As we continue in our study and exploration of media and, more importantly the use of media in the classroom, I keep coming across one issue. That issue is access.
As we’ve discussed media literacy education in class, I’ve had many ideas on how to incorporate media in my classroom, in an effort to encourage greater media literacy. I’ve become very excited about the possibilities, and our readings have only fed that flame. There is so much promise and excitement centered around the media and it’s incorporation into our curriculum, but I keep coming back to the same issue: access.
Renee Hobbs, author of “Digital and Media Literacy,” defines access as, “Finding and sharing appropriate and relevant information and using media texts and technology tools well” (12). I think this definition is broad; broad enough to cover all my questions about access.
Access in the public schools means a lot of things to me. First, I think of literally having physical access to the materials and equipment. That falls in line with the “finding” aspect of Hobbs’ definition. I have all these exciting ideas about using technology in my theatre classroom that will improve my curriculum and strengthen media literacy, but in reality, my school won’t have access the software I need, or the hardware, or there won’t be enough of it. My classroom will be limited by what I literally can access.
Access also means what is acceptable in a certain school or community. Perhaps my ideas of media literacy or critical thinking don’t fall in line with the districts beliefs, or the community’s values. I think that is a real concern. Hobbs writes “when teachers work in communities where families have values that are different from their own, analysis and evaluation practices can activate students’ questioning in ways that make some parent and school administrators uncomfortable” (15). Maybe an activity designed to build critical thinking ability center’s around the Constitution of the United States. Students would have to critically pick it apart and question it’s motives and ideals using a class blog or social media (this is just an idea off the top of my head!). This idea could be stopped before it was ever used in the classroom. We’d be stopped from “sharing appropriate and relevant information,” thus affecting access (12).
One statement in Hobbs definition really stood out to me: “…using media texts and technology tools well” (12). I consider myself to be fairly ‘tech-savvy.’ I know more than the average person about what is new, how to use it, etc. If I don’t know about it, I know how to find out about it. I feel confident in my ability to mess around long enough to learn how to do something that I’m trying to do. That being said, I’m a little nervous about staying “hip” and “with-it” (I realize those terms aren’t really technical terms, but that’s what it feels like!). If I don’t know how to use media text and technology well, then my access is limited, according to Hobbs. I think she’s right about that. We need to know what we’re doing; otherwise there will be many avenues that will be closed to us.
This question of access will be an issue that I hope we will continue to explore in this class. I don’t think that these three short paragraphs about access are the extent of this issue, but there are countless dilemmas that we should be aware of when it comes to access. Our genius teaching ideas, and our inspired lesson plans are only as good as our access.
3 comments:
While reading this article, I couldn’t help but think about how potentially isolating using media could be in a classroom. I realize this is why teaching students how to access whatever piece of media they are using is so important, and that “each media form has a distinctive group of things you need to know in order to make sense of it” (pg. 13), but in a classroom setting, the idea of setting apart that much time to teach students about how to access something so that there is a level playing field is intimidating. The more I thought about it, the more I think that it might be more than fear of technology and change that makes it so that teachers don’t utilize new media in their lesson plans. I think a lot of it could be laziness. When you think about teaching a book that no one has read before, such as The Crucible, each student is, essentially, starting from scratch. The teacher is teaching them something that they are all relatively new to, as opposed to trying to teach or bring into the classroom something that half of the class is an expert at and the other half is struggling with. I can see this being a really complicated aspect of access in the classroom.
I do agree that as teachers we need to help our students know how to appropriately and efficiently access whatever information they are searching for. I liked when it described the teacher who helped the students see the difference that can be found in the way and process of Google searching. Pieces of information like that build together to create easy access to information and create a more tech-savvy person. I wish that I had teacher when I was in high school that would sit us down and teach us the correct way to search and find information. It would have made things a lot easier.
The last thing I was thinking about regarding access is how schools may or may not have access to the different types of media, not just a lack of access to information. I have been in classes where the students each have a laptop, but about half of them weren’t working correctly and the internet kept giving out, which made the entire process of getting to the point of starting their research papers take much longer than it should have. It’s frustrating to think that there are so many cool and interesting ways to bring technology to kids and so many ways we can let them create, but that all these new and exciting things may not be realistic simply because of the lack of funding or access.
After reading these chapters, I kept thinking that as a teacher, it is going to take a lot of work to make sure I am bringing in all the new ideas and ways of learning, and not fall back on the traditional teaching methods. While those methods are fine, there could be so much more impact made if we bring in different types of media and tap into what the students are really interested in.
Carson! Thanks for your overview of our reading for this week. I'm not sure if I totally agree with your title, however, for the following reasons.
Regarding Physical Access: I too worry about having unequal access to actual computers/Internet connection, along with a type of projection medium in my classroom. If I end up working in an inner city school, with little funding and scare technological resources, how will I be able to bring media into my classroom? We haven't really talked about this in class, and specific suggestions haven't been made in class or in our readings (or perhaps I missed them?). Regardless of whether we have access to technology or not, I believe that we can still be good teachers (thus refuting your statement that we are "only as good as our access"). We can use media like billboards that are accessible to the public, newspapers, T.V. shows or music that is familiar to most or all of the students, architecture of buildings, and so on. I think that there is a lot of "media" all around us that is totally free, all we have to do is "access" it by analyzing as discussed by Hobbs. If we have little access to physical technology, there are definitely other alternatives.
Access to Certain Content: More difficult to deal with are instances when access to certain types of media are blocked by administrators and/or parents. I think that the best way to deal with this type of access problem is to find out exactly what your school does and doesn't allow in the classroom in terms of media usage. While some teachers I had in high school followed the "It isn't wrong if you don't get caught" rule, I believe in full disclosure to parents and administrators as to what media you will be using in your classroom. If certain media is restricted, then I plan on presenting a reasonable argument as to why it is beneficial for students, and if my request continues to be rejected, I will get creative and find other ways to teach. I feel that school compliance/harmony is more important than having access to certain types of media. In other words, I would choose keeping my job over showing "16 and Pregnant" in my classroom.
Having the Knowledge to Access: I like the idea presented in the book: that we should act neither as the ultimate authority nor completely ignorant as to how to use technology. I think we should stay on top of new technologies as much as possible, but make our students feel welcome to share/teach how to use different types of media. Teaching is one of the best ways to learn, and so having our students teach others about media is a great way for students to feel empowered and included in the classroom.
Thanks for sharing your ideas! I can't wait to discuss further in class!
“Finding and sharing appropriate and relevant information and using media texts and technology tools well” (Hobbs, 12). I agree with Carson that the definition is broad… but it is almost so broad I don’t know what to do with it. I like Carson’s idea of breaking the definition into two parts—physical access versus what is acceptable in your school.
When I think of physical access, the first thing I think of is my sister. She is an elementary school teacher of 3 years. In her first two years of teaching, she started at a brand new school in Idaho that was dressed to the nines with fancy technology. She became proficient with her smart board and used it every day in her classroom. Then, last year when she moved to Utah, she started working at a more established school that had been around for awhile. In the entire school, there was one smart board… and it was sitting in a box in the back room because none of the teachers knew how to use it. Obviously, my sister took advantage of this opportunity and asked for the board for her own classroom… but how sad is that? Those other teachers had the opportunity to enhance their teaching with technology, but they didn’t have the training required to use the technology in the first place. Carson pointed out that he is pretty tech-savvy and therefore may be able to take Hobbs up on her claim that technology needs to be used “well”, but part of our responsibility as educators is to not only become comfortable with the materials we have available to us, but branch out and find new and more interesting ways to incorporate our technology into our lessons. Young people right now thrive on the opportunity to explore with technology.
Hobbs seemed incredibly put-out by the idea of a society who isn’t completely open to the idea of media being heavily introduced in the classroom. To me, it seemed like too many of Hobbs ideas had been shut down and so now she was complaining about it in a book. But she is clearly correct when she states that familial values can cause fissures in the creative process. I think it is important to understand that teachers may not be able to give students “perfect access” for this very reason.
I remember in high school my English teacher recommended several rated R movies to us that specifically correlated with some of the more in depth analysis we were trying to perform. He obviously wasn’t allowed to show them to us in class, but he let us make the choice as to whether or not we would view them on our own. I just think it’s sad that our teacher wasn’t able to guide us through a meaningful discussion because of an arbitrary letter marked on the back of a box that most likely didn’t directly apply to the scene we were going to view. By simply letting us venture out on our own to see the material, we were losing valuable class discussions that could have further guided our understandings.
Letting students have open access to media won’t help us anymore than having no access at all. I wish there was a way to let students view material that may be deemed inappropriate by some—my personal belief is that if you trust them to be mature, more often than not, they will try and live up to your standard. Accepting limited access will be difficult to swallow, but educators must acknowledge the idea that some guided access is better than nothing.
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