Brainstorming My Media Literacy Autobiography

My earliest memories of different forms of media are from around the time I was three years old. For TV I remember sitting at home and watching Thomas the Tank Engine in our living room. I don’t have a memory of what my first movie was, but for listening to the radio I do remember driving down the road as it was raining, the sun began shinning during the rain, which was the first time I had saw that. During that moment CCR’s song “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” came on. It was a strange moment that I still remember to this day. For advertisements the one that stands out the most in my mind is one from when I was around 10 to 11 years old. I believe it was some kind of gushers commercial that when the people ate the gushers their heads turned into fruit. It was very odd, and I actually never ate gushers because of it. So I guess it had the opposite effect of what was intended.

As for digital media literacy I do consider myself to be digitally literate. Being able to shift through media and recognize that something isn’t what it may seem is something I have always done. I don’t think that there was a specific moment. I’ve always have been very interested in learning. I learned very early on in my life that not everything you read, or that someone says, is true, but I guess it started with reading magazine covers in line at the stores. Their ridiculous headlines gave me that first lesson.

As for the digital media I am consuming in my life now I am obsessed with watching news and informational videos on YouTube. I like political commentaries such as The Young Turks, to channels that make you think about strange and odd things, like Vsause. I also love watching TedTalks videos, as well as channels that explain global issues, such as DNews, and Seeker Daily. All of these videos range from short 2-3 minute videos, to lasting over an hour.

As for teaching and incorporating digital media into the classroom I am more excited now that I have ever been. Now knowing all the resources that are out there and all the things you can do with digital media I am less afraid of going out into the teaching community, and I’m feel much more prepared to go out and teach children music.

My Digital Story

I decided to tell this digital story because it caused me to reevaluate many aspects of my life. I had gone out to enjoy the fireworks on the 4^th of July, and during my time outside I had a very long introspective moment where I examined different aspects of my life. I ended up making decisions to improve my life for the better. I think that my digital story would be good to build self-esteem because it deals with changing your life around for the better. It shows that even though life may not be going the way you would want or hope, you have the ability to make it my life better. I think that listening to different digital stories is a great way for students to learn digital media literacy. It allows the students to see what can be tools can be used in order to tell a more complete digital story, by experiencing what others have done with their own digital story. 

The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling

"You Are Your Future"

Element #1: Point of View

The point of view is that of Vincentsia Kelveh-Sonaths.

Vincentsia Kelveh-Sonaths

Element #2: Dramatic Question

The dramatic question is when did the narrator take the first step into making decisions for herself?

Element #3: Emotional Content

This story is very emotional for the narrator, because she was so young and she thought that she was in love. The hormones that teenagers are subject to can make subjects like relationships and sex very emotional.

Element #4: Your Voice

The use of her voice as opposed to just text on a screen is that it gives the listener a much more emotional story. You are able to hear the happiness, pain, and every other emotion in the narrator’s voice during the video.

Element #5: Sound Track

The story had n music in it, which made the narrators voice that much more important to the story, as it had to convey all the emotion itself.

Element #6: Economy

The narrator has a very good since of timing and transitions, and you are never left lost or confused during the story. She uses a variety of pictures as well as video camera footage that goes along with the subject of the story.

Element #7: Pacing

The narrator has very good pacing. She speaks slowly and clearly (although in a different language. Subtitles are included) She includes pauses in all the right places, and the story is just under four minutes. 

Everyone Around You Has A Story The World Needs To Hear

In my opinion StoryCorps is a great program. Giving people a way to have a meaningful discussion or interview with either a loved one, or complete stranger, is a powerful thing. It gives people a platform to say something they might otherwise have said, or tell a story for the last time. Having it recorded gives it the extra benefit of being passed down from generation to generation. To me the most powerful story presented was the one with Oshea and Mary, which was a very emotionally charged story, and really shows the goodness that people are capable of. All it takes is to sit down and talk. 

Infusing Digital and Media Literacy Across the Curriculum.

“When Jessica Brown, principal of the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush High School in Philadelphia got the opportunity to write a mission statement for her school, she knew it was important to connect the fine and performing arts and literacy, so she prioritized a focus on visual and media literacy skills for the whole school.”

Focusing on the fine and performing arts and connecting them to literacy is special to me being a music educator. Studies show that students who participate in the fine arts excel in language development, spatial-temporal skills, and gain an increase in IQ. Connecting the fine arts and literacy, which priorities in visual and media literacy will give students the ability to process and better understand information in the digital age.

“In collaboration with students, parents, faculty, and school leaders, each school and community needs to develop an effective policy for acceptable use of technology that works for the needs of their students. Too many schools and educators are fighting a losing battle with cells phones, iPods, social media, and other technology devices. After all, when you have a computer in your pocket, you’re going to want to use it.”

I agree with this statement 100%. Like the book states, educators are fighting a losing when it comes to personal technology in classrooms. That battle was even recently in the public eye when a school officer was recorded throwing a student out of their chair, allegedly because the student was using their phone in class. While this unfortunate situation escalated from there, it could have easily been a nonissue if the teacher, and the school, had better policy on technology, and its use and incorporation in the classroom.

“Use collaborative multimedia composition to produce authentic communication. Learners work together to compose new messages using media genres and forms that are appropriately challenging and meaningful for them to share their ideas with real audience.”

This is a good rule, because when the students go out in the real world careers having the ability to collaborate with their colleagues will be a valuable skill. Having students compose new challenging media messages together will allow them to see multiple sides to the same story, which will allow them to tell a more complete story.

Teaching With Current Events

What I really took away from the text reading, the video Journalism Revived, as well as the articles on Authentic Learning, and Place-Based Education is that it is incredibly important that students gain real world experience and knowledge, and that they gain the critical thinking skills and motivation needed to shift through the fast array of information available in the digital age.

Students how have the ability to look up information on any subject at any time with modern technology. This however comes with a price. Misinformation is abundant on the internet, and being able to connect information is key for our students to determine what is newsworthy, and how to understand it better.

In the Journalism Revived video Sarah Stuteville talked about how her and her friends went out and traveled the world to hear and tell these stories, and then they brought all the experience and knowledge back with them and put it into the community with their students program that teaches students to create digital media messages, and tell their own personal stories.

Authentic learning ties into Stutesville’s students learning program because that’s exactly what the students do. The students use the hands on skills they learn in this program and us them to tell high quality, personal digital stories, be it on a local level, national, or a global event. Place based education ties in with all of this because it gives students real world skills and experience within their own community.

My Digital Story

Digital Story Storyboard

*voice over*

Video of myself speaking Background Music

This quote from popular British television show Doctor Who really captures the main point of this digital story. Viewing our lives from the day to day perspective it does feel like much changes. We seemingly do the same repetitive tasks and it all just becomes a blur. But we are obviously different people than we were a year ago, or even five years ago.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

So today I’d like to ask: When did we change? When was the turning point from who you were, to who you are now, at this moment. This story is from one of the more major turning points in my life, because it gave me a more positive outlook on life.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

It was July 4th 2014, at around 10:30 at night. I had decided that I was going to walk to the basketball court that was located near my house in order to see the fireworks. When I got there I decided to lay down on the concrete in order to get a better view of them.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

They ended around 11, but it was still quite warm out, so I decided to stay there and admire the sky, which is something I don’t normally take time to do. During this time the clouds and the night sky seemed so much more interesting, beautiful, and somehow more important than it ever did before.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

While watching the sky I began to be very introspective about my life at that moment, and what I was happy and unhappy with. I was viewing my passive and negative attributes in a way that I had never done in my life before.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

It was one of those long nights where it is just you and your thoughts. I was unhappy with where I was in life. I was probably the most boring person in the world, just going to work, then coming home just to watch TV. I had horrible eating habits, and I was not taking care of my mind or body.

Video of myself speaking Background Music

.I began to think about what I perceived was important and valuable to me in life, such as wanting to travel the world and experience different places and cultures. I realized how amazing and ever changing the world is, and that it never remains the same for a single second, and that there is so much to see.

Video of myself speaking Background Music Collection of outer space and Earth scenery

I promised myself at that moment that I was going to go out and see the world. To go out and make a story worth telling. I also realized that I had to live my life for myself, and that taking care of myself, both physically and mentally, would help change my life around. Since this turning point in my life I have done exactly that. I spend my time living in the moment, and experiencing all that I can, while making memories with good friends, in beautiful places.

Digital Story Topic

5. In looking back on your life, you may be able to identify particular “turning points” – episodes through which you experienced an important change in your life. Please choose one key turning point scene and describe it in detail. If you feel your life story contains no clear turning points, then describe a particular episode in your life that comes closer than any other to qualifying for a turning point – a scene where you changed in some way. Again, please describe what led up to the event, what happened in the event, where and when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, and so on. Also, please tell me how you think you changed as a result of this event and why you consider this event to be an important scene in your life story today.

“We all change when you think about it. We’re all different people all throughout our lives.”

– The Doctor

I think the biggest turning point in my life happened in the summer of 2014. It was the 4^th of July at around 10:30 p.m. There was a basketball court just a few minutes’ walk from where I was living and I decided to go out to it and watch the fireworks. I walked out to the court and decided to lay down on the concrete to watch the fireworks. After the fireworks were done it was about 11 o’clock but still quite warm out, and I decided to stay and just watch the sky, which is something I don’t normally take time to do. During this time the clouds and the sky seemed the most interesting, beautiful, and important view in the world to me. While watching the sky I began to be introspective about my life at that moment, and what I was happy and unhappy with. I was viewing my positive and negative attributes in a way that I had never view them before. I thought about what I thought was important and valuable to me in life, such as wanting to travel the world and experience just how amazing, and ever changing the world is, because I realized that it only lasts of a second, and then it’s gone. I promised myself in that moment that I was not going to waste my life waiting for positive things to happen to me, that I was going to go out and make my own story. Since that time I have done exactly that. I spend my time experiencing all that I can, while making memories with friends, and good people.  

Protection and Empowerment

Three things I learned about storytelling are that children are easily influenced by the stories that they hear/view, we gain a greater understanding of things when we have more than a single story, and that it is easy to fall into the trap of a single story, but the most important thing I learned is that it is dangerous to have only a single story for reference, as nothing in life, no place, person, or event, is that simple.

“Once they got started, Mrs. Jenkins found herself not fully understanding what children were saying. She had to ask clarifying questions of the students to elicit more details and context in order to fully understand the ideas and information they were sharing. As she asked these questions more and more hands were in the air. Students were clearly energized by the process of sharing their knowledge.

I think that the strategy of connecting your lessons with something that the students are familiar with is a great way to get the students engaged. Asking the clarifying questions helps the students put more thought into the answers that they give, and will allow them to make even more connections. When students are engaged and excited about the lesson more meaningful learning occurs.

“We talked about the need to empathize with the people who were experiencing loss and to honor those who made efforts to help. We talked about how media messages about the disaster and its aftermath of two wars were shaping our own sense of national identity and the fresh fears we had as adults about how people around the world perceived our country, the world’s largest superpower.”

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feeling of another, is in my opinion one of the most important qualities that we as people have. Now so more than ever communication is a large portion of our lives. We are in constant contact of the world around us, and being able to relate to and understand other people intellectually and emotionally is more important than ever.

“Some educators attempt to disrupt students’ pleasure with advertising and media culture by demonstrating how advertising promotes “a sense of inadequacy anxiety, shame, yearning, envy and contempt for the self or the other.” Because the values of consumer culture are so deeply woven into the fabric of our society, providing students with a disruptive, alternative interpretation of advertising may create a shock to the system that moves students toward critical distance.”

More and more we are bombarded by advertising, a necessary evil in my opinion that allows creators of digital media to create stories of a higher quality, and our students having the ability to objectively view media messages of advertising, among other things, and understand the meaning and purpose of them is incredibly important. 

Composing Across Media

Three things I learned about storytelling are that it is joke telling, knowing your punch line, your ending, but the most important thing I learned is that it confirms some truth that depends our understand about who we are as humans.

 “Using creativity and imagination, as if working for an advertising agency, each student developed a way to “sell” the element by using image composition tools to create a propaganda poster.” I picked this quote because it is very close to an activity I had my students do during my time student teaching at East Fairmont High School. In this case I gave each of the students in my music appreciation class a classical composer that they were to research. Part of the assignment included writing a research paper about the composer, but I also had them create concert posters for their composer. I gave them complete freedom to design the poster they just had to include at least two pieces that they composed, and date and place that the pieces could have been performed at. The picture at the top is an example of the students work. While doing this I found the students to be more engaged in research than they were for just writing the paper. 

The Power of Representation

“It’s important to be aware of your own interpretations and to make every effort to heighten your consciousness about how you are seeing things. As she looked out at the attentive faces I front of her, she realized that connecting the historical lesson on Martin Luther King, Jr., to present-day issues of unconscious bias had increased students’ engagement in the learning process.”

I enjoyed this quote because it really shows how engaged students will get in the lesson when the teacher relates present-day issues to that lesson. It gives the students the tools to think about the subject with context, which helps them create informed.  

The Power of Storytelling

I chose these digital story because each of their subjects is one that is of importance to me, or of situations that I can relate to.

http://reelworks.org/videos/helena/

http://reelworks.org/videos/the-happiness-project/

http://reelworks.org/videos/green-living/

http://reelworks.org/videos/beyond-the-paper/

http://reelworks.org/videos/survivor-of-twins/

Green Living

What do you like about the digital story?

I like that the digital story is based on a subject is based on something that everyone can easily do with minor changes to their lives.

What did you learn from the digital story?

I learned about the different things you can recycle, what products can be made from recycled materials, and how it all helps the environment.

What surprised you about the digital story?

I was surprised by all the different interviews the students was able to do for the digital story.

What social problem was the digital story addressing?

Recycling

How did the digital story provide an example of how digital storytelling can build self-esteem, help young people voice an opposition to social problems, or create an alternative to stereotypes of adolescents typically portrayed in mainstream media?

This digital story was able to give a voice to a young student on the positive effects of recycling in our world and was able to reach people in a way he wouldn’t have been capable of on his own.

Do (or how do) these digital stories provide evidence of that these young people are engaged in analysis of their own culture?

I believe that they prove that young people are engaged in analysis of the own culture, and that they have an invested interest in the success of that culture.

Do (or how do) these digital stories support a healthy respect for multiculturalism and diversity?

PSA The Ethics of Representation

I chose to do my PSA on the ethics of representation because I wanted to show students that media messages can have a strong impact on how they view a certain subject, but there is always more than one side of the story, and you need to be able to objectively find the other side of it.

In the PSA I broke down the ethics of representation down into three categories, subject, author, and audience, and subcategories for each. Under subject there is consent and free will. Under author there is intentionality, consequence, and social good. And under audience there is intentionality and social good. Breaking it down in this way allowed me to pick apart the most important aspects of the ethics of representation. 

PSA Storyboard

My PSA Storyboard

My PSA is on the ethics of representation. It is for students and I will explain the inner workings of the ethics of representation, and how they can use it to deconstruct media messages that they might encounter. 

Critical Questions, Close Reading

“Research shows that when teachers use questions in the classroom, they often use closed questions, which have only one right answer. Teachers often go fishing by asking questions that can only be answered in one way – the right answer. Using questions to check comprehension is a common practice in the classroom, of course. But overuse of closed questions ricks turning students into barking seals, performing the role of good student.”

I very much agree with this statement. I absolutely despise when I have teachers that use closed questions. In my experience the students are too afraid to answer the question, which may be simple, but mostly is not. This fear to answer the question leads to a prolonged silence in the classroom. I prefer a method where the students have a meaningful conversation on a subject, and most of the questions are reflected to the teacher for clarification, or extra information.

Authors and Audiences

The magazine is produced by MENC (Music Educator National Conference) and is intended for music teachers in all fields of music to use as a tool to improve their teaching methods, and incorporate new tools.

Messages and Meanings

For this issue the cast of the television show Glee, a show about a high school glee club, is what is being used to draw in the reader. The cover addresses the show’s popularity, and asks the question if it could be used as a teaching tool.

Representation and Reality

I would say that the cover shows pride. If you take a close look the surroundings you see that the actors are posing gleefully on a stage, but are standing with garbage thrown around them. It shows that no matter what others might do or say, they have this thing to be proud of, and I think that that is a very important message.

Surprisingly there is no musical equipment or instruments on the cover, and if you didn’t know that it featured the cast of glee, one would be puzzled by the cover.

The deconstruction of this magazine cover will support content learning by having the students consider the show Glee and how it actually resembles a real music classroom, how it is different, and how they can use deductive reasoning at figuring it out. This will give the students a better grasp between what is real and what is fiction in other media outlets that they might not be as familiar with.   

PSA

I will be doing my PSA on The Ethics of Representation, and how it relates to students life online. In it I will focus on a variety of topics such as consent, free will, consequences, and intentionality, as well as the different ways the students can participate in ethical triangle. I will direct this PSA to a teenaged audience. 

Life Online

“Courts have stated clearly that a student “should be able to speak his mind when the school day ends” and that school administrators’ disciplinary power must be restricted to the boundaries of the school itself.”

I think that this decision is for the best. While principals need to be able to maintain the peace in school, it would be a gross overstepping of their authority. But I also think that it is important that students know what they do during their time off school can still effect their school lives.

“This structured verbal format is not necessary for all students to engage in sharing feelings, but I have found that it tends to equalize the differences between students who are more or less comfortable with expressing their feelings. It encourages them to use full sentences while describing and reflecting on their feelings and promotes divergent responses.”

I agree with this statement. Having the students write out their thoughts will help them form their arguments better when they are speaking out loud. It would also help with their interpersonal communication skills with their fellow students.

“In the contexts of the classroom, do not be tempted to take a look at an online video that a student mentions or describes.”

This is a very good piece of advice to follow. Even if the student has the best of intensions with the video they want you to show, it could still contain content that is not suitable for class. 

Research as Authentic Inquiry.

“Today, many teachers across the curriculum are developing creative strategies to make teaching the research paper more relevant.”

I find that developing new strategies and finding new ways to reach out to and interact with our students is of the utmost importance. A trend I am noticing is the when young people are looking for information on a subject they go to the internet, and find a video that teaches them in a very general, and concise, way. These videos normally relate the subject to something the viewer who deal with in everyday life. I believe this relation of the subject is how we will make teaching the research paper more relevant.   

“Oral Explaining – with both students and teachers participating – develops reasoning skills that support reading and writing practices across the disciplines.”

When I think back on my years in school I always remember asking a question that us students would have an answer to, but the teachers would always say “Well yes, but that’s not the answer I’m looking for.” I think that it is this lack of clarity on the educator’s part, and their inability to maintain a running dialogue with their students.  

“Similarly, many young people find the preoccupation of the adult world to be remote, disconnected from their lives, and incomprehensible.”

And lastly we have to remember that our students are growing up in a very different world than we did. What is important to us isn’t exactly what is important to them, and vice versa. But it is imperative that as educators we find a common ground with our student.

Deconstruction

To the first question I am unfamiliar with Century Link and the customer satisfaction that they have although the evidence would seem to suggest that is making profits over customer satisfaction. But I do know that it is easy to make assumptions on topics based on similar knowledge. A good example around here would be Comcast, with their bad customer satisfaction. To the second question, on first viewing of the video my immediate thought was not that the ad promoted racism, up until the showing of the “immigrants”.  I think it shows a cultural ignorance and insensitivity that we have become too used to.   

Hard Work Conquers All: Red Bull and the American Dream

http://medialiteracyproject.org/deconstructions/hard-work-conquers-all-red-bull-and-american-dream/

I picked this deconstruction because it points out the how unfair the thought of the American Dream is, and that we do not have a level playing field and that all you need to have a good life is to work hard. 

Reflecting on our Love/Hate Relationship with Media

Digital Media is an amazing tool that can be used to great effect in our schools. One of the words I kept seeing pop up was “unreliable”. While there are certain problems that go along with digital media they are getting fewer and fewer as technology progresses. And as those problems are shrinking the benefits are getting better than ever. As the group posted on the Padlets productivity, creativity, and access to information are huge advantages of digital media. 

Media Message Deconstruction

This magazine was produced by TheBlaze, the personal digital conservative news website of Glen Beck. It would seem that the headline of the magazine was to bring to light the perceived deficiencies of the common core standards. It was produced in May of 2014, and it showcases the fear some people have over the changing times in America. The target audience of TheBlaze is conservative Christians. The headlines for the magazine are Duck Dynasty and faith, Higher Ed and how college is a waste of money, World and the rising number of Christian persecutions around the world, and Energy and how nuclear power isn’t as bad as we’ve been told. The thing that sticks out most to me is the title of TheBlaze, figuratively living up to its name. The use of the thought bubbles against the background of children in a classroom is a thought provoking picture, as it lends itself to the headline of us losing our freedoms because of common core. Some people may take this article as an attack on their personal believes and values. And media companies that thrive on digital media illiterates would be the ones who benefit from this message.  The message leaves out any of the positive points that there might be to common core. I do not believe it is an accurate and credible representation, and that it only reflects the perspective of Glen Beck, the creator of The Blaze and a far right conservative, and people who agree with his views.

The persuasive techniques the magazine uses are Bandwagon, Celebrity Spokesperson, Emotional Appeals, Glittering Generalities, Individuality, and Loaded Language.

Critical Media Literacy: Core Concepts and Debates

Watching the Cameron Russell TED Talk for me just reinforced that notion that all of the commercial media that we are subjugated to is heavily altered, and is a product in and of itself. It really shows how important media literacy is, because it is used in such an obscuring way that being able to decipher what is real and what is not is becoming more and more difficult. I think that’s how it ties in with Neil Postman’s concerns with “crap detection”. Critical is the key word in Critical Media Literacy. Being able to critically decipher what is real and not real in digital media is extremely important if we want our students to be able to learn and gain information. I think these quotes from the reading really back up this.

 “Through the inclusion of some groups and exclusion of others, representations benefit dominant and positively represented groups and disadvantage marginalized and subordinate ones.”

“Thus, knowing what sort of corporation produces a media artifact or what sort of system of production dominates given media will help to critically interpret biases and distortions in media texts.”

“The USA now has two national media literacy membership organizations that hold national conferences every 2 years, support a variety of media literacy activities, and have about 400 members each.”

A silver lining is that the same critical thinking that was used for print media is still useful when addressing digital media. And a deep knowledge of reading and writing abilities are very valuable with media literacy. As for my own teaching I would have to go with Critical media literacy. It builds on these approaches, analyzing media culture as products of social production and struggle and teaching students to be critical of media representations and discourses, but also stressing the importance of learning to use the media as modes of self-expression and social activism.

Animoto Video

Introduction

Hello!

I am Brandon Haggerty. I am originally from Shinnston, WV but currently reside in Fairmont. I am a music educator and I am currently going for my master's in digital media at FSU. I have also worked at a local music shop for the past five years, as well as working as a local music instructor. I am hoping to find new and inventive ways of teaching music in the classroom using digital media. And this is the first class I have taken for the program.