Everyday I am reminded of my second class status as a technology immigrant. My students, conversely, are technology natives - most of them do not remember a time when research was conducted primarily in libraries and when classrooms featured volume after volume of encyclopedias. (What's an encyclopedia? Is that anything like wikipedia??)
Aside from trying to keep up with my students on the technology track, I find my second largest challenge is getting them to understand the importance of finding reputable resources when conducting research online. With endless resources at hand, students critical consumers of research. This involves but is not limited to critically examining the source. Who is the source? What is their mission? How is it funded? The answers to these questions provide additional insight to the motives a particular source may have for publishing certain materials. One might feel different when reading an article that rejects global warming if that piece was published by a source that receives a large percentage of their funding from large oil companies.
What strategies are you using in your classrooms to support the development of critical media literacy skills in your students?
The Ones Who Got Away
10 years ago
1 comment:
I do not teach in a classroom but I believe that teaching students to question media sources is critical. So why not give them the list of critical thinking questions on an index card..perhaps even laminate it and make sure it is posted at every computer...so that they have to use it every time they do research or view media messages.
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