Archive | July, 2011

Amy Jussel is Amazing

29 Jul

Just fresh from a conversation with the amazing Amy Jussel, my head is spinning with ideas. The feeling reminds me of my graduate student days when I’d reel from the thrill rush of being around smart people who are good at exploring and rapidly juxtaposing ideas to examine the connections between them. Amy is the founder of Shaping Youth, one of the best blogs out there about the media and marketing’s influence on kids.

As I explain in my new book, Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom, Amy offers us a moral compass by celebrating media that honors children and respects families while simultaneously offering her powerful critique of all manner of problematic media content, marketing gamesmanship and those PR spin games that take advantage of children or exploit young people. She has written about the sexploitation of children to sell swimsuits, Rhianna’s revenge fantasy videos, and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood’s campaign against sponsored curriculum materials created by the American Coal Foundation.

Amy asked me to give a blow-by-blow commentary on the highlights of the NAMLE conference, and of course, I enjoyed re-reading the program again to talk about the many amazing topics and programs that were featured at the conference. One of the best features of the conference is the confluence of classroom teachers, educational practitioners, scholars, media professionals and young people – the conference features people who are implementing and putting ideas into action, not just pontificating. Because she embodies this ideal as an activist herself, I’m going to try to make sure that Amy Jussel comes to the 2013 National Media Literacy Education Conference in Los Angeles to share her special brand of advocacy and independent voice on behalf of children and young people.

Talking with her on the phone, I can’t help but think about how inspiring she would be on the college circuit, offering her insight on marketing and kids and media and technology to undergraduates in a Jean-Kilbourne-like program. But she says she’s a writer/producer more than a performer. When you read the blog, it’s evident that she’s a natural researcher, too. Amy doesn’t do ANYTHING in a one-over lightly fashion, which is why she has such a vast audience and influence as a blogger. Her posts are rich with information and ideas and connections and her clever writing, compelling prose and amazing hyperlinks all make for great online reading!

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Reflections on NAMLE 2011 in Philadelphia

26 Jul

What a whirlwind it’s been here in Philadelphia at the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) conference. This bi-annual event brings together established scholars and practitioners with newcomers to the field. The conference is a vital way for discovering new ideas and new approaches to media literacy education and strengthening our social bonds with people who share this crazy passion.

For months, of course, we’ve been anticipating the event, with many current and former Labsters actively involved as members of the Local Committee and as presenters, exhibitors and volunteers. The event opened with a fantastic evening program that included a video tribute to the 10th anniversary of the organization and a live band, with dancing to The Sound of Philadelphia. Thanks to Sherri Hope Culver, Deb Parker and Vanessa Domine for pulling off this great conference!

Another highlight of the conference was learning more about the work of Wen Xu and her colleague Jie Zhang, faculty at the Communication University of Beijing, who have, in only two years, developed an extraordinary approach to teacher education. They have been using a multi-faceted and developmentally sensitive plan, offering 19 staff development programs reaching nearly 2,000 teachers and developing a wide variety of lesson plans and curriculum materials for elementary educators. Several Chinese universities are now working to develop materials and offer teacher education programs. How fortunate I am to have a visiting scholar, Haixia He, from Ningxia University, who is working at the Media Education Lab this year studying how to incorporate media literacy into ESL programs in China.

Another highlight was the opportunity to meet with scholars and practitioners interested in sharing their work through the Journal of Media Literacy Education. As co-editors, Amy Peterson Jensen, Paul Mihailidis and I hosted brainstorming sessions to help more than 30 new scholars and teachers in the process of developing manuscripts for publication.

For me, the greatest part of the conference was getting compliments about the work of current and former Temple students and members of the Media Education Lab, including David Cooper Moore, John Landis, Mike RobbGrieco, Kelly Mendoza, Tina Peterson, Laura Stevenson, Jonathan Friesem, Angela Cirucci, Kate Spiller, Emily Bailin, Hans Schmidt, Laura Deutsch, Jiwon Yoon, Henry Cohn-Geltner, Nuala Cabral and Tanya Jackson, and my daughter, Rachel Hobbs. Along with former visiting scholars Wen Xu, Silke Grafe and Hans Martens and undergraduates Kelly Reed, Hephsie Loeb, Ben Warren, and Molly Schlesinger, we made a good showing in the media literacy education universe.

I’m already missing NAMLE friends and colleagues and can’t wait for the reunion in 2013 Los Angeles!

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Summer School for Media Education in Corvara Italy

14 Jul

Lucky me – I was invited to participate in the Summer School in Media Education in Italy! What a pleasure it is to join my Italian media literacy friends for this important program of professional development. And of course, the Italians have always been key players in the international media literacy community. When I met Roberto Gianatelli at a conference in Toronto the late 1980s, he was beginning to plan a gathering of Italian media educators at about the same time I was trying to develop a teacher education summer program at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

He first hosted the first Summer School in Media Education in the summer of 1991 at the lovely resort town of Corvara in Badia, high in the Tyrolean Alps of Northern Italy, surrounded by the majestic Dolomite Mountains. Every year, this group meets in Corvara for an annual gathering and it’s easy to sense the vitality and depth of collegial relationships that have developed as a result of this tradition.

I have always felt a special kinship to Roberto and the diverse community of Italian media educators, who have followed a course quite parallel to that of the American media literacy movement, developing a professional membership organization for media and communication in education, MED, and recently launching a journal for scholars and practitioners, Media Education: Studi, Richerche, Buone Pratiche.

Now the Summer School in Media Education is celebrating its 20th anniversary July 11 – 17, 2011, with more than 60 educators from across the nation gathering for a rich program of professional development, networking and sharing. Co-directed by Gianna Cappello, Roberto Gianatelli and Alberto Parola and coordinated by Luciano Di Mele, this program offers a combination of lectures, discussion groups, methodological seminars, and production workshops for media professionals and educators working in primary, elementary, secondary and out-of-school settings.

Peccato non parlo bene italiano, but thanks to my dear friend and colleague Damiano Felini, I can make some sense of the program. Because this year’s Summer School theme focuses on the cinema, many of the production workshops explore the use of film in the context of media literacy education. For example, in a session on videogames and cinema led by Max Andreoletti and Anna Ragosta, participants explored the videogame, “The Movies,” which is a Sims-style simulation game where you get to control a movie studio and produce short films. Participants discussed various possibilities for using this software with children.

In a session on digital storytelling led by Alessia Rosa and Isabella Bruni, participants created short films exploring the representation of teachers in the movies and movies that made a difference in their lives. One group of educators explored the power of the 1964 film “Mary Poppins,” with each team member writing reflectively about a song or story element of the film with special personal significance to them. Another group, led by Filippo Ceretti, learned strategies of film analysis by selecting film stills from a short film and re-creating them to better understand the constructedness of visual imagery. It’s a real thrill to share my passion for media literacy with this talented group of educators!

You can read my keynote speech here.Hobbs speech 7.17.11

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Twitter-Discovery Process Part I

4 Jul

One of the most amazing things about Twitter is how easily you can widen your network of communities aligned with your own interests. Because someone in Wales placed the hastag #medialiteracy on their Tweet, I found myself three clicks away from a conference being live-streamed on Monday, July 4. What fun!

NGfL Cymru is a free portal created by the Welsh Assembly Government. They Livestreamed this conference, and also share various other teacher meetings, keynote speakers and tutorials. This sound like a business I want to be in!

This very impressive group was, at the very moment in time I was checking my TweetDeck, engaging in a dynamic learning experience, where a teacher educator was demonstrating Songsmith. On the Twitterstream, I could follow the comments of participants, creating the sensation of “being there.” Another presenter talked about Taking it Global, a non-profit organization that’s creating a community of educators who are discovering how to make international collaboration work. I loved looking at Student News Action Network. 

A presentation of Ayiti: The Cost of Life reminds me about the brilliance of creative collaborative projects to produce multimedia– a part of my own passion as evidenced by our work on MyPopStudio.com

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