Getting the News — danah boyd | News.me

The public has access to information in unprecedented ways. Unfortunately, it has access to good information and access to shitty information. For me, the challenge is: How do you create media literacy? How do you get people to critically engage the news that’s available? These are issues we need to address, but the availability of information is still amazing. And I think that’s part of what’s so terrifying to people, that there’s so much information out there.

via blog.news.me

Great Q & A with danah boyd. Worth a read.

Media Literacy Week – Gender & Media (Nov 1-5)

The theme for Media Literacy Week 2010, Gender and Media, encourages adults to explore with young people the issues related to gender representation – body image, stereotyping, sexualisation, roles and relationships – as well as how media can be used to provide more realistic and empowering role models for youth.

via medialiteracyweek.ca

This coming week (Nov 1-5) is Media Awareness Week. The theme, as described in the excerpt above, is gender and media. This is a great topic to teach about analyzing & evaluating information, ethical and appropriate use, democracy and empowerment of all individuals. There are many resources online to help teach about these issues, starting with the Media Week site. Media Week is sponsored by many organizations, most notably the Media Awareness Network and Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Manitoba Education is also a partner, among others. In my humble opinion, the topic of media (Internet, digital, whatever) literacy is one of the most important things all teachers should be addressing in our era of instant access to all sorts of information. I believe we need to model and teach these ideas, not just this week, but whenever we can.