5472 Post #1

Being a soon-to-be Art teacher, Media arts is a topic we have to keep our eye on. It has been discussed greatly in our cohort since an art teacher trained in media arts and art may be hired before one just trained in art. Schools may not have it publicized but media arts are becoming more and more important as our worlds technology advances.

Richard Beach’s book, Teaching Media Literacy, brings up a lot of very good topics that should be discussed with students. But there are also some things that I feel I could disagree with. Don’t get me wrong! I am all for Media literacy but sometimes I feel students are already using/watching enough media-involved things that they don’t need much more. I think that the topic of media alone brings up a lot of controversial discussion. I know that when reading chapter one I thought a lot about what I have learned and what I would want to teach. I also felt very strongly about some of the topics. Media Arts is very close to the Visual Arts arena so, it effects me a lot.

The “Building upon students active use of media” section talks about how these days students are exposed to all sorts of media and spend a lot of time everyday with some sort of media. Students prefer to learn in new and different ways--and we now have many new and different technologies to help teach in those ways i.e. the smart board, PowerPoint presentations, video clips, slideshows, music. Not to mention the many computer games meant to help students learn. Like Beach said in Ch. 1, Computers raised scores on tests, so may be they can be good.

One thing I had a little trouble with was: “One primary justification for including media studies in the curriculum is the need to create a curriculum that will engage students in their learning.” Students have been learning for who knows how many years without the technology we have today. Is it really that hard to engage students without using video-game like learning programs? Or gluing them to a computer or TV screen? I do think that some educational computer games are good but I don’t think they should be used all the time. Growing up though I have to admit I really loved Number Muncher, Oregon Trail, and the typing game-thing, Mavis Beacon (I don’t know how to spell it, sorry).

Then it goes on to say “If students are highly engaged with outside-of-school multimediating, then curriculum needs to build on that experience.” The example was blogging? With myspace, facebook, and the million other sites students use these days should that be related to school curriculum? Do students use a lot of media outside of school that can or should be related to school curriculum?

Helping students learn to communicate in multimodal ways?…do students, especially high school students need help with that? I think that the ones that need help with that are the ones that can afford it. And since they can’t afford these things so heavily incorporated in school they don’t do as well as the other students. Sometimes that just isn’t fair.

I do agree with the movie thing though. Movies shouldn’t be shown just for fun in school. It should be related to the curriculum in some way. Movies are a form of art and many are truly wonderful works of art and should be shown in school. I took a couple film studies courses at the U and I was exposed to some fantastic films that I would have otherwise never considered watching in my entire life. Students ARE highly engaged with multimediating and learning to communicate in multimodal ways…myspace, texting, new movies on the big screen, etc. Movies in the classroom can be a low level skill if used as just a filler but I think they can be a high level skill when used in the right way. Print (reading text) is a high level skill, but that too can be used in the wrong way. It has to be age appropriate and relatable to what is being learned. Too be honest I was often times uninterested in the texts we were required to read in school. Cliffs notes and online summaries of the books defiantly came in handy when I didn’t read past the first two pages in the book we were required to read. I was in a low reading group in elementary school and avoided reading at every opportunity. If their was a movie version of the story…I looked for it and watched it. Now that I am grown and have actually taken the time to read through a whole story I have found 9 times out of 10 the book is better than the movie. I think that early education is so very important. If we can’t help the ones struggling at a young age, they, like me, may never really be interested in reading in school because its difficult. And of course not every students is going to find the required story interesting no matter what you show or tell them about the story, as well. So teachers always have a challenge to get students engaged.