New MS POP Initiative~ Positive Online Presence

Collaboration with Sandra Cortesi, Director of the Youth & Media Center from Harvard's Berkman Center, and our soon-to-be MS Leadership Council

Sandra and her Team represent a fabulous local resource!  The new MS POP Initiative is an exciting follow up from her visit with the Middle School Tech Team last year and this collaboration opportunity provides a remarkable "focus" for this year's Leadership Council.  

Why we are so excited?

1. Opportunity to collaborate with the Berkman Center and participate in their innovative work and contribute to the center’s ongoing research
2. Means to stay up-to-date on current ways that young people interact with digital media such as the Internet, cell phones, and video games, harness associated opportunities and address media challenges
3. Opportunity for the Middle School students to develop as leaders
• Shape MS technology policies (rules/norms)
• Design and develop two units for the 7th and two units for the 8th grades and facilitate the instruction.
• Student-driven teaching is the most effective. Students teach each other what is most important to them (with adult framing of the conversation). A sample of student-driven topics of interest we envision:
• Privacy, reputation, and social media;
• Safety; Online relationships;
• Creativity and strategies to make student’s work more visible;
• How to use the Internet as a tool for empowerment - how the Internet can teach students anything they want to know more about;

For some quick background on the Berkman Center:

http://youthandmedia.org/

http://youthandmedia.org/about/

https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/scortesi

5 Key Questions That Can Change the World

My most recent 4th grade Internet Safety lesson on "scams and schemes," which was primarily about email and IM spam, and today's 5th Grade Internet Safety lesson called "Selling Stereotypes" reminded me of an article I read years ago about media literacy and the five key questions that we should be teaching our students to ask themselves any time they interact with media- whether it be a newspaper or magazine article, a textbook or another book, a print ad, a movie, a TV show or commercial, or a music video.  The "Five Key Questions that can change the World," as the Center for Media Literacy calls them, are as follows:

1. Who created this message?
2. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
3. How might different people understand this message differently than me?
4. What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
5. Why is this message being sent?

The above questions align with the following core concepts of media literacy:

1. All messages are "constructed."
2. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.
3. Different people experience the same media message differently.
4. Media have embedded values and points of view.
5. Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.

Teaching our students these questions and concepts encourages them to look at media content and the choices that were made in constructing it; the format of media and the way it is constructed; the idea that our differences can influence the way we interpret media; the subtle messages included in media that depict values, attitudes, and points of view; and the purpose of or motive behind media "beyond the basic content motives of informing, persuading, or entertaining."  Viewing the media from this perspective with a more critical eye gives students the opportunity to explore it on a deeper level.