Newly elected “At Large” Board Directors:

• DC Vito, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project)
• Rebecca Reynolds, Assistant Professor, Library and Information Science, Rutgers University
• Cynthia Lieberman, Co-Founder of Cyberwise

Current Board Directors elected to new terms:

• Erin Reilly (First Vice-President)
• Paul Mihailidis (Co-editor, JMLE)
• Rhys Daunic (Secretary)
• Ethan Delavan (Treasurer)
• Cathy Leogrande
• Jasmine Hood
• Carol Tizzano

The newly elected and re-elected directors join continuing board directors Sherri Hope Culver, Lynda Bergsma, Tina Peterson, David Cooper Moore, and Emily Bonilla.

Critical Media Pedagogy:  Teaching For Achievement in City Schools (Ernest Morrell, Rudy Dueñnas, Veronica Garcia, Jorge Lopez) ($26.96 + free shipping).

This practical book examines how teaching media in high school English and social studies classrooms can address major challenges in our educational system. The authors argue that, in addition to providing underserved youth with access to 21st-century learning technologies, critical media education will help improve academic literacy achievement in city schools. Critical Media Pedagogy presents first-hand accounts of teachers who are successfully incorporating critical media education into standards-based lessons and units. The book begins with an analysis of how media have been conceptualized and studied; it identifies the various ways that youth are practicing media, as well as how these practices are constantly increasing in sophistication. Finally, it offers concrete examples of how to develop a rigorous, standards-based content area curriculum that embraces new media practices and features media production [learn more]

Check out the list of sessions, read about the first keynote speaker, filmmaker and innovator Tiffany Shlain, and register now to take advantage of extended Early Bird rates.

You haven’t seen the program for Intersections – NAMLE’s 2013 Conference?? Check it out!

Tiffany Shlain

Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards and an award-winning documentary filmmaker, will kick off the two-day conference with a keynote address. Participants will be able to select from the wide array of sessions each day, as well as explore exhibits and network with colleagues old and new who share a commitment to creating the next generation of media literate consumers.

Who should check out the program?

• K-12 Teachers – find innovative ways to meet Common Core Standards & district assessments
• Higher education personnel (teacher education, gender studies, public policy, communications, and health education) – share current research & best practices
• Media personnel – connect with teachers & learners at all levels to disseminate products & projects
• Anyone interested in ensuring that consumers create & engage with media in critical and thoughtful ways

We’re ALL CONNECTED through media – take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about how to help young people take charge of their massive media intake. FORWARD this to your friends and colleagues who care about creating media literate citizens.

Early bird discount registration available until April 30. Register NOW!

SPECIAL RATE still available for P-12 teachers!

Thanks again to Cyndy Scheibe from Project Look Sharp, Emily Long from the LAMP, and Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz from NAMAC for participating in our first NAMLE Spotlight Series hangout! The video is now available on our YouTube channel:

The conversation focused on current projects from our participating groups and then forayed into various challenges and opportunities in media literacy education, including copyright and fair use, the emerging Common Core standards, and opportunities for collaboration. Below are some take-aways from the conversation.

1. NAMLE-affiliated organizations are doing vital work in the media literacy field.

NAMAC, a new organizational partner with NAMLE this year, has been leading great national conversations with other communities and organizations. This year has already seen several important conversations and webinars related to emerging media arts standards, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and its continuing implications for media artists, entrepreneurs, and educators, and — coming in May — a conversation on the re-launch of Youth Media Reporter.

Project Look Sharp will be presenting on work connecting media literacy and sustainability, along with a session with Chris Sperry on media decoding, at our 2013 national conference. Scheibe’s recent book with Faith Rogow, The Teacher’s Guide to Teaching Media Literacy, expands the concept of literacy and moves away from a solely protectionist viewpoint of the role of media literacy in schools.

The LAMP is working on a remix tool, The Oven, that will encourage users to create remixed videos from copyrighted sources using fair use justifications for their transformative work. They have recently partnered with Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow and the NYC Economic Development Corporation to provide Digital Career Path job training.

2. Copyright and fair use are still on the minds of media literacy educators.

Emily Long talked about raising awareness around copyright and fair use:

A lot of people don’t understand why understanding fair use is important for them in their everyday lives. As much as teachers and students are online, I don’t know that everybody yet considers themselves as media producers — which we all are. If you’re writing a status update, if you’re posting to YouTube, if you’re doing any of that you’re a media producer. And as such you have a responsibility to know when you’re stealing someone’s work or when you’re using it in a way that is legal and fair.

Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz discussed the changing norms and issues around using copyrighted material:

We’re finding that there’s been a lot of content bullying and false takedowns from copyright holders that basically directly contradict our fair use privileges. Students, teachers, and creative people online all need to know that these things are happening and that there are resources you can [use] to fight against unfair takedowns or at least know what your rights are.

Cyndy Scheibe recounted her experiences with copyright and fair use, as documented in a fair use case study associated with the Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, but also noted that Project Look Sharp has never been subject to litigation after claiming fair use for their curriculum kits.

3. The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) offers lots of opportunities to connect the K-12 community to key concepts in media literacy.

All three participants acknowledged excitement around the expansion of literacy and competencies presented in the recent turn to CCSSI by most states in the U.S.

Scheibe noted lots of room for media literacy practitioners to join the national conversation about Common Core:

For us, we see this as a real opportunity for media literacy education, because from everything that we’ve read, in some very specific ways in the Common Core standards, media literacy can help teachers meet this need. It’s more about not teaching specific books, specific content, specific facts — it’s about ways of approaching information, images, and media materials to think critically about them, to ask questions, to have student-centered learning.

Long discussed opportunities to think deeply about media literacy assessment:

Assessment is always a problem that we face [in media literacy work]. And now with Common Core, people need to find ways to assess these skills in a standardized way that I’m not sure that they really needed to do before. For us — it’s hard to know yet how it’s all going to play out. But I think it could potentially be a really good thing in terms of helping us to measure not only how our programs are impactful and effective, but also for the field in general. Nobody that I’ve spoken to has not wrestled with the question, “how do you measure how media literate someone is?”

Ebrahimi Bazaz shared information from a webinar with Dain Olsen on emerging standards in media arts:

The national coalition writing the core arts standards see media literacy and media arts as convergence literacies through which lots of other skills can be developed. Workforce readiness can be developed; critical thinking can be developed.

4. New initiatives, tools, and organizational collaborations are creating a supportive environment for media literacy education.

NAMAC has been finding new ways to create alliances between groups, organizations, communities, and disciplines. NAMLE and NAMAC are providing reciprocal benefits for membership to “build a stronger network of formal and informal sector media literacy educators.” They recently partnered with the Daily Dot to launch a conversation series around digital culture and with an emerging network of national stakeholders in youth media.

Project Look Sharp is working on a project to “gather media documents that can be open source” to help K-12 teachers have access to materials and curriculum. They have also worked with Library of Congress to think pedagogically about using media documents in an inquiry environment and with the Middle East Outreach Council in conjunction with their Media Constructions of the Middle East. NCTE’s MADLIC has helped English teachers develop a collaborative model for teaching media and digital literacy, while Look Sharp has begun working with school districts to integrate media literacy into curriculum.

The LAMP “survives on partnersips,” according to Long, and are excited to be working with OATS (Older Adults Technology Services) to develop intergenerational programming around ageism in commercials. They have launched programming with economic development organizations to support disconnected youth entering the media and technology sector in New York City.

Conference chair Ethan Delevan led a discussion about participation in the NAMLE 2013 conference, where NAMAC and Look Sharp will be presenting.

Finally, each participant ended with a Final Tweet — one idea that listeners could share with their networks:

Long:

Considering how we measure media literacy. [It] comes down to what the definition of media literacy is for us and what role we think it should play in our lives, schools, and community. Assessment is wrapped up in that, and it’s something we need to sort out.

Scheibe:

One of things [Rogow and I] faith in our book is that media literacy is literacy in today’s world. It’s not a special thing, it’s not about protecting kids from bad media, we don’t think. We don’t teach kids to read to protect them from bad books. That’s not why we do it. And we shouldn’t be doing media literacy with that as our primary goal. It’s really about getting kids media tools so that they can communicate effectively, think critically, and be active citizens in today’s world. I think it’s an exciting time.

Ebrahimi Bazaz:

There’s a lot of incredible work going on in the field, and what I’m finding…is that it’s not only enough to learn how to produce media or how to critically analyze media. There has to be some knowledge and instruction on the field in which you’re working and the culture and climate in which you’re working. In network building, we’re not only sharing resources, we’re teaching each other about the culture and supporting the culture and best practices and policies in the culture.

Thanks again to everyone who participated. We’re looking forward to sharing more voices from the field in the months ahead.