Critical Media Literacy (Part 2) | ep. 128

Episode 128 – Critical Media Literacy (Part 2)

Welcome to the Falling for Learning Podcast! In this episode, host TD Flenaugh is joined by resource specialist teacher Christina Johnson.

The special segment contributor, Tiffany Curry, discusses the importance of critical media literacy and ways to empower children as thoughtful, creative, and critical consumers of media.

AI Tools
https://www.magicschool.ai/AI tool for creating lessons; specific website/platform unclear—search for "Magic School AI" for related resources)
Sora - https://sora.chatgpt.com  - AI tool for generating visuals/interactive lessons; see or check your educational institution


Episode Highlights
[0:00:03] – Introduction to Critical Media Literacy 
TD Flenaugh introduces the episode’s topic, guest Christina Johnson, and the importance of critical media literacy for children’s safety online.

[0:01:47] – Engaging Students 
Christina Johnson discusses the decline of handwriting, the impact on memory, and suggests creative classroom projects like reaction videos to foster critical thinking.

[0:04:50] – Making Writing Relevant for Students 
TD Flenaugh explains why student engagement increases when writing topics are chosen based on their interests and lived experiences rather than teacher-selected topics.

[0:13:50] – Tiffany’s Tips: Using AI for Ethical, Creative Learning 
Tiffany Curry introduces the “Tiffany’s Tips” segment, highlighting the power of AI as an educational tool for parents and creative projects like picture books. She mentions tools such as Magic School Bus and Sora.

[0:20:55] – Evaluating Media and Influence of Ads 
TD Flenaugh discusses the financial incentives behind online content, the hidden nature of ads, and the importance of teaching children to evaluate sources critically for bias and intent.

[0:28:41] – Community and Parental Involvement 
Christina Johnson concludes by emphasizing the collective responsibility of parents, extended family, and the community in raising critical, empathetic, and successful children.

Transcript

0:03

Critical Media Literacy. This is a skill that your children need to learn so that they can be safe online. My guest today is Christina Johnson. She is a renowned educator. She has a master's degree from two different universities. She's top quality. Christina Johnson is a resource specialist teacher. She is also a first generation college graduate. I am so glad to have her. Let's get into it. So parents and educators out there, if you are not sure how to help support kids with the media that they see and are bombarded with all the time, this episode is for you. We're gonna give you tips and strategies that you can use to make sure that your kids know what to do. and know how to question and know how to be critical of what they are consuming. Hi, thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning podcast. am TD Linna. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies, and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. you you What are some other ways that you might um have them create in the classroom in response to what they are watching, reading, or viewing? It's a very, I think it's a very good question. It's also potentially a very hard question to answer because we find ourselves at a very unique time period in which handwriting is becoming obsolete almost. And I know it's crazy, but it's true. And as somebody who's visually impaired, I'm not, I'm not mad about it because I'm, need to put this on the computer so I can blow it up to really see what you wrote. However, It is important. um We understand, you know, for children to be able to handwrite things because of that connection between or the synergy between you handwriting something and your mind and also being able to retain that. I don't know if handwriting and typing has the same effect on the brain, but I know growing up, I would constantly hear that handwriting helps you remember things. So that's something that would be really cool to look up to see if typing something helps you remember things as much as well. But in the classroom, I like the idea of creating reaction videos. So a lot of things that are going on right now is rage baiting. know, somebody posting a video that will make uh people mad so that they can comment on it. They will share the video so then you will get more views and then thus get more money. So then you have to also think about that. does this person really believe this or are they rage baiting just to get you to to interact with their content. And so with that, you can create something that might cause like a bit of a rage bait in the classroom to then have the students create a reaction video to it or, you know, make comments underneath that video. I think we were talking a little bit over the phone just about, I forgot exactly the name that you called it, but I'm getting. as motivation. So I definitely irritated my students um to motivate them. And that's the same effect as rage baiting. Right? Like, know they like Taylor Swift. I might have them. read somebody's review that's really negative about Taylor Swift, right? And so of course, because they love Taylor Swift, they have like 10, 20 different things to counter what that is that this person wrote that they don't agree with. Because sometimes we find our students are not motivated to work. And a lot of that comes from when I come up with the topic and I'm like, yeah, let's do an argument essay on. street cleaning on Tuesdays. I'm just making up something and for the kids they're like I don't care about heck is that crap about speed cleaning? They don't drive, it doesn't affect their car, they're not paying any parking tickets, like this doesn't matter to me. So, but I'm like, guys, let's write about that. And then they're like, what? So. um this lady out of here. Yeah, so it's really important for us to consider like what they're interested in when they're writing because the point of writing, especially like an English teacher, my goal is to see if you can write an argument. It's not to see if you could come up with different ideas about why street cleaning should be scheduled differently. Like that's not a point. The point is, can you articulate yourself, get reasons for it, write it in a succinct way, write it in a clear way? So it actually, you can write about something that you care about. I don't have to care about Taylor Swift or not. It doesn't matter. It's does, do my students care about it? And yes, they can write about it and giving them even examples inspire them. So inspiration looks like irritation sometimes. And sometimes, inspiration looks like something that they're really, you know, interested in, you know, yeah, so you can see something that someone wrote about that they really care about. And then they're like, well, I really care. I don't really care about that. But I, don't really care about that artist, but I really care about this artist. So I'll write about that artist. I love how they wrote this and this and this about that artist. And I have similar things that I like about my artists. So helping them, giving them like a choice about what they're writing about, making it relevant to their lives. Like we said, like everybody's talking about whatever this topic is. So let's bring it into the classroom. Let's talk about it. Let's look at, you know, three different point of views that people have already created posts on or people already wrote op-eds on. And then like, what's missing? we wrote, we heard a woman write about this. Here is a Caucasian male who wrote about this. Here is someone in their twenties who wrote about it. Like what's missing? well no one in their seventies wrote about it or a teenager didn't write about this or even how this might affect an elementary school student is not written about. And so they could add that voice or they could say, well no one that is of Asian descent wrote about this. So. you know, I know I could bring that to the table. So those are just different ways to get our students going. Cause we're like, some people, right, are like, get kids to write or how do we get them? They don't seem to care, but it's like a lot of times it's because we're the person bringing forth the topic. Yeah. You want the kids to write about something you care about. They don't give a hot and picking about it. They don't care about what's going on there. And so they definitely don't want to write about that. And so that also brings us to the importance, like you said, of getting to know your students. And that first week, two weeks of school, there's different ways for teachers to get to know their students. Of course, sitting in a circle, tell me about yourself. Write about yourself so that you can find things that they are interested in. some of the curriculum to those interests. It's not always what it's about, right? It's more so the formula that you want the students to get down. So again, like if we're talking about math problems and things like that, doesn't matter if Johnny had six apples or if he has six watermelons, that's just what the question is about. but you could always change that topic to suit whatever his interest is. Maybe he's really interested in oranges, who knows? Okay, because kids come to you with so many different things that they care about that you're like, I've never even heard about that. Still, it's really important to them and it can help them to become better writers, become critical thinkers, become better orators. and articulate themselves in such a way that could move somebody or, you know, potentially change legislation later on down the line. Who knows what these kids will become. That also brings me back to when you and I were working in the classroom and your fight for creative writing and the importance of creative writing and understanding that creative writing is very important and it's, it is. important if not just as important as argumentative writing or persuasive writing and so oftentimes people don't believe that they want to skip over it we got to get to the argument because that's what the that's what the test is going to ask them to do write an argument about this prove that if the kid doesn't care about it they don't want to write about it they are probably not going to give you the best argumentative essay because like you said maybe it's not about taylor swift maybe it's about beyonce and we know they can go on for days about who's the better artist. We know it's Beyonce, but I digress. But I digress. I stand, but I digress. And so as a teacher and as a parent, my mom, she would buy me journals. She wasn't a teacher, but she would buy me journals. And so I would be able to write, write poetry at different family events. know, I'd be like, hey. you know, I want to get up and say something. Mom's like, okay, that's what you want to do. Go ahead. So like at a family, you know, family member funeral, it's a sad time, but maybe I had written a poem and I wanted to share with my family. And so my mom allowed for me to get up and share that at my cousin's funeral. But those are things that sometimes folks don't value. Teachers or education doesn't always value a poem written by a child or a song written by a child. They're just like, what's possibility that little JoJo's gonna grow up and become the artist of the century millennium? We don't know, but give them an opportunity to do it. Absolutely. And he might kick you down something when he make it, because we know you ain't making no money in that class. And I told you, I be rooting for my kids. Come on, JoJo. Write that rap. Absolutely, and I would argue that creative writing actually is where the money's at, right? You know, when you think about the blockbuster movies, you think about the singers, you know, the writers, right, who wrote those songs, like they're making big money. Now, there's a little bit of an NBA, you know, element to it. Like, not all gonna make, you know, everyone's not gonna make a billion dollars from writing songs or... uh making movies, but there's other things in between that, right, as far as the creativity goes. uh And just the creative license, right, helps to unlock for kids the ability to imagine, right, like that freedom dreaming, right? if I'm just telling you- like that. This is what, this is what writing is, right? You're writing an essay about dolphins. Again, you may not care about dolphins and you're like, okay, great. Um, so I'm closed off to writing because you told me that this, what writing is, but if I then am saying to you, no, you could write about whatever you want to write about. always hear you talking about, um, different types of t-shirts. So write about t-shirts again. As a teacher or a parent, you don't care about t-shirts, but if it's what your kid likes, let them write about it and you'll see that they will really open up and expand, right? They're gonna give you that minimum. How much do I have to write about t-shirts? A paragraph? Okay, I'm gonna give you a paragraph. If I don't like t-shirts, right? You're gonna make me write about something. I'm just gonna give you this much because at least it's done, it's done. Or again, we know some kids don't like, I'm not writing that. I'm not writing anything. They don't write anything. We have seen kids who don't. um IDK. know you got to be lying. I don't know anything about t-shirts. I don't know anything about dolphins. Like, you know, but again, you will get, and everybody has that thing that they can't really shut up about like, this person is always talking about blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, that's what you can write about. And it's like, I can't like, yeah. So like that just makes a big difference. The rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go. Two, resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies, and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing hate and into loving to write. Get your book set today. I want to touch on AI. I think that it can just be a really powerful tool for parents to teach their children. And um it can be used in an ethical way, you know, not to sort of give the kid ways to, you know, manipulate and use it to take shortcuts, but the opposite of that kind of giving them more creative ways to learn, giving them uh you know, really fun things that they could do. could, um you know, making picture books is one way you could use AI for that. Maybe making a picture book about a topic like we were saying, let's say your kid is really into dinosaurs, you know, and you could make a picture book um illustrated um about all kinds of dinosaurs or airplanes, like you mentioned, whatever it may be. m And there's like so many um different tools for teaching. uh think it's called, um I should have had more names listed, but I believe it's called um Magic School Bus. it really? Okay. um And. That's the one that makes the picture book. No, the one that you can use for visuals I believe is called Sora. Sora. S-O-R-A. Okay, end the show notes. Take a look. And then magic school bus is more for um creating like lessons. Okay engaging lessons and you can put in topics and um It can create um all kinds of lessons in different ways where you can make you paragraphs and have open any questions about the paragraphs or multiple choice the different all kinds of different