February 16, 2013

Black History Month Giveaway: ‘King: A Filmed Record… Montgomery to Memphis’

Ely Landau’s King: A Filmed Record received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary more than forty years ago, and strangely enough you could see that scenario repeating if it were released today—it’s that riveting, that smart, that important. (And actually this Sunday, it is being “released” again for a single day at select theaters.) Just [...]

‘Girl Model’ Re-connects Media Literacy to its Beating Heart

There’s a danger when you spend a long, long time in the media literacy game…

Giveaway: Blu-ray and DVD Combo Pack of BULLY

Giveaway: Blu-ray and DVD Combo Pack of BULLY

Young people need to understand the way that media texts position them—even with, or perhaps especially with, those texts whose content they are sympathetic to…

Visual Literacy and the Red Carpet: Celebrity ‘Make Unders’

Visual Literacy and the Red Carpet: Celebrity ‘Make Unders’

Rarely do we have the opportunity to deconstruct images so rigorously that they actually invert themselves in the process… making the celebrities in question less attractive than they really are.

Transmedia in Schools and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver

“How can you tell a story in a game and have it be school-appropriate, while simultaneously making the student think about the implications of what they enjoy playing?”

Transmedia in Schools and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver

“How can you tell a story in a game and have it be school-appropriate, while simultaneously making the student think about the implications of what they enjoy playing?”

Teaching Transmedia with Comics: A Conversation with Tyler Weaver

“By allowing students to create with a medium, you give them the chance to explore the potential of the medium and of themselves. The exploration of potential is beautiful…”

Media Literacy, Powerfully: A Model for School Librarian and Classroom Teacher Collaboration

“We use cereal boxes which hang in the library to identify the different aspects used to sell to adults vs children…”

‘Tales of the Night,’ ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ and the Problem of Animation for Teens

What animation exists out there that’s regularly screened in schools or shelved in libraries that’s the equivalent of MG or YA lit—feature films (not TV shows) that speak to young people but not to “children”?

Please Take This, Copy It, Use It, Improve It: A Digital Fandom Checklist

Teaching librarians and language arts educators have, via fandom, a unique opening to reframe netiquette as something other than a subset of character education or online safety.

Exploring Common Core’s Informational Text… with Violent Video Games

I’ll hazard that many of us don’t immediately think “games” when we think of “transliteracy,” but why not?

For Your Consideration: ‘Life of Pi,’ the Oscars, and How to Persuade the Media

Why is the case so strenuously made for a potential Best Picture win for ‘Life of Pi’?

4 Questions for Richard Beach about Literacy and Digital Comics Creation

“There’s a shift towards a more multimodal ways of communicating through digital videos, VoiceThread, and graphic novels/comics that is more appealing and engaging to adolescents who now expect such multimodal ways of learning…”

Blu-ray Giveaway: Exemplar Message Movie ‘Won’t Back Down’

All movies are message movies because, as media texts, they all have media messages.

Free Media Literacy Resources from the Folks Who Just Brought You the Oscar Nominations

A program that’s basic in a lot of ways, but also very, very solid…

Comics Generators and Literacy: Edtech and Nontech Insights from Bill Zimmerman

“By encouraging their students to create comic strips, teachers accomplish important goals: they prepare their students for being able to appreciate art more, to gain visual literacy.”

Comics Creation Tools: Thoughts From ‘The Graphic Classroom’

“Visual literacy is as old as humanity. Humans learned to communicate visually before they communicated with text. It’s really not new; it just might feel new.”

Comics Creation & Critical Thinking: From Doctor Who to Bitstrips

Comics Creation & Critical Thinking: From Doctor Who to Bitstrips

The limitations of most Comics Creation software are actually strengths when it comes to learning about media and enhancing critical thinking skills…

Strap Yourself In: A New Year in Media Has Begun

We measure our lives out by annual media events, kind of like Prufrock and his coffee spoons.

A Couple of Modest Suggestions for Year-End Tax Deductions

Thank you for a great 2012…