YouTube and TikTok Videos Should Be Included in Media Literacy Lessons
There is no doubt about it, YouTube and TikTok have taken the place of network television for many American Children. Part of educating our children to become responsible consumers and prosumers includes teaching our students to evaluate these videos, evaluate them objectively, and to determine if that video has been created by a credible source. According to Social Constructivism theory: Learning is a social activity - it is something we do together, in interaction with each other, rather than an abstract concept (Dewey, 1938). Learning is a collaborative process, and knowledge develops from individuals' interactions with their culture and society.
We know that our current culture is being shaped video technologies, let’s embrace that as educators and include evaluating videos in our media literacy lessons. What better way to get students to think critically about the information they consume than to include technology they use daily as part of our lessons?
Kristin, thanks for this great insight! It almost seems counterintuitive to include videos (especially fun ones) into a class curriculum. However, this truly is how today's students learn best. Like you said, as long as we teach students media literacy, we can show them that learning can be fun and can take place wherever, whenever. For example, I learned most of the content in my AP Physics class by watching online YouTube videos at home. I did, however, have to search for these videos on my own and make sure that they were from credible sources. I can imagine that if we as teachers gave our students the resources to do this, the learning process would be made a lot more accessible for all students.
ReplyDeleteKristin, I agree we should embrace the technology and the media our students consume. Thinking critically and objectively are extremely important qualities to have especially in this age of massive amounts of technology. In terms of incorporating it into the classroom I feel like there are a lot of ways to do that. I really liked the idea of having students pull out there phone and scroll for a minute through instagram, or I think TikTok would even be better, and count the number of ads and the number of actual posts you see from people, and calculate the percentage of ads in your feed. Media literacy lesson along with a math lesson. Engage the students in something they're interested in while also teaching them two important lessons.
ReplyDelete