Changes

I am making some changes with this blog. I have found that a wiki serves me better for various reasons. Therefore, I am posting most of my information at http://librarianne.wikispaces.com/. You can find me over there. I will keep this blog open for occassional educational technology posts.
Thanks for reading!

What is Media Literacy?

 This is the first week of school for me. It is an exciting time as I look ahead to new adventures. As an elementary librarian I decided that I was going to stress "Media Literacy" with my students this year. So, I had to ask myself, "What IS media literacy"? I knew I wanted to talk to my students about being safe online, proper cell phone etiquette, how to effectively search for needed information, but what else? After searching the Internet and finding a variety of definitions I came up with four words that describe media literacy to me:

*Access
*Evaluate
*Analyze
*Create

As educators it is important that we not only teach these concepts to our students, but that we allow them to experience. I want my students to learn how to access all the information they need without asking me for help. I want them to be able to evaluate what they find to determine if it is accurate and reliable. I want my students to analyze all the information and determine what they need or don't need and then decide what they can do with it. Finally, I want my students to take all of that information and create something of their own. This is how they learn. I once had a college professor who told us that his job was to make his job obsolete. He wanted to teach us how to teach ourselves so we wouldn't need him anymore. I have never forgotten that and that is my goal now.


Good luck to all you who are beginning a new school year along with me. Let the fun begin!