“...students indicated in their interviews that having an authentic audience view and critique their work was a significant motivation and source of pride” (Dokter, Haug, & Lewis, 2010, p. 419).
I was impressed not only with how our
students took pride in their videos but in how they also showed
respect for each other, even when I thought they wouldn't. Finders
(1998) might argue that my impressions of their maturity were shaped
not only by previous observation, but by my own interpretations of
those observations as either typical or atypical behavior. I think,
though, I would attribute much of their intent listening and
respectful response as a sense of engagement.
As Dokter et al. (2010) describe in
their study of media production in the classroom “They [the
students] felt agency to connect with their identities, communities,
and interests outside of school” (p. 419). Csikszentmihalyi's
concept of flow
comes in part from student interest, interest that is created and
recreated by identities which in turn are created by communities. I
have found that media production not only allows a deeper exploration
of media literacy, but it also gives us as teachers greater access to
these identities as a source of student-generated knowledge.
Additionally, it seems that our identities are as much “mediated”
through technology and mass communication as they are informing its
creation.
“To the domains of reading, writing, and traditional print literacies, one could argue that in an era of technological revolution educators must develop robust forms of media literacy, computer literacy, and multimedia literacies, thus cultivating 'multiple literacies' in the restructuring of education.” (Kellner & Share, 2007, p. 5)
I
observed several different kinds of engagement. For example, Alan*
was very excited about the use of technology in our lessons, and made
a point of saying this to me on several occasions. Although he
seemed to have trouble focusing often, he was willing to sit down and
read a news article as long as it was on an iPad or computer. He was
very interested in expanding his experience with technology, and I
think by extension technological literacy, as well. It also seemed
like the students viewed VoiceThread as a text and used their
experience with previous software as a reading strategy for
discovering the new. Many of them created VoiceThreads that were far
more sophisticated than our examples.
Having
students create their own digital stories was our main goal, and we
actually made the writing standard secondary to this. I think this
is why the students excelled in their writing as well as production,
because the end goal was linked to a digital output. Like Kellner
and Smith (2007) argue, media production, no matter the scale of
technology available, creates the much-needed action component of
critical media literacy: “While not everyone has the tools to
create sophisticated media productions, we strongly recommend a
pedagogy of teaching critical media literacy through project-based
media production … for making analyses more meaningful and
empowering as students gain tools for responding and taking action on
the social conditions and texts they are critiquing” (p. 9).
I
think that we used the technology and media available to us, but maybe not to our full advantage. That can only come with practice. Still, I
am convinced now more so than before that students are more engaged
in technology because it is its own kind of cultural relevance.
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