Today I had the chance to spend the day at the Badge Summit in Chicago. Conversations with fellow educators who are passionate about professional learning reinforced a few big ideas. First, educators have more opportunities than ever to explore their interests. Second, professional learning is evolving as more high-quality resources become available in online spaces. Finally, there are many ways to acknowledge professional accomplishments – including earning badges for a media literacy online course!
Online PD for Educators
Over the past year, I’ve had the chance to see the fantastic courses offered on the Participate platform. This includes self-paced learning opportunities on leadership, and literacy and science. As well as my own courses on best practices for EdTech and using digital tools in the writing classroom. These courses all offer badges and the ability to work at your own pace. There is now a new media literacy online course for educators available on the Participate platform!
I’m so excited to share this new course from fellow Apple Distinguished Educator Michael Hernandez. His course, Media Literacy For The Classroom focsues on ways that educators can bring media literacy into all classrooms. I had the chance to take a look at Michael’s new course this month. Media literacy is an essential topic for educators across grade levels and subject areas. Aren’t sure where to get started with media literacy in your classroom? Then this course is definitely worth checking out.
Media Literacy Online Course
After diving into Michael’s course to explore the resources he has curated and created, I reached out to him directly. Michael is a cinema and journalism teacher in Los Angeles, California. He was kind enough to answer a few questons so you could learn a bit more about his course too!
What inspired you to create a course on this topic?
In the past couple of years, I’ve found that my students have become more confused about messages they get from social media as well as traditional platforms like television and even print newspapers. They have a hard time determining what’s reliable information and what messages have an agenda or bias. In the era of fake news and manipulation of social media accounts, it’s critical that we teach our kids how to find out what’s real, but also how our own biases might affect our understanding of those facts.
Why is this topic essential for educators to explore?
Media literacy is really just an extension of what we already do as teachers in terms of researching and evaluating information. The difference is that we really need to help our kids understand that the same thought process that they use in the classroom with traditional print sources like textbooks applies to images, social media, and websites, too. And also that they can’t turn off their critical thinking when they leave class.
Who would benefit from taking this course?
Media literacy applies to every subject area and grade level, whether its science, math, social studies, or ELA. We all teach critical thinking and how it relates to the understanding of our curriculum, but especially how that curriculum applies to our students’ lives in the real world outside of school.
What will someone find in your course?
The course includes over an hour of video content, eight downloadable handouts and project templates, links to other resources and lessons ideas for the classroom. I also give suggestions for how to integrate media literacy into your existing curriculum.
What do you hope educators will walk away with after completing this course?
I hope educators will walk away with a better understanding of how to analyze and critically view media images and websites. More importantly, I hope that our students will come away with a better understanding of how to be an active, critical consumer of content in their own lives outside of school.
Head over to Participate’s website to learn more about Michael’s course Media Literacy For The Classroom!
