First+medialit+for+parents


 * How You and Your Teen Can Learn New Skills Using Social Media**

"Parents have more control than ever before over how popular culture influences their kids. The trick is to treat media as an ally rather an enemy". - Henry Jenkins

When: Tuesday, November 11, 2009 Where: The Media Arts Studio, 454 Broadway Time: 6:30PM – 8:00PM**
 * What: A Workshop for Parents


 * Workshop Description**

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and other “social media” services are becoming more and more popular to an increasing number of teens in their daily lives. Furthermore, the amount of information on the web can be overwhelming to anyone these days. This workshop is designed to help you understand, and feel more confident about how your children are using social media tools on the Internet and help you guide your children in finding the most accurate, reliable, and safe information online.


 * Outline**
 * 1) Introduction
 * 2) Four Trends
 * Social Networks (Colin)
 * Personal Broadcasting (Matt)
 * Feeds (Colin)
 * Mashups (Matt)
 * 1) Media Literacy
 * 2) IM Lexicon
 * 3) Review, Wrap Up


 * Overview**

Media literacy refers to the full range of capabilities children need if they are going to be full participants in a more participatory media culture. It includes skills in using new media technologies, cultural competencies in understanding how stories are constructed and what they mean, aesthetic vocabularies that heighten their appreciation of diverse forms of expression, and critical frameworks for thinking about the power big media companies exert even in an age of expanding options. Though we often trivialize the intellectual demands of popular culture, these skills are acquired over time and depend upon informal instruction. Parents provide such mentoring, both by modeling patterns of media consumption and by developing and enforcing guidelines for how they want their children to relate to media content.

We would not regard our children to be literate if they could read and not write. We should similarly not feel that our children have developed basic media literacy if they can consume but not produce media. Creating media content can range from the traditional, such as writing stories, to the high-tech, such as programming original computer games. Just as reading and writing skills feed on each other, production and consumption skills for other media are also mutually reinforcing.


 * Introductions (Colin and Matt)**


 * Establish Goals and Framework** - Here is what we are hoping you leave with.

This workshop is ultimately to help you understand, and feel more confident about how your children are using social media tools on the Internet. We are using many teaching materials from the " children and media" section of [|www.pbs.org] - []


 * Topics**

This is what we are talking about - []


 * Exploring Five Trends with Your Teen**

> > Though your teen may not divulge the details of his full profile(s) to you, she may give you insight into how she thinks about herself and what she finds appealing about others' profiles. How she handles tiers of access (public vs. friends only), whom she allows to post comments and how and when she responds to comments are good topics to explore. Also, she does not already know may need your help remembering that once information goes online, it is out of her hands — and potentially in the hands or college admissions offices and future employers. Anyone can view, copy, store and forward it to others — no permission necessary. Check out Wikipedia's list of popular social networking sites and Netsmartz for more information on keeping personal information safe. > > __Examples__: >> >> __Questions__: > > Blogs - edublog.org (education) - ceatv.cpsd.us/index.php/yvc-online > > microblog - twitter > Flickr - YVCOnline > Livecast - ustream.com > Uploading video - youtube, vimeo > Music playlists - ilike.com, deezer > docs - slideshare > links - reddit, del.icio.us > > Your teen may find questions that address identity head-on to be too intrusive — after all, he is aiming to establish his independence in the world — so it might be useful to ask first about content and audience, such as, "What topics do you write about?", "Who's attention are you trying to grab?" and "What response are you hoping to receive?" Other questions to follow up with could be "How do you handle responses or comments that contradict or disagree with you?" > > Commonly called RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary - show the [|RSS icon]), these feeds allow teens to subscribe to information sources and have them delivered to a single site. > __Examples__ > __Questons__ > > Whether their collaborators are peers or well-known performers whose famous music their mashing-up, you can ask about their creative process: "How did you get the idea to combine certain elements?" and "What were you trying to do by changing other elements." To see examples of mashups go to MashupTown, which features a constantly rotating collection of digital creations as well as a light-hearted video tutorial hosted by "Granny Sue".
 * 1) **Social Networking** (Colin) - At their most basic level, social networking sites, like MySpace, MOG and, give teens a chance to interact with friends, acquaintances and a multitude of strangers. Because each person who belongs to one of these networks creates a profile, these sites give teens opportunities to learn how they are similar and different from those around them and to build a sense of self.
 * [|TakingITGlobal] We enable a collaborative learning community which provides youth with access to global opportunities, cross-cultural connections and meaningful participation in decision-making. [|What we offer] & [|Media Issues]
 * [] provides an online forum for youth to watch media produced by other Cambridge youth and provide constructive feedback about creative work. Spaces like this also provide them with an opportunity to practice media criticism and develop a way to analyze media in our society.
 * How does your teen participate in discussions online? What is their experience like? For example, what happens when her online friends have different opinions or interests — is she more likely to participate when everyone agrees or does she jump into debates?
 * How does your teen handle tiers of access? Does she allow public comments or private comments? How does she respond to comments that are good topics to explore?
 * 1) **Personal Broadcasting** (Matt) - Many sites not only are social gathering places but collections of members' personal expressions. With the growing popularity of expressing oneself online it's no wonder that Flickr, Youtube and Revver have taken off. Indeed, teens are growing up in a media-saturated society and many are participating rather than solely viewing it from their couches and desktops. They are using blog entries, homemade video clips and music playlists to express opinions and identities, representing their evolving selves with frequent updates. Many young people are using a myriad of tools to express themselves in ways ranging from participatory journalism to fashion preference. These forms of expression do not happen in placer of traditional forms of expression, rather theyhappen in addition to, making the media environment so rich that new challenges arisein yterms of vetting and quesationing content.
 * 1) **Feeds and Streaming Info** (Colin) - Teens are catching onto the idea that they don't have to go to different places online to get the information they want. Rather, they can have online information come to them.
 * Google Alerts is one example of how young people can create tailor-made point of entry online. These services allow them to select news, photos, music, bookmarks, blogs, weather and other content they want delivered to their personal start pages. While these online portals can be really useful for organizing information online, it's also important to be aware of how your teens are being marketed to by commercial companies through these sites, as well.
 * Two simple questions you can ask is, "What are your favorite sources of information?" and "Why?" "Where do you find your sources of news and information?"
 * What types of information is being marketed to your children through these online portals? Finding a balance between identity development and commercial marketing.
 * "6 ways to Promote Ad Savvy" for [|pre-teens] and [|teens] (PBS.org)
 * 1) **Remixing/Mashing/Sampling** (Matt) - Digitization makes it easier to combine elements — something certainly not lost on teens who are fond of repurposing media to suit their interests, curiosities and needs. Resisting the idea that creativity is a solitary endeavor, many teens combine media bits — melodies, scenes from films, text authored by others — into their own unique multimedia creations known as mashups (short for mash it up).


 * Handouts**

In 2006 the MacArthur Foundation launched a five-year initiative to determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life. As part of this initiative, Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, identified the following set of 11 skills that young people will need-and schools and parents will need to spend more time fostering — if they are to be what he considers "full, active, creative, and ethical participants" in the emerging participatory culture. More information about these skills is in a report titled, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (available as a PDF).
 * I. Eleven Skills Teens Will Need**
 * 1) Play: the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving
 * 2) Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery.
 * 3) Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes.
 * 4) Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
 * 5) Multitasking: the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
 * 6) Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities.
 * 7) Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal.
 * 8) Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources.
 * 9) Transmedia Navigation: the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities (eg., computer, cell-phone, TV).
 * 10) Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.
 * 11) Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.


 * Questions to engage your kids**


 * Handout #2:** 6 Ways to Make the Most of Online Information


 * 1) Encourage your teen to question all Web sites. Have your teen ask: Where does this information come from? How does this Web site's information (text, images, overall look and feel) shape my understanding? What is the point of view? What information is missing? Are certain people or opinions not represented? Is somebody trying to sell me something?
 * 2) Talk to your teen about the type - and source - of online information. Click on "About Us" and other kinds of "Who We Are" links; these offer background information about Web sites. Talk to your teen about the gap between facts that can be proven and statements that lack proof. You might ask: What research is available to back up that position? How do you know that?
 * 3) Have teens visit multiple sources about the same topic. A side-by-side comparison of Web sites can reveal the limits of a site and expose its bias. It may also disclose the site's sponsors, and how they might have shaped the content.
 * 4) Talk to your teen about the gap between how something looks and whether it can be trusted. Sleek does not mean solid: A well-designed site is no guarantee of reliable information. Help your teen understand that Web site designers can produce sharp design, clear navigation and persuasive testimonials without offering accurate content.
 * 5) Arm your teen with fact-checking resources. Sites that debunk urban legends can help dispel rumors, claims too good to be true, and "news" of alleged computer viruses. Enter "urban legend" or "urban myth" into a search engine such as Google and check the Virus Hoax area of Symantec's Anti-Virus Research Center.
 * 6) Encourage your teen to be skeptical about health information on the Web. Health factoids—quick, factual snippets found on the Web—can be convenient, but they often lack context or background. Help your teen examine health topics: Rather than settling for the first answer to a search query, visit a variety of sources and weigh multiple points of view.


 * Handout #3:** IM Glossary

[]


 * V. Review, wrap-up, where to go for more**

(CCTV classes, books, online resources)

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