Oh, hey everybody, thank you so much for coming to this book party. I am really happy that you're here and well, I don't know about you, but there is nothing more sweet, more delicious and more beautiful than holding your book in your own hands, right? It's a glorious feeling. And so today i i want to celebrate, and I'm just thrilled there are 22 of you who are here. So it's like, Thank you for coming. I'll tell you what I'm hoping to do in the in the in the party, right? It's kind of remember the, remember the COVID era, Natalie and we used to have zoom parties, right? Um, we're, we're going to go around the room and introduce ourselves, because that's actually a, this is a book net book party is a networking party, right? And I'm going to talk a little bit about like, why I'm so proud of the book and what I think makes the book so special. We're going to take a look at the Teacher's Guide to get a orientation to the book. We're going to do a small group discussion where you'll pair up with one or two others, and you're going to go explore some of the inquiry questions that are in the book, and get to meet somebody and talk to them about the parts of the book that are most interesting to you. And then, of course, we're going to talk to some of the many people who helped make this book come to be and that's, of course, super special, because a book is a group project. It's a deep collaboration, and I am so honored to have 12345, of my dearest collaborators on this project here at the party with us. And so they'll say a few words about their contribution and how they made the book a reality. So, yeah, so and, wow, people are still coming in. Oh, my God. So this is actually book number 12, but part two. And you know, it's not very often that you get an opportunity to do a second edition, and it's incredible. And Natalie, you're here. You are from Roman and Littlefield. I am so grateful to have been able to make a second edition, because everyone in the room here understands that media literacy is a moving target that changes so fast in in relation to to changes in media and technology and society. So being able to keep this book as, I mean, it's got references, like really current references, so that that that was just a delight. And I'm actually already maintaining a journal of thinking about, well, the third edition, what, you know, what am I? What's that going to who knows what that will have to do and be but anyway, I'm just thrilled you're here, and, oh, I'm overwhelmed at how many of you are here. This is so great. So do me a favor in your in the chat, tell me a little bit about yourself. You're here for a reason. I want to know all about it. So let's see who's here in the room. Because this is that. This is a crew of people with deep interest in media literacy. We have much to learn from each other. Okay, so, but let's do let's do this first, I want to take you to the website and kind of do a quick overview of what is new about the book that I really love, what makes the book really like, something I'm super proud of, and how I hope the book will affect you know, the generations of teachers to come who are exploring media literacy, one of the things that you have to do to create a second edition is you have To justify why a second edition is needed. And so I knew I needed to, I needed to think more about how the protection empowerment dialectic plays out. You know, that's that important tension in the field, this healthy tension in the field, between media literacy as a way to protect ourselves from the potential risks and harms of living in a media saturated society and the empowerment perspective which explores and examines all the benefits that media literacy and media can offer. I knew I wanted to really deepen the inquiry oriented approach. The pedagogy of media literacy is that we go, we teachers go on a learning inquiry journey with our students. So organizing this book around questions and really having questions be at the heart of of the of the of the curriculum, actually, truthfully, I think you could teach the whole course just using the questions. Don't tell anybody I said that, but the questions are so good, right? That if you have the courage to use these questions in your class, you will find that everyone will have a dynamic learning experience. So those, those questions that activate intellectual curiosity and make people want to create things. And then, of course, the design, oh, this book has got a really great design. And there's all kinds of political cartoons and images and illustrations. And you know, if you're a if you're a person who like me, like I like to make sense of images, right? And the figures and the photos and the illustrations are all awesome. Of course, one of the things that I was especially happy to do is to be able to incorporate the grandparents of media literacy, right but now they're called trailblazers, because some people told me in the first edition that grandparents was a kind of a wonky way to think about People like Roland, Barth, Stuart Hall, Marshall, McLuhan, Len Masterman, all the minds, all the people whose ideas have kind of fertilized the practice of media literacy. So now they're Trailblazers media literacy discourse. I'm going to show you that in in a bit. In the first edition, I used the smartphone, right? You know, the smartphone, the media literacy smartphone. In this edition, I've created a new visual representation I'm calling the discourse wheel, and I want to share with you why that's really great. And then the idea that every chapter invites students to go on the journey that includes access, analyze, create, reflect, act. You know, this is the model that I developed so many years ago now, in 2010 when I wrote media literacy a plan of action for the Aspen Institute and the Knight Foundation, that that model has been super robust, and I feel like it's it's really evident how much vitality it really has still okay, so I'm sharing with you how to do the free download, right? You just click on the picture that says free download. Oh so nice, right? And here comes, I think, hopefully, hopefully, here comes, here comes the the here comes the teacher's guide. You know, in my syllabus, we have learning outcomes, and so I shared with you the learning outcomes that are in my media literacy class for undergrads, right? It's so hard to write these learning outcomes because, you know, you could put in the whole kitchen sink what's the most important stuff, right? And so there they are, right, gaining awareness of media's role in in identity and social behavior, and appreciation for the role of media in shaping norms and values, strengthening critical analysis skills and applying concepts, theories and knowledge to gain insight on digital media and technology, and then advancing students advancing their own communication skills right Using a variety of different forms and genres and tools, and then increasing that meta, cognitive and reflective thinking, right, especially in thinking about the impact and consequences of media on society, and then really thinking about media literacy in relation to power, right? How does media maintain or reproduce or challenge the existing inequalities and injustices in this global and interconnected world. So the Table of Contents focuses on,
well, how do I say it? These are the inquiry questions. And so I thought it would be fun to have a get acquainted activity in terms of who's in the room today. So many, 41 of you. This is thrilling. I'm going to break you into small groups of two or three, and this is what I'd like you to do. Just imagine that you're looking at the table of contents. Well, you are. I'm going to make them a little bit bigger here, right? Let's just imagine you're looking at the table of contents. There they are. And I said to you, Ralph, you can only look at one of these questions. Which? Which one would you want to look at first and why? Okay, Ralph, open up your microphone. Answer that question. I'm putting you on the spot.
Hang on. Had to unmute Thank you. God, yeah, I'm trying to see which one is. I'm thinking back to teaching the first edition and which one's kind of like I would actually, because I'm into, like, the mechanic, the literacy mechanics. How do search engines work? Oh, what a good choice. Yeah,
yeah. So we got a whole new thing to try to figure out how it works now in AI, exactly, and the one I'm going to choose is this one who decides what makes media good. So now what we're going to do is we're going to go back to the main page. And you said you wanted to do how do search engines works. That's chapter three. So you and I are going to spend some time scrolling down through this page to see what's what would students see if they encountered this page, they'd see the media literacy learning model that's access, analyze, create, reflect and act. They get a summary of some key ideas. They get an analysis activity where this one's analyze a meme, a Facebook meme, meta threatening to leave Europe right, and some of the discourse wheels some some critical questions to ask in relation to that, a create to learn activity, which is a curation activity. Use AI to curate a list of resources and reflect on your online shopping right where AI is in overdrive, guiding you toward purchases, purchases of all kinds, and then take action by communicating with a member of Congress about, especially about the regulation of AI, right? And so write a write an email, tell your member of Congress your position, of course, studying the work of Michel Foucault, a perfect thought leader, Trailblazer on this topic of power in relation to algorithms and AI and all the rest. And then some videos that you might want to watch, right? So I'm going to break you into small groups, and you and your partner are going to pick. Each partner picks a chapter that you would like to explore. One of you might want to share your screen and or have a conversation about why you picked that chapter. I'm only going to give you about seven or eight minutes to do this work, but you're going to make a new friend, and then when we come back, we're going to talk about some more features of the book, and we're going to talk meet with the people who helped me to create it. Give me a thumbs up if you understand what's happening now, in this kind of way, cool way to do things, right? It's a breakout room. Oh my gosh. So I'm going to create how many breakout rooms? I'm going to create 10 breakout rooms. This is, wait, wait, hold on. I'm going to create 12 breakout rooms. This is great. Now, listen, if you get sent into a room and there's nobody there. Do me a favor. Don't sit there all by yourself. Come back into the main room and then I will reassign you. This game works best when you have a conversation about the topics that you picked. Okay, cool. The rooms are open. Have a Great conversation
recording in progress. You
Hey, Gracie, it's Renee. How are you
buying a multitasking I'm trying to, I mean, am I in the room with you? I hope so. Hold on. A multi tasking today. Happy to be here. I'm home and listen getting camera on. I'm home and I'm happy to be here. Gonna try to hold on. You know, people got me doing too many things. You know, I'm at Howard University, and we have a media literacy class that I hope to teach in the fall. I'm on sabbatical this semester, awesome,
and
so because of the interactive nature that you're doing with the book, that's really what I'm so excited about. Because the question I want to do is where people get their news, because I'm old school, former journalist,
aha. So
I know people are not doing what I traditionally did. You know, grew up with two newspapers in town, you know, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Students look at you like, what are you talking about?
Exactly? It's so crazy how this, this was one of the hardest chapters to write, Gracie, for that exact reason, because, like you I was also trained right with, like trust the New York Times, which is why I put the picture of the New York
Times I had, you know, I grew up in Detroit, and we had Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. One was morning, one was afternoon. I did some worked on my master's own when the joint operating agreement came along. And, you know, that's long before. So it's fascinating to sit with students and talk about where they get their their foods. And, you know, I, you know, understand now with, you know, the technology and all the digital platforms, they're all over the place, but media literacy, you know, hits close for me, because I want them to evaluate where they're getting the information right, right.
So now we have a connection Gracie in terms of our Detroit connection, because I grew up in suburban Detroit, and I never knew when I was growing up, why did my parents get two newspapers, they got the free press and they got the news. And I never understood that. As I got older, I realized, Oh, my dad's a Republican and my mom's
a Democrat. My parents got both papers, and then if my mother got mad, she cut one off, and then she cut it back on. And so I grew up being able to see and, you know, access that information from both perspectives. And what is interesting, when you're trying to give students example in the room, they're too busy worried about how old you are, I was like, you know, that's not the point of this exercise. I'm trying to get them to see, you know, what could you do when you had those two messages to see how something was covered? You know, what it highlighted? And so I think what you're doing with your model that I like, and what you know I'm looking to play with this fall with them, is even maybe breaking up them in groups according to your model, who looks at access, who looks at analyze, who looks at create so that they're challenging themselves. Because I think, you know, it's generational. And I try to tell my colleagues, let's not get caught in, you know, what are they thinking? Let's, you know, lean into them and give them a way to figure out why they're looking at certain things. You know,
cover it for themselves. You know, when they cover it for themselves, then it's so funny to hear a kid say, Oh, and you really need to look at sources from multiple points of units, like, Yeah, but that kid had the aha, right? So that makes it, you know, like, more meaningful if I just told, if I just said, that wouldn't mean a damn thing, right? But when they
have to get them to do it. And I think by using the model and getting them to play with the model, you know, that will help. And then what I like is that I found in the classroom, because you're giving us a way to, you know, toggle back and forth online. I can engage them in the classroom because I can put them to work.
Yeah, that's right. These are activities that exactly I
don't want to want. Womp, womp, womp, womp. I want to put them to work. And then, to me, it's more tangible once they've had to do the legwork. First of all, I have to go back and tell you, I love the cover. The gym shoes are just great. I just love it. But I want them. Because I think what it is is sometimes, you know, we we get like, Well, why aren't they getting this? Just like you and I connected on having the two papers, and we're like, why aren't they getting this? It's because they didn't have that experience.
That's right, they did. And they're living in an era where the first the fierce competition is having kind of a complicated they don't want to go behind a paywall. They want their news to be free. Hey, Michael Grabowski, it's Renee Hobbs and Gracie. We're we're talking about, we're in these small group breakout rooms. We're talking about chapter four. How do people get the news? Great. Gracie said, as a former journalist like this is like, this is her jam, right? How do we teach about the news when in an era of fierce competition in the news industry, my students don't want to pay for news, and eventually they have to understand that you have to pay for news because otherwise you're going to get, you know, junk, so great, and
also, you know, evaluating it. So for example, remember Wall Street Journal came out with the pay wall from day one. Yeah, you know, I remember, you know, sending them a little email and saying, I like to do this. And they sent me one back and say, for this price, you can have access to the website. And so they've always argued that they know their market. They knew the people in industry who wanted this business and economic news, and so they knew who they were targeting. And I want students to to have that kind of self realization as they look at different sites. If you're into sports, if you're into E Sports, you know, where do I go? Who Can I count on? And so that's why, again, when I talk about the model, and now that Jonas, you know, want to hear some of his, I think the model that you've created is a good way for us to prompt them. That's what I want to do. I want to prompt them to do it.
That's it. One of the things that I appreciate is that my students grew up never really understanding the two types of journalism that exist, right the journalists that are doing what we understand to be journalism, and then the news aggregation and the news adjacent concept content, I discovered that was my term of art, right? News adjacent content, right? It looks like news, you know, it has a headline and a photo, but it's something else entirely. And so and but yet, at the same time, I also wanted them to understand that the vital role that news and even Eyewitness News plays in the role and so in this analysis activity, we analyze a little piece of video from Al Jazeera,
what we see as officers Treating people less than human.
Yeah, I can hear it.
What I think when I hear that these videos are delaying is that Louisiana State Police is working to get their story together. I
Okay, you got the concept, right. This is from AJ plus Al Jazeera plus, which is a news organization located in Doha, Qatar, right? And students get to encounter the news video, basically, Oops, hold on. I gotta get this guy into a session. Just a second here. Hold on. I gotta. And then they ask these three questions, what inferences can be made about the author, the purpose and the target audience. In what ways does the context shape how this message is I'm gonna assign Oh, Oh, where did he go? Darn. Okay. Wait, hold on. I gotta get I gotta assign him to join us here in room four. How does the context shape how the message is interpreted, and how does the economic and political system influence the construction of the message, format and content. In the book, we learn that AJ Al Jazeera is funded 90% by the Qatari government. They advertising is not how they make their money. So the investment in quality journalism is because, basically, they're they don't have to have they don't have to be market sensitive to grab eyeballs, right? The same way an advertiser driven system is so but this is the activity that I use every year no matter what, and I absolutely love it. Students work with a partner. They find it a story that interests them both, that in itself, sometimes takes some negotiation, right? Boys who are only interested in sports, the girls who are only interested in fashion. When they sit together, ah, take some time. What's the story? What do I do?
Well, they have to and they have to be challenged. They have to push themselves. So they only don't stop seeing just one prism. Yes, exactly.
And so they sit together, they pick a story, and then they work through these series of questions, right? And for some of my students, it's the first time they've had a collaborative authorship experience, right? They have to write the answers out as a team, right? And so then they have to discuss, well, you know, do you want to do one and I'll do another? Do we? Should we talk about them both? So they have a experience of collaboration, right? And then it's also a really great pre writing activity, because once you've done this, man, the essay just flies right out. You know, you can really write an essay. Well, if you've done that as a pre writing activity in class, even if you only did three of the items and not all of them right, even if you only chose to focus on context right or credibility, but can still be super as a pre writing activity. And then here's my favorite part, I created a way for students across schools to interact with each other. So if you want to ask these questions, the different kinds of news, what catches your attention, which genres you think are most important, you can join the conversation and go here to this Padlet Wall. Click on this blue see this plus sign right here, you can make a comment on answering this question, put your answer here. And if you're into funny gifts and who isn't right, you can put your funny gift in and market as well. So it's a way for students to kind of be in a it be in a conversation with people from outside of their class. So I just love that about the flexibility that digital technologies. Let us do you know,
recording in progress. I
Good now, I'm muted now, but I'm coming we're coming back. Okay, so, well, let's talk a little bit about what did you do in your small group breakout room? Gracie and I had a great conversation about news and teaching journalism at a time when fierce competition is affecting the journalism industry. We learned a lot about each other, including that we both grew up in Detroit, and we both our parents both read the same newspapers. And so we talked about how, as people who are over the age of 20, right, we grew up in an era where what we thought news was is different than what our students sometimes think news is okay, so the floor is open. I'd like to hear from three people in our large group, what, what chapter did you look at and what, what did you what, what, where did your conversation take you? Who wants to go first?
Renee, I'll go first. I'm Sharon. I'm from Gallaudet University, which is in Washington, DC, school for deaf and hard of hearing, and Jesse and I together. I picked chapter nine. How do people decide who and what to trust? And I did that because I've been using the first edition. Really excited about the second edition, but mostly because this week, my students, who are online did a reflection, and overall, they don't trust any news outlets. That's, you know, what I'm getting from them. And it's like, and I've shared Like, who do I follow? And you know, what do I follow, and which reporter and very specific information. So Jesse and I were sort of talking about the state of how we were not prepared, and also a little bit about AI and what we've used it for, and when does it lie to us, and when does it help?
Yeah, the chapter on trust is really had an overhaul because of the AI and algorithmic personalization and so, in some ways, that issue, it ends with rebuilding trust, right? What? How? How do we rebuild trust and and especially in a culture where, you know, where cancel culture and shame and sort of the critiques of media leave. There's a reference here to grievance politics. Oh, interesting. Grievance politics. Jeez, yeah, so deciding who to trust in a in this era, right? It's a different ball game, right? Thanks for sharing who's next. We're hearing from you about Mark. I saw your hand was raised, would you what you and your partner? Which chapters did you guys look at Randall
and Bucha and I? We've had a whole diverse set of conversations, but it would connect most with chapter 14. And chapter 14 is the segment that really talks about how people become media literate. And what I think was really invaluable to the way you've designed this is, is that we're involving people from a very young age as a middle school educator all the way on, about the importance of the unpack the media with sensitivity to call culture. We talked a little about tolerance and and the work that you know Randall is doing to also help connect the youth to historical events that have tied perfectly into what's happening today in terms of immigration and also, you know, discrimination, I should say so. I am sure you know, without any prodding, that my favorite thing is page 360 to 361 because I do think that we'd be history literate on the US experience of media literacy as American educators, but we're looking forward to adding to this with our international partners too. So, oh,
that's so beautiful. So Mark, thank you so much for calling out my favorite two page spread in the book is in chapter 14, and you designed it. And a big shout out to you, 100 years of US media literacy, we, we, we put a lot of information into two pages. We had a lot of fun building it together, and it ignites curiosity. And as you look at it, you'll you'll notice, as this is a room full of people who are media literacy teachers. You'll notice what Renee and mark left out as much as what we included right and what we left in, it reflects our biases and our point of view. But here's another cool here's another cool activity that's that I want to introduce you to because let me see if I can share my screen again here, but this time I'm going to share here. So each chapter has a reflect assignment activity in in the chapter 14, it's reflect on the great debates, right? Should media literacy protect students? Right? Should video media production be so important for media literacy? Should media literacy focus on popular culture, or should it address like academic knowledge? Right? Should media literacy have a more explicit political and ideological agenda, right? Should it be a specialist subject or integrated into existing curriculum? When you click on the link, you go to a Padlet Wall right in the first edition, we called you to flip grid, but Flipgrid when it went away, Flipgrid went away, so we recreated it here, and that means you can comment on a great debate on Padlet, and you're seeing me do it right now here. You can make your comment here, and you can, you can add a you can add a playful gift, right? And you can publish it, and other people can comment on it. So it's a place actually, that could connect students in Georgia with students in California, with students in North Dakota, with students in in Alabama, with students in Maryland. And I'm really excited about that, and I hope you get a chance to try that out with your students. And of course, in chapter 14, we invite you to become an advocate for media literacy education, and recognize the roots back to the grandparents right. Get to understand some of those Trailblazers whose work was so important in the media literacy movement? Okay, so we'll hear from you more person, somebody else, somebody who didn't look at chapter 14, didn't look at the chapter on news, didn't look at the chapter on who you can trust, somebody who did something else. Tell me what you talked about in your small group. Which chapters did you look at? We'll hear from one more.
I saw Mariana, had her hand up, but I don't know if it's excellent,
Mariana, thank you so much. It was chapter nine, about in your room.
It was chapter nine, though. This is why it was chapter nine. You killed it. But anyway, no we, I was with Cornelia, Sherry. Luke joined us towards the end. I think Sherry had to leave to teach journalism, and they're grappling with the with the initial questions of, what is journalism and who is a journalist? And you know, how you how do you build trust when your information, you see, may not even be coming from a human so very quickly we got to to AI. And one interesting takeaway is that the way to counter this, or to sort of understand where to put your trust, is not to keep the technology away. We we sort of have this, you know, heartfelt discussions about how sad it is that our students are starting to just, you know, cut and paste chat GPT answers into the assignments. And the way to deal with this is not to keep technology away, but invite it into your classroom. Play with it, explore it. Ask the tough, critical questions to see if we can move away from this discussion, you know, sort of like, get a better grip on this. Who do you trust? There was an interesting experiment that I did with teachers last week, and they were generating text for an English language, English as a foreign language class. And the question was, should you allow teenagers to drink energy drinks? Should teenagers be allowed to drink energy drinks? And they did discover it quite on their own because they were exploring the technology that the American created. AIS were all about individual freedom of choice, and deep seek was all about public health and the impacts on individuals choices on the public health system. And so, no, they shouldn't be allowed what parents permission may be so it's not to completely take away the freedom. So we we learned that there was values embedded. It's not just a matter of content, so we have to play with it. So to cut, you know, to discover these, discover
That's right, that's right, that's and so the empowerment protection dialectic actually has to be balanced, because you won't really understand the full implications of the ideologies, the values, the risks and harms, until you actually explore for yourself. Hey, listen. So I want to invite you guys to take a look at another feature of the book that I'm super proud of, because I think media making is absolutely vital to media literacy, and so I'm going to share with you. I'm back to the teacher's guide again. One of the things we did in the second edition is we put the vocabulary words in each chapter, because vocabulary does matter when it comes to gaining knowledge. Added a sort of bulleted list of key ideas and a set of vocabulary words that help students deepen their thinking skills, really, because when you have words for concepts, you actually go further faster. And of course, I shared with you the reflect activity. I'm really excited about that, but take a look at this. Create activities. Let's just say you could only use one of these in your classroom, or maybe someone you are already doing some of these create activities. Which one might you want to look at as you think about creative expression activities for your students, I'll just invite you to call out a choice and explain why you chose it. 14 creative expression activities. Which one might you want to look at first I
did. I taught the first edition last semester, and I did the create an infographic on your media life. And my students loved it. Why did
they love it? A couple
reasons. Some loved it because they could just look on their phone, and it was easy to get their data without having to, you know, keep a diary or something like that. Oh, sorry, I'll turn my video on. But they also loved it because they hadn't really thought about it, right? They know, like, oh, yeah, I go on Tiktok a lot or whatever. But for some of them, it was really telling about where they were spending their time and how much time they were spending there. And then I did the one later in the semester of changing something about your media diet. And then that was eye opening to them, too. So we went back and we made a new infographic. And so they just liked that more visual kind of approach to an assignment, instead of just especially, because it was early on in the semester, I wasn't just making them write something, they got to make something, and they did like that one.
Oh, Erin, thank you so much for sharing who's next. If you can only look at one of these, or do one of these, or we have done one of these, which one are you going to call our attention to, and why you now,
Renee, I'm happy to jump in for a second about one I have not done, but I think probably in the next year or so, make a video to comment on propaganda. So I mean, built in, of course, is that when you're making a video to comment on propaganda. You're you're asking yourself the question, you know, am I? Am I creating propaganda? So there's a nice meta textual conversation that students get to have about, what is the exactly, what is the definition of propaganda? Which is useful. But two, I think, I mean, for being honest, there's a big public debate that is fairly new in the last few weeks about whether most or all of the information being disseminated from the White House, press corps, press office, which has, which has always been propagandistic in a certain sense. That's what a, you know, a press secretary does, but neither good nor bad, right? That's kind of your job. But there's been some public discussion about whether we're in a new era of that, whether the nature of the press secretary's advocacy is crossing lines. And I don't think students that I've interacted with are even aware of the question. So it seems like this might be a good time to dig into that.
Thank you so much for sharing. I think that's a great explanation of why this topic is so timely. So we'll hear from one more person. If you could choose a creative a create activity, which one would you choose? And why?
Renee, yeah, I am really drawn to the make the familiar strange, and that just that concept about questioning and reevaluating and thinking about what's familiar to us, but perhaps not familiar to others, or what we think is just common sense, right? And how do we come to that? And how do we we get there? But I think that's absolutely fascinating, and that that would probably be my first choice, even though they're all pretty fantastic. Elizabeth,
thank you so much for sharing. My students loved this activity. It's the defamiliarization activity where you have to make a familiar social media platform seem bizarre and strange, and truthfully, that is not hard to do. They the way students did it was through a slide deck, a collaborative slide deck, right? So a kid picked Tiktok, and then they had to do something to make it seem like they without using the words Tiktok, they had to help communicate. What was it about this platform that was so strange? They had a blast with it. They learned a lot, and they and they said, you know, this idea of like getting, deepening our awareness by getting like like, by acting like, recognizing that the stuff we do every day is kind of strange, so that is one of my favorite assignments as well. So of course, I'm super proud of the Act activities, and people have always asked me, why did you put Act into your media literacy definition? And I think it's obvious, but if you could only pick one of these, do with your students, which one would it be, and why? What a list? Oh, yeah, you referenced changed one thing about your media diet, right? You you that you mentioned that Erin as an activity that you tried, I
did, and they loved it, and they were very confused about some of the things that they picked. Like someone was like, instead of listening to Spotify on my commute to work, I listened to the radio, and it was just like, so weird, because I didn't get to pick my own songs. And it was like, that's how it used to be for all of us.
Whoa,
which of these act activities might your students like to do? Go ahead, unmute your microphone, somebody I haven't heard from yet. Maybe chapter two, track your own media use. I think that's always very telling. You know, translates to what are you investing in? Yeah, that's That's right, translates into, what are you investing in? Marie, how about you? Which one would you choose for your students? I
think you can guess my I always have a tie. I think for me, it's like have a courageous conversation. But also speak up about digital wellness, which I don't know what you mean by your version of digital wellness, but define that for yourself and then seeing, okay, how what is that? Is it just detoxing? Are we adding more? And I'm sure that's connected a little bit to the media diet as well. So there's a lot of I like how there's the interconnected in some ways. They're not stand alone that you can make, yeah, and
it makes perfect sense to me that those two would stick out to you because you are sensitive to this need for people to be in dialog and discussion, to better understand ourselves and the world. And you know your appreciation for what it means to be be healthy when it comes to these, these media tools. Now this disc is the most, the most theoretically informed of the models for thinking about how to introduce students to theory, because the three big categories, authors and audiences, messages and meanings, representation and realities are simply buckets to help students for themselves. Think about, you know, how can I slow down, take apart and really understand the media in my world? And so my goal is to have students internalize these questions so we practice doing them like one color band at a time. In chapter four, it's the it's the authors and audiences. Frame. In chapter five, it's the messages and meanings. Frame in chapter six, it's the representation reality frame. But pretty much, I found by halfway through the semester, my students recognize that all of these questions can be applied to any text, right, and that they are that actually you have a lot to say about even just one sliver, like, for instance, representation. How is this message a selective representation of reality, right? How are stereotypes and narrative structures embedded in the message. So students actually come to realize that they have the ability to bring these questions into their out of school life. And of course, don't we all, as media literacy teachers love to see that right when students are spontaneously analyzing the text of their everyday life using some of the concepts that you introduce to them. That's that happens and you're here because you know how much, how joyful it can be. Now listen here. I want to talk a little bit about the collaborative effort involved in making this book, because I got to introduce you to some key elements I haven't shown you, the the Instructor Resources, but I definitely want to show you the, hold on here. Let's, let's freshen this up. I want to show you the thank you page. It's hard to believe, but Natalie, since we started this project, a whole lot of college faculty from all over have contributed to make this book better. So we decided to put together the whole list of the reviewers who, over the course of the first edition and the second edition gave us really valuable feedback. So thank you to the reviewers for the valuable valuable feedback. And Natalie and you, I'm, I'm going to throw it to you a little bit, because I can't even wrap my head around all the ways in which you made this book a reality, right? And so Natalie, will you introduce yourself to the crowd and talk a little bit about your role in making this book come to life? Oh,
you're so kind. Renee, so I'm Natalie manzik. I'm the Communications editor for Roman and Littlefield, which is now part of Bloomsbury. So six months from now, I won't be saying Roman Littlefield anymore, but this book, working with Renee on this, the second edition, has been so energetic, so So feeding for my soul, because it's one of the main books on our program, one of the biggest books that I work on. And it means a lot for me to be able to to give my time, give of myself into a topic, into a book, into a project that is going to go out into the world and change other lives. It's one of the things that I can I can look at, you know, we all have crazy work days, and I can say yes, but this is a project that really, really feeds my soul. Renee mentioned our wonderful editorial assistant, you Ozaki, I don't believe he's on the call. He's got a million other things to do, but together, we really did, you know, spend a lot of time, and Renee is an incredible collaborator, along with Mark Davis, working on on fantastic graphics. And then, of course, a lot of people from our production team. So it does take a village to bring these together, and all of our wonderful reviewers from the proposal review and and people who had adopted the first edition, who gave us really wonderful feedback, people who are not using the book gave us feedback about why not, and that's okay. We want to know what's what are reasons that you know, other books are feeding their souls, and that's fine. So it has been wonderful to work with Renee, and certainly if anyone has questions I'm going to I have put my email in the chat already. I'll put it in again. I'll also put a link to the book, the Roman willfield website, where you can click on exam copies. Get yourself an exam copy if you're going to be considering the book for teaching, and certainly reach out if you have any questions. So thank you all for giving of your time to be here too. Absolutely.
Natalie, thank you so much for your leadership and making this book a reality. And Natalie, can you put your email in the chat in case we get to contact you
about availability via e text and things like that? Thing awesome. Absolutely
will do good
show yont, I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about you played a vital role in the second edition, because you did something kind of crazy radical with your students. And I want you to explain what you did and how it and and then I can explain how it helped me. So tell me, tell the story, sure.
So if people are not aware, the book is also available online, and I reached out to my library. We have we're a minority serving institution, and students are really struggling with textbooks. So what we did is the library purchased multiple licenses, and so the book was for them, was open access using the library so they could go in and download, like pdf of the chapters that were relevant. So each week was a different chapter, not necessarily in the order of the book. So I went over, we discussed, we did activities and stuff, but the homework assignment was not just to read the chapter. They needed to annotated the book chapter, because I know the author, so I said, Listen, write your comments to the author. She's really interested to make it better and to know what works and what doesn't work. And so that empowered the students to write comment, not knowing Renee, but, you know, feeling that it will go to her, and writing a very honest reflection in their own language about, you know, this is really useful. I was never aware of that. Or, like, I don't understand why it's here. This is super boring, or, I don't know, like, How is that connected to the so they were, honestly, and there are different levels, but basically they were giving me PDF with their annotated comment, but not just annotating. As To summarize, the instruction was, how can this chapter be better? So their reading was not just reading to memorize. There was no test. It was here you can annotate in a way to like, how would you change the content? So it gives them agency. So Renee, you can talk about how it was
super valuable because the students spotted the boring parts. And that was really what I did, because I love everything, right? I put them all because I love everything. But they were right right about some of the weaknesses in the first edition, and I really appreciated that. And then the stuff that they engaged with, I was like, oh, okay, so this is, this is meaningful to them, and that helped me. Well, hold on to that section. So listen, there's one more person who I want to call to the stage, and that is my student, Sarah Lustig, because she's going to show you something that you're all going to, I think, really appreciate and and use. So let me share my screen with you right now. Sarah did something super helpful. This is a page I haven't shown you yet. You see it's called Instructor Resources. I showed you, I took you here so that we downloaded this little PDF document, right? But the Instructor Resources are password protected, and each chapter has a little bit of study guide, quiz, questions, discussion, chapters and slides, right? If you want to receive this material, you can do it. But actually I'm going to show you how you can do it now, because the 31 of you who are all here need to be able to access the Instructor Resources. So say that you go to our social media. Free up, pops the guest password, and you type that in, capital M, capital L, capital A action. Yont, will you put that in the chat? Capital M, capital L, capital A action, my undergraduate student, Sarah Lustig revised the Google Slides. Sarah, can I call you up to the stage? Can you while I'm sharing the screen? Can you? Can you talk to me about how you did it? How? Yeah, 14 slide decks.
I'm Sarah. I do just want to give a little background. I am a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island, and last semester, I actually took Professor Hobbs digital and media literacy class with the first edition. So I have that perspective as a student. Read that book, learned from that book, learn from Hobbs. And this is a little random, but I also work as a teaching assistant for computer science. My major is actually computer science, so I work with kids in intro levels. I work with seniors, even if I'm only a sophomore. So I really have perspectives from teaching and from learning. So I kind of decide, decided to design this slide deck based on how I learned best, how I see other kids learn best. I tried to go for a cohesive design and for the more important slides and concepts. I stuck to a specific theme so that they pop out. Kids know how to recognize them. They know it's important. And, yeah, I really learned a lot taking that course. And I'm not just saying that because Renee is my boss. It actually was honestly my favorite course of the semester. And I'm, I mean, the computer science, it's so dull, sometimes so critical thinking only and like just, I mean, you're sitting behind a desk coding, so to get this breath of fresh air and actually think and just approach things in a different light and really see them and think about them. I mean, it was a great semester, great class, and I really did learn a lot, and from someone who I feel like I already am well versed in media and digital universe. I feel like this class actually was, you know, I learned something every portion of the way. So I'm really happy. And thank you again for letting me have a part in it. And thank you to Mark Davis. He helped me too with slides and had comments. Really learned a lot. So thank you. And
aren't they gorgeous? Aren't they absolutely gorgeous? They are just thrilling. So when your students exceed your wildest expectations, you sometimes get to continue to work with them.
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was an all online class, and somehow you plucked me out of the crowd. So thank you
for that talent. And let me just say I want you all to use those slides right. Remix those slides. You use them as a base and cut and paste your way to make them your own right, because we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. We're all learning from each other. And today's session, we got a chance to sort of celebrate the second edition. I got to meet a lot of new friends who are using this book and who have used this book in interesting ways, or who might be using this book in the future, and I'm really glad to meet you. I feel honored so you know that as the day comes forward, probably just three years from now, where I'll be hopefully getting a chance to make edition three, I'll be counting on your insights. That's why I invite you. If you've got a cool assignment, if you have a cool project, if you have samples of students work that you think are really great, I'd like to add those to the instructor resource page so that we can actually start to, you know, collaborate more fully on the ways, the creative ways in which we're teaching media literacy. So please share with me samples of student work, samples of assignments, even syllabi. Every year I get, please send me a syllabi. They should just be looking at mine. They should be looking at yours and yours and yours. So do that, and we'll and we'll together make media literacy teaching in higher ed and in in secondary ed as strong as it can be. So anyway, let's give everyone who showed up a round of applause. I want to thank you for coming to the book. Thank you Mark Natalie, Sarah Yonty, thank you so much for being here. Mariana came all the way, came all the way from Brazil. So thank you for celebrating with me. I'm really happy that you're in the Media Education Lab family and you know, come back to another webinar too. All right. We'll go now, see you later. Thanks a lot. Bye, bye.
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks
for coming, Ralph. Oh,
thank you. Great to see you. Take care.
Okay, Sarah, you rocked. That was awesome. You did. That was amazing. It was amazing. Oh, they're all gonna go look at those slides, missed the beginning. Thank you. Thanks for that waiver.
