Media Studies In The Classroom: The multiple uses of Google

Ontario Curriculum Media Literacy Expectations

“Media literacy” is the result of study of the art and messaging of various forms of media texts. Media texts can be understood to include any work, object, or event that communicates meaning to an audience. Most media texts use words, graphics, sounds, and/or images, in print, oral, visual, or electronic form, to communicate information and ideas to their audience. 

- Ontario Curriculum, Media Studies

http://www.suegorman.com/2015/09/ 

The first strand of language and literacy that we looked at was Media studies. We were asked to look at a variety of blogs, articles, and resources. One of the resources I really enjoyed looking into was Google, and the many different platforms and programs that they offer and how they can be applied to the classroom. The article can be found on Edutopia (http://www.edutopia.org/google-for-educators) . The blog post is titled “Google for Educators: The Best Features for Busy Teachers”. I chose this article because it highlights the different ways you can use Google apps for teaching. These google programs are great for teachers who are less inclined towards media, or are just starting to introduce media in their classrooms.Google offers user-friendly applications to incorporate tech into teaching and only requires internet and a device, which makes it very accessible for teachers and students. The resources that the article discusses are: Google search, Google CS First, Google Keep, Google Drive, Google sites, Google Maps, Google Classroom, and Youtube. Using these Google apps is easy to access because a teacher just needs to create a Gmail account, and it is easy to locate through the Gmail account home page or Google home page.

Media Resources in the Classroom
In my placement classroom, there are only a limited amount of devices available in the school, but they do have a “bring your own device” policy, which encourages students to bring their own devices to use in the classroom. My associate teacher does use Google classroom and I have seen how the students do use it daily, and it allows parents to be involved in their students learning by seeing their work and what is going on inside the classroom. Google classroom lets students be able to work or view any documents or posts by their teachers from any device (so long as there is internet), so students can stay up to date on information. When I am teaching, I would love to incorporate Google apps as part of my lessons or assignments.

Here are the expectations from the Ontario Curriculum for Media Studies:

1      Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of media texts;

2      Identify some media forms and explain how the conventions and techniques associated with them are used to create meaning;

3      Create a variety of media texts for different purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques;

4      Reflect on and identify their strengths, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in understanding and creating media texts.

Projects to implement in the classroom
One idea that I’ve been working on is to develop of a type of research group project where students can use Google docs and Google slides to present their final project. Another great site to use for online presentations is Emaze. This is a great website because it is extremely user friendly, you can upload Microsoft power points and convert them into “amaze” presentations, and they are very visually appealing. Trying new sites and programs like this can help students identify the various ways they can present information, and the effects that these types of presentations can have.(ex. iMovie and create a trailer, PowerPoint presentation, Emaze an interactive presentation)

Another idea is to use Google maps, as part of math to calculate the distance between their home and school, and calculate the different times it would take to walk, run, drive to school. As well as to calculate the numerous routes they could possibly take to get to and from school, and which is the shortest.

Teaching Digital Citizenship
Before using these media sources, I would like to do a brief lesson with the students about: using appropriate sites for information, as well as digital citizenship. It it great to use devices in the class and incorporate them into lessons, but I believe it’s important for students to understand the importance of how to conduct themselves online as well as when looking for information that they use the right sources. Here is a great article that goes over digital citizenship: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis.