” They’re making lists of what they need to update obsolete print and electronic collections. They’re gathering data on the age of their collections and their sources of funding. They’ll be going to their school and district leaderships with clear and compelling written proposals.
School libraries are a precious resource and are critical to media literacy education. Our children deserve equitable support. Every district should have the means to build excellent library collections that reflect the diversity of their readers, offer a wide range of reading materials, and provide current, high-quality research tools.
Also, did you hug a teacher librarian today?
By Sue D. Cook Thank you to AME board members Shawn Sheller and Kathryn Egawa.
“The tide is turning. The pressure is mounting. The floodgates are open.”—Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
“The dam is breaking, as it should.” That’s how Faiz Shakir, the ACLU’s national political director, responded on Tuesday after Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado became the first House Republican to sign a petition to force a vote on a measure that would reinstate net neutrality protections that the GOP-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rolled back in December.
“Rep. Coffman’s support to undo FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality shows that public pressure is continuing to build on this issue and cannot be ignored this November,” Shakir added. “Other House members should take heed of Coffman’s direction and stand by the overwhelming majority of their constituents, not corporate interests.”
Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting “scam” at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships.
Facebook provided the dataset of “every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level” to Kogan’s University of Cambridge laboratory for a study on international friendships published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2015. Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers from Cambridge, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. Kogan was publishing under the name Aleksandr Spectre at the time.
Read more from The Guardian. Image courtesy of The Guardian.
The Internet has morphed from a tool providing efficiencies for consumers and businesses to an elemental force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world.
Former Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the potential dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. Now he takes our stage with his new book How to Fix the Future, looking to the past to learn how we might change our future. Keen discusses how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which—like its digital counterpart—demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments, and altered the business world beyond recognition. Keen is joined onstage by Alex Stonehill, Head of Creative Strategy at University of Washington’s Communication and Leadership Program.
This event will be held Thursday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. at University Lutheran Church.
Address is1604 NE 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 in the Ravenna neighborhood.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $5.
For more information and to buy tickets visit the Town Hall website.
The other day, I was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to my daughter. When I got to the part where the caterpillar ate through one apple, I paused, surprised by an unmistakable munching sound coming from my coffee table.
The sound was actually emitted by an app called Novel Effect that uses voice-recognition technology to insert sound effects and music to books as you read them aloud—ideally, to make the experience of reading aloud more engaging for kids at home or in the classroom.
“You still get engagement, you still get interactivity,” says Matt Hammersley, Novel Effect’s CEO and one of its four cofounders. “But they’re not staring at a screen and you’re actually encouraging face-to-face personal communication.”
Image courtesy of the MIT Technology Review.
Psychologists are quickly learning how dangerous smartphones can be for teenage brains.
Research has found that an eighth-grader’s risk for depression jumps 27% when he or she frequently uses social media. Kids who use their phones for at least three hours a day are much more likely to be suicidal. And recent research has found the teen suicide rate in the US now eclipses the homicide rate, with smartphones as the driving force.
But the writing about smartphone risk may have been on the wall for roughly a decade, according to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles, coauthors of the recent book “Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber.”
It should be telling, Clement and Miles argue, that the two biggest tech figures in recent history — Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — seldom let their kids play with the very products they helped create.
“What is it these wealthy tech executives know about their own products that their consumers don’t?” the authors wrote. The answer, according to a growing body of evidence, is the addictive power of digital technology.
Technology moguls like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and other high-powered entrepreneurs tend to share similar qualities: persistence, ingenuity, grit, just to name a few. But one of the more surprising traits is the philosophy that kids ought to be raised tech-free.
Gates, for example, didn’t let his kids use cellphones until they were 14. Jobs, the inventor of the iPad, prohibited his own kids from using the tech.
“We limit how much technology our kids use at home,” Jobs told the New York Times in 2011.
Sherry Turkle, an MIT psychologist and author of numerous books on the negative social effects of technology, including “Alone Together” and “Reclaiming Conversation,” has an explanation for this seeming hypocrisy: Those at tech’s bleeding edge know full well how dangerous products can be.
“When people are very sophisticated, they know what not to do,” Turkle told Business Insider.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that it had approved Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd’s Abilify MyCite, the first drug with a digital ingestion tracking system to be approved in the United States.
The product, which uses digital tracking to record if the medication was taken, has been approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, acute treatment of manic and mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder and for use as an add-on treatment for depression in adults, the FDA said.
The system sends a message from the pill’s sensor to a wearable patch, which then transmits the information to a mobile application, so that patients can track the ingestion of the medication on their smartphone.
Abilify MyCite is not approved to treat patients with dementia-related psychosis and contains a boxed warning alerting health care professionals that elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis treated with antipsychotic drugs are at an increased risk of death.
The ingestible sensor used in Abilify MyCite was first permitted for marketing by the FDA in 2012.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission next month is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether, according to people familiar with the plans.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, chosen by President Donald Trump, in April proposed gutting the rules and asked for public reaction. The agency has taken in more than 22 million comments on the matter.
Pai plans to seek a vote in December, said two people who asked not to be identified because the matter hasn’t been made public. As the head of a Republican majority, he is likely to win a vote on whatever he proposes.
Video courtesy of Bloomberg.
According to a new study from Cloud IQ, published by Marketing Charts, 47% of online shoppers in the US, UK and Australia deemed speed “critical” to a great online experience, with another 47% saying it’s “important.” Close behind 45% said it’s “critical” that the experience be seamless and easy, and 47% saying that it is “important”.
Other research from SUMO Heavy showed that US adults said the most important aspect of a great e-commerce website is its usability and functionality. Separately, research from the CMO Council said that for consumers, the most important attribute of a great customer experience was a fast response time to the customer’s needs and issues. And, in previous research from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), fast response times and a simple purchasing process emerged as by far the leading elements of an ideal customer experience.
Data chart courtesy of Media Post.
|Contributers To A Great Online Experience (Online Shoppers)|
|Speed (can find and buy what I need quickly)||
|Seamless/Easy (Smooth, continuous and effortless experience across different channels)||
|Sense of Control (can search for answers, ask for help, updated, sense of being in control||
|Individualized (Treated as an individual and offered products, discounts, communications, based on specific preferences and needs)||
|Interactive, Engaging (Interesting, fun to use)||
|Proactive (Anticipated needs, provides timely offers, alerts and reminders)||
|Source: Published on Marketing Charts 11/17; Data Source Cloud IQ|
They call it the “Church Lane Hug.”
That is how educators at Church Lane Elementary Technology, a public school here, describe the protective two-armed way they teach students to carry their school-issued laptops.
Administrators at Baltimore County Public Schools, the 25th-largest public school system in the United States, have embraced the laptops as well, as part of one of the nation’s most ambitious classroom technology makeovers. In 2014, the district committed more than $200 million for HP laptops, and it is spending millions of dollars on math, science and language software. Its vendors visit classrooms. Some schoolchildren have been featured in tech-company promotional videos.
And Silicon Valley has embraced the school district right back.
HP has promoted the district as a model to follow in places as diverse as New York City and Rwanda. Daly Computers, which supplied the HP laptops, donated $30,000 this year to the district’s education foundation. Baltimore County schools’ top officials have traveled widely to industry-funded education events, with travel sometimes paid for by industry-sponsored groups.
Image courtesy of The New York Times.
Researchers at the University of Washington have found a way to track a person’s location and app use through serving ads on mobile apps. The result opens the door for significant privacy invasions through the app-based advertising system.
The researchers obtained the information by purchasing a series of ads targeted to specific locations and apps, then checking which mobile subscribers fit the targeting. In experiments conducted on Android devices, the team was able to pinpoint a person’s location within eight meters through a targeted ad. They tested ads on 10 different apps, including Grindr, Imgur, Words with Friends, and Talkatone, all using widely available ad networks.
By serving ad content to a user’s apps, the ad buyers could learn what apps the user has installed. That information could be sensitive, revealing a user’s sexual orientation or religious affiliation. For instance, ads served on Grindr will tell the ad buyer that the user has Grindr installed.
Image courtesy of The Verge.
On October 4, Mattel announced that they were canceling the release of Aristotle. Thank you to the thousands of parents, caregivers, and experts who spoke out in support of kids’ privacy and well-being! We commend Mattel for doing the right thing and putting kids first.
Mattel announced on Wednesday that it was canceling plans to bring to market a smart device called Aristotle, which was aimed at children from infancy to adolescence and was set to hit stores in 2018. The decision came after child advocacy groups, lawmakers and parents raised concerns about the impact the artificial intelligence device could have had on children’s privacy, development and well-being.
A petition asking Mattel not to release Aristotle, started in May by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Story of Stuff Project, garnered more than 15,000 signatures and argued that babies and older children shouldn’t be encouraged to form bonds with data-collecting devices.
Mash-Ups are a fun and popular way to express creativity whether you are combining different styles of music, or art, or memes, or such. Mash-ups can also be educational when the creator uses the two items to explain or express an idea, or for one of the items to complement or expand on the other.
One fun way to students to try this out is by using Google Slides to mash-up videos. Google Slides makes it easy to insert videos from either YouTube or Google Drive. Slides allows you to adjust your video options so that your videos automatically play when the slideshow runs. The end results is a presentation with two videos that play at the same time.
This could be used in several creative projects such as:
- Adding music or popular songs to famous historical speeches, or science videos, or scenes from story.
- Or having one video explain a concept, while the other shows examples or demonstrations of that idea.
- Or the videos could be used to show contrast, by playing two videos that demonstrate different processes or ideas or time periods or such.
See below for directions on how students can do this activity, along with a free template they can copy and use, as well as an example mash-up to show what a final product might look like.
In 1989, TV Guide put television’s celebrity-du-jour, Oprah Winfrey, on its cover, perching her upon a pile of money. The picture was exactly the kind of thing that tends to sell magazines on newsstands and in supermarket check-out lines: It was friendly, it was saucy, it was sparkly. The only problem was that it wasn’t, actually, Oprah. TV Guide had taken a picture of the talk show host’s face … and grafted it onto the body of ’60s star Ann-Margaret. The magazine had asked the permission of neither woman before it published its odd bit of Frankensteinery.
Photoshop was invented in 1987 and widely distributed, for the first time, in 1990; the TV Guide debacle would mark one of the last times that art editors had to physically splice images to create new manipulations. But a lack of Photoshop, while the software ushered in our present age of doctored photography, did nothing to stop would-be fakers from their, er, fauxtography.
Image courtesy of The Atlantic.
AOL has posted their final away message in what could be considered the end of an era.
The tech company announced Friday it would be discontinuing its pioneering Instant Messenger chat platform after 20 years of service.
AOL’s website posted the statement saying AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) would be shutting down on Dec. 15. AOL said it was ending the service to better focus on “building the next generation of iconic brands and life-changing products.”
After Dec. 15., AIM users won’t be able to sign into their accounts.
The statement also paid homage to its success in the late 1990s, including being referenced in HBO’s “Sex and the City” and the 1998 film, “You’ve Got Mail.”
Image courtesy of Fox News.
“Brain-training” games have been a controversial topic in recent years, especially after a group of scientists and researchers published an open letter in 2014 saying there is “very little evidence” that training your brain in one area or on one task offers improvement in other areas of cognitive function. Shortly afterward, another group of scientists wrote a rebuttal to that, claiming that a “substantial and growing body of evidence shows that certain cognitive-training regimens can significantly improve cognitive function, including in ways that generalize to everyday life.”
Which is what makes the efforts of a company called Akili — along with the University of California, San Fransisco’s Neuroscape lab — so interesting. Akili is a Boston-based tech company that has used Neuroscape’s core technology to develop a mobile game called Project: EVO. The goal is make Project: EVO so powerful, that it could potentially help treat children with ADHD — as a prescription-based video game.
Image courtesy of The Verge.