I’m joining Jamie McKenzie’s last session of the day: teaching media literacy. We’re looking at the of wikilobbying (coined by Stephen Colbert - whose video we’re watching, which has unfortunately been removed from YouTube). So the question is “how do we alert our students to how Wikipedia works?

Phtoshopping Reality – Activity: Show Evolution video from Dove. What question of import would we ask students when sharing this video? Well then, checkout the slob evolution version. How about comparing these two versions to the Green Peace version Dove Onslaught(er).

“Media literacy deserves a prominent placement in district curriculum documents, especially in English/language arts classes” – http://questioning.org/june09/video.html. Jamie is following up this statement with Dove Onslaught video with discussion on deconstructing video and ads. Question: how does “crescendo” (which is a film technique) play a part in this video? Music gets louder, pictures get increasingly horrifying.

More Media Literacy Resources:

• Jamie’s article on questioning video
• The language of Film (PBS)

It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at Jamie McKenzie’s work. Even at a glance, I can see that the websites he has shared are rich with content and thought-provoking ideas.

I’m drawn to this session because the write-up states “model has your students investigating and answering higher-level questions.” The presenters are from Deep creek Magnet Middle School, outside of Baltimore.

A slam dunk model has 5 basic steps:

1. questioning
2. information sources
3. activity
4. assessment activity
5. enrichment (extended) activities

Here’s a link to the session wiki – http://slamdunknecc09.pbworks.com/

Why PowerPoint? To help ‘late adopter’ teachers. Jamie McKenzie has already created the PowerPoint template – http://slamdunknecc09.pbworks.com/f/slam+dunk+template.ppt. The idea is to make it easy for teachers to organize the project for students, including providing the links.

Session was a good combination of Jamie McKenzie resources and a truly simple way to introduce late adopters to using technology (which hopefully filters down to their students).

Mitch Resnick, from MIT, is leading the Scratch session. Scratch is all about creating, building, and inventing – to be makers of things. You can’t be fluent in digital media just by interacting; you need to also be able to create.

Bridging Divides:

• making and interacting
• art and engineering
• creativity and systematicity
• individual and community
• inside and outside school: Reading, for example
• physical virtual

Scratch initiative – allows you to create interactive media – and share – via YouTube type website. Everyday an average of one new project a minute is posted (12 -13 year olds the highest users, but extends from age 7-50.) Program allows you to download existing projects and adapt to make personal. Remixing has become a cornerstone. Lots of shared expertise.

My Red Neptune -This young Scratch developer is thinking creatively, reasoning systematically, working collaboratively. Probably 3 most important skills for succeeding in 21st century.

Scratch kids are becoming computational thinkers.The Scratch team wants to promote possibilities for everyone to think computationally. To be a computational thinker, you need to be a computational creator. Sample: Rapa Nui – science fair project measuring response times. Tons of cross-curricular ways. Checkout Expo Elementary gallery!

Scratch broadens the range of participatory storytelling. Oh, wow, so many possibilities for engaging and stretching learners…and Scratch is free! So how do we get the word out to more educators? Join the Scratch community of educators at http://scratched.media.mit.edu.

So glad to see that Jamie McKenzie is offering three sessions at NECC. It’s been way too long since my last visit to fno.org. His opening session is on synergy and collaboration.

Synthesis – Do we actually teach it? Have we been taught how to synthesize ? Yet we expect students to be able to synthesize – http://questioning.org/sum08/bettering.html. Check out De Bono’s Thinking Hats for way of introducing “sideways explorations.” We need to equip students with creative thinking tools, such as thinking Box, Visual Thesaurus, and Scamper.

We’re on to Wikipedia, checking out the entry for educational technology – which is written in “legalize” terms. Jamie’s jumped in to do some re-writing. How often do we encourage our students to do re-writes in Wikipedia. (IP addresses in my district are blocked from editing in Wikipedia due to students posting inappropriate information regarding their middle school.) Ask students to check articles for currency.

Handout for session available at http://fno.org/sum08/synergy.html.