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As I travel around the US teaching internet safety to students, parents, and school districts one of the central topics of discussion is this idea of “media literacy”. What is media literacy?As consumers of media we need to understand when we are being subjected to some sort of media bias 100% of the time. Producers of content are trying to make you FEEL something and believe something which might go against your values.
Do you even realize when it’s happening? The overwhelming percentage of media messages have some sort of bias (even most news outlets). When you hear or see a message can you identify the: sexist, ageist, racist, religious biases, or political agendas?
And please don’t assume that your favorite news agency only leans in one direction. That direction will blow in the wind according to the slate of advertisers on deck. Every opinion is for sale, and the farther you dig into media literacy the clearer that will become.
Being media literate helps you to analyze and evaluate the message you see, hear, and “consume” via all delivery systems: print, radio, television, and digital. Teaching media literacy to young people becomes particularly important because of the massive amount of content teens consume on a daily basis.
The average American teenager spends:
- 31 hours per week watching television
- 17 hours per week listening to music
- 3 hours per week watching movies
- 4 hours per week reading magazines
- 10 hours per week online
GRAND TOTAL: 10 hours and 45 minutes per DAY on mass media consumption (according to a study done by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation).
In addition, an overwhelmingly high percentage of the media bias your child is consuming is sexual in nature.The messages your children receive (depending on what they are watching/hearing/reading) generally takes on slight variations of the same flavor:
young men are shallow and heartless sex seekers
young women should only just care about looking photoshop perfect in order to hook and keep the heartless sex seeker
That’s it – this is the basic lens through which your children consume media. Awesome.
Media Literacy Trick: Consume Great Content
If you want to cultivate media literacy in your home and with your children, you need to lay a foundation of solid and worthwhile content to act as a counterpoint to all of the vomit content which exists in the real world and in the digital ether. Incidentally, most of the real-world “print” vomit content is located at the end of the grocery store check out aisle.
If you our your child are at ALL engaged to the current relative size of a Kardashian’s back side….begin reading this list STAT. You need an intervention.
Amazon.com has put together a list of the 100 Books Every Person should read. Think of this as a literary bucket list.
- Go through the list
- Mom and Dad: Read the ones YOU haven’t read yet
- If appropriate to your child’s reading level/maturity – have your child read it as well
- Discuss the book over dinner – like your own little book club
- Your child’s insights will impress you, they were just waiting to be asked. What took you so long?
Remember as you consume content, don’t shy away from the content which might clash with the values you are trying to teach your own children. For example: A book with violent undertones (ie Hunger Games) can act as a springboard for discussion which will linger in your child’s mind far after the discussion is over.
What to do now?
Go to Amazon.com and check out the list. Begin reading WITH your child, and pay attention to the content your child is consuming.
Like today.
Read more from the Blog
- Awesome #EdTech Tool for Students: Take Notes While You Watch That Video for Class & Export To Google Drive – VideoNot.es Review
- Super Cool #EdTech Tool for Teachers and Parents – SmartestK12 Review
- I Disagree Completely With HuffPost Article – Here’s What You Should ACTUALLY Do If You Catch Your Kid Sexting
- An Open Letter to Teens Who Use Ask.fm; Read, Post, & Share
- VIDEO: Internet Safety: Before you buy your child a digital device – think safety
- VIDEO: Internet Safety Expert : Jesse Weinberger on WKYC-Cleveland to Discuss Cyberbullying and Internet Safety
- Internet Safety: Best Parenting Practices to Keep Children, Tweens, and Teens Safe in the Digital World
- Internet Safety for Parents: Being proactive is the only defense for your tweens, teens, and family
- Parents of teens WAKE UP! Fake Facebook account contributes to the abduction and murder of 15 year old Nichole Cable in Maine
- Entire High School Football Team Gets Suspended Because of Cyberbullying on Ask.fm
- A Cleveland Teen is Murdered After a Facebook Argument – aka Internet Safety Basics: DON’T Feed the Trolls
- Adults and Kids: Stop Being Stupid. The “Gonna-Be” Posts Are Going To Get You: Robbed, Kidnapped, Assaulted
Jesse Weinberger is an Internet Safety Expert, Internet Safety Speaker for schools, and the author of “The Boogeyman Exists: And He’s In Your Child’s Back Pocket”; a guide for parents and educators on how to keep children safe in a 24-7 always connected digital society. Learn more about how to keep your children safe online She has been teaching parents, schools, and students how to navigate online and mobile risks since 2003. Jesse is available for presentations to schools, parents, students, and organizations all over the United States.
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Here is another very cool tool for teachers, students, and parents.
If your child is assigned an online video to watch either at home or at school make sure that they download VideoNot.es. This very simple interface allows to to input the address of a video and a typing block opens up to the right hand side.
The brilliant bit is that the notes field takes a time stamp every time you begin to type, so that you can go back and watch the video at that point.
In the image below I opened up my video “When is My Child Ready for a Smartphone” video via the YouTube address, and you can see the notes I took on the right with the timestamp.
Ridiculously easy to use and understand. You can use video addresses from YouTube, Khan Academy, Coursera, Vimeo and more.
Create a free login using your Google Account and your notes will be automatically saved to your Google Drive. Alternatively you can share your notes or save them to your hard drive.
Well done VideoNot.es!!
Read more from the Internet Safety Blog
- Super Cool #EdTech Tool for Teachers and Parents – SmartestK12 Review
- I Disagree Completely With HuffPost Article – Here’s What You Should ACTUALLY Do If You Catch Your Kid Sexting
- An Open Letter to Teens Who Use Ask.fm; Read, Post, & Share
- VIDEO: Internet Safety: Before you buy your child a digital device – think safety
- VIDEO: Internet Safety Expert : Jesse Weinberger on WKYC-Cleveland to Discuss Cyberbullying and Internet Safety
- Internet Safety: Best Parenting Practices to Keep Children, Tweens, and Teens Safe in the Digital World
- Internet Safety for Parents: Being proactive is the only defense for your tweens, teens, and family
- Parents of teens WAKE UP! Fake Facebook account contributes to the abduction and murder of 15 year old Nichole Cable in Maine
- Entire High School Football Team Gets Suspended Because of Cyberbullying on Ask.fm
- A Cleveland Teen is Murdered After a Facebook Argument – aka Internet Safety Basics: DON’T Feed the Trolls
- Adults and Kids: Stop Being Stupid. The “Gonna-Be” Posts Are Going To Get You: Robbed, Kidnapped, Assaulted
Jesse Weinberger is an Internet Safety Expert, Internet Safety Speaker for schools, and the author of “The Boogeyman Exists: And He’s In Your Child’s Back Pocket”; a guide for parents and educators on how to keep children safe in a 24-7 always connected digital society. Learn more about how to keep your children safe online She has been teaching parents, schools, and students how to navigate online and mobile risks since 2003. Jesse is available for presentations to schools, parents, students, and organizations all over the United States.
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Very often I am the sounder of the alarm, the puller of the fire bell to let you know when to beware or just hide altogether. Gratefully today is NOT one of those days.Today I have great news. In my travels through the internet I found an amazing #edtech tool (that’s educational technology for you civilians) for teachers and parents. It’s called SmartestK12 and it was created by eighth grade science teacher Craig Jones who wanted a way out of the madness of inefficient testing and grading.
Did I mention that it’s free??
How it works
Essentially you (teacher, parent, or student) can create an assessment or test in seconds based on the documents you already have.
- take any document you’ve already created
- upload it into the system (takes like 2 seconds)
- highlight the section of the page and assign a question type to it
- send out a code to your students
- your students log in and you get results in real time
So why is this so cool for teachers?
Well duh….you can use every document you’ve ever created as long as you can covert it to a PDF (currently supported Word docs, PDFs and Image files) and turn it into a test in literally seconds. Possible applications:
- You’ve provided your students with a list of vocabulary words. Bing Bang Boom – fill in the blanks test
- For art history you have a Powerpoint of famous paintings – whammo – you have a PDF multiple choice
- There’s a unit on photosynthesis and you need your students to draw the flower and the sun and the arrows – Alakazam – drop in a drawing block and your students can draw a picture or a math problem or a diagram
The feedback is awesome as well. It provides easy tools for teachers to see patterns which then require differentiated responses, and an easy way to communicate with family. In addition grading these assessments will be much easier and quicker to track. Oh, and we’ll murder a lot less trees.
Why is this so cool for parents?
Great question. Parents – here is a super easy way to create quizzes for your kids based on the work they’ve already done in class. Here are some ideas:
- Take a photo of a test they’ve already taken and place the question boxes in the same spot
- Upload the vocabulary list and let your child self-quiz
- Create a short answer test based on the handouts from the teacher
Essentially you will create quizzes for your child in anticipation of the ones your teacher would create. Then, you will have DATA. You will know where your child needs more help and help him/her focus on those areas.
How about students?
Your children already have their entire heads inside of their devices (for good or bad) and will be far more willing to study and work for assessments if they can study and take the test on their phone, or tablet, or laptop.
Want to learn more? Watch this video
If you can’t see the video below, REFRESH your browser.
What Should You Do Now?
You can even one-click log-in with your Google account, if you have one. Teachers, don’t miss this opportunity to streamline your classroom workload. Parents, take advantage of this easy tool to help your children study. They might have just run out of excuses. WOO HOO!!!!
Read more from the Internet Safety Blog
- I Disagree Completely With HuffPost Article – Here’s What You Should ACTUALLY Do If You Catch Your Kid Sexting
- Orange City Schools – Brady Middle School ROCKS At Not Becoming Sheep
- Thank you St. Albert the Great Parish & School For Presenting Internet Safety Presentation for Parents
- An Open Letter to Teens Who Use Ask.fm; Read, Post, & Share
- VIDEO: Internet Safety: Before you buy your child a digital device – think safety
- VIDEO: Internet Safety Expert : Jesse Weinberger on WKYC-Cleveland to Discuss Cyberbullying and Internet Safety
- Internet Safety: Best Parenting Practices to Keep Children, Tweens, and Teens Safe in the Digital World
- Internet Safety for Parents: Being proactive is the only defense for your tweens, teens, and family
- Parents of teens WAKE UP! Fake Facebook account contributes to the abduction and murder of 15 year old Nichole Cable in Maine
- Entire High School Football Team Gets Suspended Because of Cyberbullying on Ask.fm
- A Cleveland Teen is Murdered After a Facebook Argument – aka Internet Safety Basics: DON’T Feed the Trolls
- California Senate Bill 568: The “Eraser Bill” Will Accidentally Hurt the Cause of Internet Safety
- Adults and Kids: Stop Being Stupid. The “Gonna-Be” Posts Are Going To Get You: Robbed, Kidnapped, Assaulted
Jesse Weinberger is an Internet Safety Expert, Internet Safety Speaker for schools, and the author of “The Boogeyman Exists: And He’s In Your Child’s Back Pocket”; a guide for parents and educators on how to keep children safe in a 24-7 always connected digital society. Learn more about how to keep your children safe online She has been teaching parents, schools, and students how to navigate online and mobile risks since 2003. Jesse is available for presentations to schools, parents, students, and organizations all over the United States.
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