Media Education is the process when we learn to be media literate and be “able to critically understand the nature, techniques, and impacts of media messages and productions.” –  as defined by Media Literacy Week. (2014)

What are the goals of media education? Is media education important enough to be required?

Goals of Media Education can be simple but yet hard to achieve completely in one shot but is a long process in making. Hobbs (2009), points out in his article that media education has been developing and progressing to help children build communication, creativity, and critical thinking skills. Students need to gain the ability to analyze media messages and interpret them properly.  Media education is very important in our current day and age. People need to know where the information they are reading or listening about came from and the background of who wrote it. Being able to analyze this would allow them to know how credible the information is.  It’s very commonly seen now, especially on social media, of people who read then share articles they come across on social media without fact checking. When such information is brought into the classroom, though it may be the most current information/news, it may not be the most accurate. Spreading incorrect information as if it’s correct would not only be misleading but can also be very damaging to learning.

Turkle mentioned in the previous module’s reading that it lack of empathy is increasingly visible in face-to-face conversations because everyone is so focused on looking down at their phones. Starring at the phones for the latest updates and tweets seems more important now, so the content online becoming exponentially crucial. Because of this, media education is gaining more and more light in many classrooms and teachers are also starting to use more media technologies to “teach”. Like speaking the language of the new age.

References:

My initial look at media and technology for a difference raised an internal question of how are they similar, but when I thought about it more. I realize the two has more similarities than presumed. Media can mean a medium used to get something from A to B, just like a technology. But media can also mean the press or public release. So when thinking of a difference, I started to think more about how both are used. To me, Media seems more like a one-directional use for news releases and etc, whereas technology is actually the actual tool instead. Of course, now we also have New Media where it can be a tool and a media, however, another way of looking at New Media would be simply any technology that’s newly improved to present media better.  I think that being able to define media and “the media” is important for helping us understand how each can be used or was used and most important understand the results from the use. By defining the terms, we can also understand its purpose.

My thoughts:

Turkle made a strong point about a noticeable decrease in people’s ability to conduct face-to-face conversations effectively due to a diminishing capacity for “empathy”.  I recognize it as a strong argument because I too fall victim to this problem, and most of the time, I don’t even realize it. Even as I read the articles and make this post, I’m distracted by simple/short messages my sister is sending me from the bedroom next door about a matter that can be dealt with face-to-face in 2 seconds.  More than often now, I would find that my students have trouble understanding or relating to things I’m telling them, regardless of how many examples or a number of explanations I’ve given and I wouldn’t know why. I resulted to thinking that it’s just because they are young or that they have always lived sheltered lives, but then I found that they can understand the most complicated things if it was on or done through their phone. And in some case, from my observations,  some stories that are read from their phones give them different sets of reactions than if they heard it on the radio. It makes me wonder if it’s because they are visual learners half the time, and so can only understand and relate when they actually “see” what I’m saying. But one other point I found interesting in the article, was about our need to suppress our empathy in order to “fit in” in the mobile age. If this was the case, why bother wth emojis?

Another point I found interesting in the article that resulted in a question, was about our need to suppress our empathy in order to “fit in” in the mobile age. If this was the case, why bother wth emojis? Why use them for emotional expressions?