IMLRS Conference Reflections by Diana Maliszewski
5th International Media Literacy Research Symposium (2024)
This summary by Diana Maliszewski appears both on http://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com and on www.aml.ca.)
June 27, 2024
9:30 a.m.
Opening Remarks
Media Artifacts:
June 27, 2024
10:00 a.m.
Session 1 = The Meme Conundrum: Y U NO Understand? by Diana Maliszewski (Canada)
Summary: (taken from program) Children today watch YouTube and Tik Tok instead of network television, and this type of media consumption influences their pop culture references, shared experiences, and humor, as TV shows did in the past. Are you and your teachers able to “speak memes”? This talk demonstrates the value of investigating these references students make in conversation, helping students understand some of the complex layers of messages and meaning, and employing these memes to generate interest in subject areas. Elementary or secondary teachers can use the approaches offered as part of this talk in their practice.
3) Educators can use memes to capture student interest (Ohio for geography), in playful ways (e.g. via games like Family Meme Night), or using memes for student assignments (e.g. Teacher-Librarianship AQ students demonstrating perceptions vs reality of school library professionals).
So What, Now What?: My interpretation of the value of this talk is influenced by the fact that I led it. There were only six participants, but there was such rich and insightful conversation between all of the members of the circle that at one point, Carol Arcus (who was taking notes as quickly as she could while still being present for the chat) turned to me and said, “I’m getting goosebumps. I wish this conversation was recorded.” This was classified as a Chair Talk, a format where “individuals discuss their topic with people who are interested in their work.” I want to thank Patrick Johnson, Bobbie Foster, Liene Locmele, Joanna Marshall, and Carol Arcus; technically, they were allowed to roam freely throughout any of the chair talks, but they stayed and my own understanding of the subject of meme use has been enhanced because of their comments and contributions to the discussion.
June 27, 2024
11:30 a.m.
Session 2
Presentation 4A = From Gen Z to Gen Z: Teaching and Promoting MIL through Service Learning by Alice Lee (Hong Kong)
Summary: (taken from program) This paper introduces service learning as a new pedagogic approach to teaching and promoting MIL in the community. It illustrates how 118 university students participated in a service- learning project in Hong Kong and taught MIL to school children and young adults (members of Gen Z). The paper discusses what has been achieved, the challenges, and how the service targets and the university students themselves benefited from the project. The university students at Hong Kong Baptist University attended lectures to equip themselves with MIL knowledge and skills. Then, they went to the community to share their MIL knowledge with their service targets. It is found that this MIL service-learning pedagogy has the following characteristics: (1) student-centered; (2) combines online with offline interaction; (3) non-school setting; (4) community participation; (5) peer learning; (6) collaborative learning; (7) not limited by geographic boundary; (8) innovative activities; and (9) Gen Z focus.
3 Key Points:
1) The “learning by doing”, experiential learning model based on this approach is inspired by the work of John Dewey, and the participants interacted with their targets for 5 weeks.
2) The themes that the university students chose to focus on reflected Hong Kong Gen Z concerns, such as excessive media use, disinformation, and cyberbullying.
3) Visual sharing was the most popular way for students to share their learning, and some did a “digital detox” together with their targets.
4) Challenges included students realizing it’s not easy to change their target’s social media consumption and that if the message is not delivered in an interactive way, the target loses interest; however, there were many benefits such as self-growth and reinforcing the learning for themselves through teaching.
So What, Now What?: Even young students can benefit from teaching others things that they learned. Maybe I might need to encourage some more class pair-ups for projects. I reached out to Alice after a different presentation from a colleague of hers, and she has already emailed me back and shared resources! This is the start of a productive connection made at the conference!
Presentation 4B = Media Literacy Workshops: Ways of Listening to the Older People by Margarida Maneta (Portugal)
Summary: (taken from program) The ageing of societies and the growing number of older people accessing the internet are posing challenges. Even so, most of media literacy studies have centered on children and young people (Amaral & Brites, 2019; Azevedo, 2019; Rasi et al., 2019). We explored the results of five workshops organised as part of an action-research project in Porto between March and April 2023 with senior citizens aged between 61 and 77. These workshops are centered on topics such as (Dis)Information, Good Online Practices and Online Security and Privacy. The essence of the workshops presupposes negotiated spaces for dialogue and co-learning. This option has achieved results with citizens who are not often invited to share their ideas such as the older people (Brites et al., 2023, p. 348). The promotion of workshops has led to 1) an increase in the participants; confidence and reflection; 2) the promotion of active ageing.
3 Key Points:
1) Portugal is the second oldest country in Europe, in terms of its population, and society is getting increasingly digital, so it’s important to help the senior members function in this changing society.
2) The workshops usually lasted 90 minutes and it was very focused on a participatory approach.
3) Seniors are often not the subjects of research like this.
So What, Now What?: Although my work is with younger people, it was a helpful reminder that participatory learning is important to all age groups.
Presentation 4C = Screen Disconnections. Comparative Exploratory Study Between Spain, Portual and Brazil by Laura Picazo Sanchez, Maria Alzira de Almeida Pimenta, and Gabriela Borges (Spain, Brazil, Portugal)
3 Key Points:
1) The study involved 292 participants and the researchers’ hypothesis was that there would be anxiety, irritability, sheep issues, FOMO, and drop outs.
2) The number differences were interesting between the three countries. Anxiety levels were mostly the same (57%, 59%, and 60% reported having these feelings), as were FOMO.
3) There were differences in irritability levels (Spanish students had 40%, whereas Portugal had 15% and Brazil 35%) as well as the number of people who quit before the 24 hours were up (11% in Spain, 28% in Portugal). However, 84% of the participants said they intend to rethink their media consumption habits.
So What, Now What?: This was more of just an “interest” session for me, so there are no actions for me to take. I can give up my electronics (email, cell phone) for a day myself without qualms, but I’m old and used to going without tech.
Presentation 4D = The Art of Presence – Becoming Present through Art-Based Media Literacy Education by Andrea Winkler-Vilhena and Julian McDougall (England)
Summary: (taken from program) This communication presents the first results of a series of workshops that explore how seeing, interacting with, and making art can revive our sense of presence and promote care. The workshops are part of an ongoing PhD research project that investigates how the affective powers of the arts can be used to promote media literacy. In a society of hyperconnectivity (Brubaker, 2022) and civic distance (Mihailidis, 2023), we need media literacy education to make people more aware of how human relationships and communication are affected by the omnipresence of digital devices. And we need to do so from a perspective that uses interdisciplinary knowledge about global current affairs as a third pillar of media literacy (Gerodimos, 2021). We argue that by using the arts, media literacy education can contribute to embedding this “embodied knowledge” (Barbour, 2016) into people’s everyday lives.
3 Key Points:
1) This work is part of Andrea’s PhD work on Promoting Presence and Care. She mentioned several thinkers that influenced her work, such as Brubaker’s “technology of absence”, Hepp’s “deep mediatization”, Turkle’s “costs of connection”, Stone’s “forever elsewhere” and this general sense that we are attending to machines, not others and our “absent presence” means we never pay full attention and that we need to try to recenter presence to recenter human connection.
2) To helps students “be here and in the now”, the team had a process of a) theory, b) looking at art c) discussing, d) art making, e) show and tell, and f) reflection. The participants originally felt it was information to make a representation of what presences is as a group in just 20 minutes, but they did it.
3) By using art as a vehicle for media literacy education, the researchers saw things like time, imagination, making concepts visible, shared language and emotional impact.
So What, Now What?: This reminds me of the project I did with the Grade 4s and 5s just before the pandemic, on creating a monument to peace. I need to do more of these type of projects with loose parts more often. I liked seeing the art samples the small groups created in the UK. I also felt bad for the speaker, who was frustrated with the misbehaving technology, so that taught me to use my USB stick for my own presentation the next day, rather than switch laptops.
June 27, 2024
2:00 p.m.
Afternoon Workshops = Communities at Work: Teachers and Journalists Demonstrate Media Literacy Usage
Summary: (taken from program) During this program, you will be able to watch demonstrations from Azorean teachers and journalists showing how media literacy education is incorporated in their work.
So What, Now What?: Neil Andersen, one of my media mentors (and the reason why I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to attend the other option offered during this time slot, on the “International ‘Grandparents’ of Media Literacy”, since I have regular access to one of the pioneers of the field in my own backyard!) has often reminded me of the importance of “moments between moments” and the deep learning that happens in the “interstitials” of a conference. This was an example of that. As I sat down to have a delicious catered lunch at the Biblioteca Publica e Arquivo Regional de Ponta Delgada, I met and spoke with Alaa Al-Musalli, from the School of Communication at Capilano University in Vancouver, and her colleague, Ki Wight from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Along with my AML friend Carol Arcus, the four of us chatted about paparazzi, being known, and the experience of co-presenting. Carol, Carolyn Wilson and I conversed in the hallway about reconnecting later at the conference to discuss Canada’s media literacy movement. Michael Hoechsmann, Carol and I marveled at the flora on the island, especially hydrangeas. Belinha De Abreu and I exchanged a few words about understanding how “chair talks” operate.
I did get a chance to look at the work the high school students did on their media work. The teacher was obviously so proud of her students. I spoke with Isadore on how her “scientist” outfit impacted her explosion experiment, and with Amy and others on how the shape of their robots conveyed meaning just as much as the tasks the robots performed did too.
June 27, 2024
5:00 p.m.
Marieli Rowe Award Presentation
Summary: 4 groups won the Marieli Rowe Award for this year. You can see their profiles here.
June 27, 2024
5:45 p.m.
Keynote Panel = “Where Are We with Media Literacy Education? Where are we going?” by David Buckingham, Sally Reynolds, and Antonio Lopez.
Summary: (taken from program) Media literacy education has been in the forefront of conversations since 2016. The evolution of that conversation has come from the misinformation/disinformation space to the concerns with technology as well as justice issues. This panel will discuss their perspectives on what they see as the positives, concerns and suggestions for a future focus. This will be an interactive panel with audience participation.
(Just before the panel, Belinha played the message that we did not have time for earlier in the conference from Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.)
3 Key Points:
(from Melissa’s address)
1) 30% of the world only gets the news from social media feeds and this “murky world of pseudo science” undermines trust.
2) The world urgently needs Media, Information and Digital Literacy skills, especially in this age of Generative AI.
3) The UN has Global Principles for Digital Integrity, and this conference aims to improve the health of our information eco-systems.
3 Key Points:
(from Keynote Panel)
1) Antonio says that media literacy can be a care discipline and we have to be careful of “care-washing”. Education is uncaring by design so to counteract this we need to extend care to the world.
2) David says that we must be cautious with the trend to see media literacy as a solution to many problems (e.g. “if we just give them media literacy, the problem will be fixed”) because this oversimplifies issues and leads to “solutionism”. Do not reduce media literacy to Internet safety, because that is too narrow of a focus and just works to make the government happy.
3) David says teachers need to be directly involved in research, because what is going on in schools is disinformation.
So What, Now What?: There were a lot of points made during this panel. I think I’ll try to take away from it the importance of integrating care. (This relates to a later conversation held in a different panel with the question “If someone is media literate, can they also/still be racist?”.)
After this keynote, there was a social. After the social, for dinner, Karen Ambrosh, Wayne Arcus, Carol Arcus and I went to a fine dining restaurant featuring fancy tortellini, some with lemon foam, and a shared meal of filet mignon with Sao Miguel cheese.
Media Artifacts:
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June 28, 2024
9:15 a.m.
Jessie McCanse Award Presentation = Carol Arcus
Summary: Carol Arcus, from the Association for Media Literacy in Canada, won the Jessie McCanse Award for Significant Contributions to the Field of Media Literacy Education. Karen Ambrosh read part of Neil’s nomination letter and I (Diana Maliszewski) had to chance to read my testimonial before Carol gave her acceptance speech.
3 Key Points:
1) Advocacy exists in the minutiae of to-do lists.
2) Who holds power? Seek them out. Beat the bushes.
3) Hold systems accountable. For instance, our current provincial Ministry of Education has no real understanding of what “biased texts” actually means, and this is evident in the new Language Curriculum document. Even though pointing this nonsense out seems to be largely ignored, still do it.
So What, Now What?: I’ll continue to work alongside Carol, addressing those to-do lists and moving forward.
June 28, 2024
9:45 a.m.
Session 1 = Mapping Inclusive Futures: Creating and Using a Field Gide for Equity in the Media Literacy Classroom by Patrick Johnson, Paul Mihailidis, and Bobbie Forster (USA)
Summary: (taken from program) This session explores how we developed a useful media literacy teaching guide based on a nationwide study. The guide highlights the ways media literacy can be used and leveraged for the purposes of promoting equity and justice in our communities. We will focus on the guide’s creation, its usability in media literacy classrooms and practices, and its responsiveness to communities’ needs.
3 Key Points:
1) Research that finds a home in practice is something that leads to stronger, healthier societies.
2) It’s important to interrogate three assumptions about media literacy education: that it a) prioritizes individual development, b) connects and empowers, and c) supports democratic norms. Does it really? How so? After more than 30 interviews, the researchers found 3 emerging narratives, that i) there’s a lot of structural inequality when the individual is at the heart of media literacy practice, ii) practitioners are committed to equitable futures but are unclear how to get there, and iii) the connection to a stronger society is more theoretical in nature.
3) This team developed a guide that will move beyond the individual focus to lead with empathy and care and center human relational moments. They do this in their guide (http://mappingimpactfulml.org) with standpoint positionality, care as practice (care about/for/with) and imagination to fight cynicism. Set your class climate and culture abut making a creed that shows what you care about.
So What, Now What?: I hadn’t originally intended on attending this session, but Bobbie and Patrick’s energy from yesterday drew me in. I plan on visiting their website and seeing how I can adapt their plans to an elementary school level.
Media Artifacts:
June 28, 2024
11:15 a.m.
Session 2
Presentation 3A = Fake News as a Fulcrum for Media Literacy by Leslie Farmer (USA)
Summary: (taken from program) Fake news continues to impact society, and incentivizes information literacy instruction. This presentation maps my network of actions that have linked pre- and in-service teacher librarians and other librarians and educators. Building on Stanford’s civic reasoning study, I surveyed California teacher librarians about their perceptions of their school’s student’s new literacy competency and existing fake news curriculum. Based on that research, I developed a presentation and curriculum for middle and high school. In teaching pre-service teacher librarians and other educators. As a model, I created tinyurl.com/FakeNewsLibGuide, linking to hundreds of resources, including presentations and my curriculum. I also chair California School Library Association’s Curriculum Committee, and had my students update information literacy tutorials as WebQuests.
3 Key Points:
1) People make decisions based on fake news and teacher-librarians play an important role in instructing in news literacy. Teacher-librarians can teach the teachers, leading to a bigger spread of fact checking skills (like looking through, looking up [tracing sources], looking across [at other sources] and looking inside [at own beliefs]).
2) A survey undertaken showed that a very small percentage of educators felt students were very comfortable/adept with identifying ads and quite terrible at trusting photos.
3) Look at http://tinyURL.com/FakeNewsLibGuide for resources to assist with these skills.
So What, Now What?: I really appreciate Lesley’s pro-library and pro-TL perspective. I’ve seen her at many conferences in the past. This is a good reminder for me to use her website. I should turn the look through/up/across/inside as a basis for a cool bulletin board in my own Library Learning Commons!
Presentation 3B = Digital Nutritionists: Media Literacy for Primary Students in Hong Kong by Donna Chu (Hong Kong)
Summary: (taken from program) This paper discusses the rationales, design principles and implementation details of a media literacy project. In 2017, the presenter was awarded a knowledge transfer funding and set up a social enterprise to promote media and information literacy in Hong Kong. Called Mars Media Academy, the social enterprise emphasizes on experiential learning. Through games and various simulation activities, participants are encouraged to think differently about their everyday media use. In the past six years, the Mars Media Academy has served more than 3000 people, most of them were secondary school students. It has been increasingly observed that students, born and raised in the digital environment, are now used to get information, entertainment and education as a form of convergence. In addition, young people spend considerable time on social media, which facilitate sociality. In other words, the traditional understanding of “media use” has undergone dramatic changes. In the past, we spoke of “media use” in terms of print media, audio-visual media, educational media and social media. The current trend, however, suggests that media use is becoming more generalized and undifferentiated. Context collapse is more apparent and it is hardly surprising that young users are not necessarily aware of the subtle differences of different media content and forms.
3 Key Points:
1) It is interesting to be in a different position, from professor to service provider. (The name of Donna’s company, Mars Media Academy, is a pun on Mass Media.) Her challenge is to provide an educational learning experience in a short amount of time (one hour) so she hit upon using a nutrition metaphor to get her point across about helping students understand the media they “consume”.
2) Students can become bored with their digital devices but are unsure about what else to do. In her workshop, she links the food nutrition pyramid with 4 categories of media purpose of use (education / information / social / entertainment). The students look at diaries of fictional students and their media use and use coloured stickers to examine those media habits. (They are often highly critical of other kids’ media use!) Then they turn it into a personal media reflection and they make their own ideal pyramid of media use.
3) Donna says it’s interesting to see what the students place at the widest part / base of the pyramid. 1/2 say education and the other 1/2 say entertainment. She thinks it’s about giving a socially desirable answer vs being honest.
So What, Now What?: This reminds me SO much of the Creating Digital Media Nutrition Labels session that Neil Andersen and I ran at the Global Media Education Summit last year in Vancouver! It was neat to compare methodology and results. I may have to repeat this lesson in the future, while trying out some of Donna’s activities.
Presentation 3C = Interactive Media Education Model for High School Students in Croatia: Case Study of EDUbox by Igor Kanizaj and Stela Lechpammer (Croatia)
Summary: (taken from program) Students in high schools worldwide have already been recognized as a challenging audience for various types of media education programs (Dridi, 2021; Chen & Chuang, 2020). Their motivation and engagement are of great importance for the implementation of media education programs and activities. After the times of the pandemic, we have witnessed that new pedagogies and skills have had a transformative effect on many users (Bazalgette, 2023). This has also sparked discussions on the quality of teaching and the level of interactivity of the participants. Quality teaching of media literacy pedagogy, broadly speaking, is to be evaluated, in part, based on the extent to which teachers can develop activities that enhance motivation and these divergent cognitive abilities (Westbrook, 2011). Media literacy pedagogy should enable us to implement new methods of teaching for high school students on different societal topics, even though these topics are sometimes not easily relatable.
3 Key Points:
1) In Croatia, the EDUbox project had four categories: politics, social networks, culture, and persuasion/propaganda.
2) Students are given a role, like Minister of Health, Climate, Economics or Defense. They get a budget and advocate for their department. Along with role play, there are activities and resources.
3) Students were very engaged.
So What, Now What?: I should look into EDUbox.
Presentation 3D = Media Literacy Experience Working with Journalists and Academics from 2017 -2023 by Isabel Nery, Miguel Crespo and Vitor Tome (Portugal)
Summary: (taken from program) With the support of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education, collaborating with the Portuguese Journalist’s Union and the Journalism and Media Literacy Association (ALPMJ), we’ve trained 160 journalists and other media professionals nationwide and did 19 in service teacher training courses (5 in 2019, 10 in 2020, 4 in 2022). This meant training more than 300 teachers nationwide, from kindergarten to Secondary School, and more than 100 school projects developed since 2019 (from podcasts to Instagram pages, community radio stations, YouTube channels, TikTok video series, tackling disinformation, school newspapers and debate), involving 5000 students, besides teachers, parents, school boards and community members. Since 2017 we went from a continental experience to the Portuguese islands; from Portugal to Europe (IBERIFIER); from Europe to Africa and America; from Basic Schools to Universities; from children to senior publics; from the poorest to the most socially privileged. With this experience, we have learned that Media Literacy has indeed the power to: Help Create Community, contribute to better Journalism, Strengthen Democratic Values, Be Local and Global at the same time, Be Longitudinal in terms of age, gender and social condition. In short, Empower People.
3 Key Points:
1) The journalism union agreed that media literacy is important. They thought that by training teachers, they should achieve a wider reach.
2) There are many that are vulnerable, such as the elderly, youth, and poor, but it’s vital to talk with them first so it’s not something that’s just done to them. Their stories are important. They shared an example of a woman who wrote letters to soldiers during the colony wars and showed how her narrative was important to media literacy and history.
3) Partners interviewed each other and the participants learned how difficult is it to not interrupt or to manage time.
So What, Now What?: This was just nice to hear. Lunch on the terrace afterwards was lovely.
June 28, 2024
1:30 p.m.
Session 3
Presentation 2A = Feature Film for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL): A Reflection on Practice by Estefanila Sanchez Aunon (Spain)
Summary: (taken from program) Language learners usually find cinema-based lessons stimulating as films portray authentic speech and represent pertinent social matters they can experience in their everyday life. Furthermore, working on films helps English learners to enhance their language proficiency. They may practice the four language skills; learn new English grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatics; and discover inter/cultural aspects. Despite being such a powerful resource, it seems that English instructors are still rather reluctant to use film in class as they lack the required pedagogical knowledge. In this presentation, a film-based didactic proposal based on the blockbuster Avatar (2009) is presented and analyzed. It was put into practice in two high school English classes, and qualitative data were gathered through a reflective journal. The author will analyze her experience in the classroom, detailing the benefits of the approach, and also examining the pedagogical challenges that arose during the intervention.
3 Key Points:
1) Since the 1970s, films have been easier to access in the classroom than ever before and have been proven to help with reading, writing, listening and speaking.
2) Research shows that film use in classrooms is uncommon and often done “incorrectly” (i.e. showing the whole film in a single sitting and the students as passive consumers).
3) The research used scenes from Avatar in 2-5 minute chunks, as part of 11 lessons in 3 stages, to focus on topics in the curriculum as well as media points on triggering emotional reactions, place-based learning, spirituality and society, beliefs on nature, etc. Students liked it but complained because this technique was contrary to their usual viewing habits – they wanted to watch the whole movie, not just clips!
So What, Now What?: I asked a question about copyright permissions and Estefanila said she did not concern herself with viewing rights as part of this project. That would impact how I’d be able to experiment with this in my own school.
Media Artifacts:
Presentation 2C = Media and Information Literacy Teaching Practice: Classroom Effects and Pedagogical Tips by Clement So (Hong Kong)
Summary: (taken from program) An educational project was carried out between 2021 to 2023 in Hong Kong to develop a Learning and Teaching Package on Media and Information Literacy (MIL), actual teaching sessions in selected secondary schools, evaluation of the educational effectiveness, as well as teachers’ sharing of how to teach MIL in the classroom. From the online questionnaires we are able to construct several MIL-related concepts, namely “MIL interest”, “MIL ability”, “MIL knowledge” and “MIL class evaluation” in addition to the concepts of “fake news” and “media awareness”. The survey results show that MIL interest, MIL ability and media awareness are positively correlated. They are also related to the view of fake news and social media. Some teachers were invited to share their MIL classroom teaching experiences in four aspects, namely (1) overall MIL framework, (2) characteristics of MIL teaching, (3) teaching strategies, and (4) teaching tactics and tips.
3 Key Points:
1) Teachers were more receptive than students in learning about media literacy, based on this study. Women were better at spotting fake news and younger students believed themselves to have more media and information literacy knowledge than they actually possessed. Higher banding (scoring) schools often performed better.
2) Clement mentioned a list of several characteristics of effective techniques: they were experiential, focused on student autonomy, used a open or relaxed format of teaching, and included values like empathy and responsibility.
3) It is important to persuade with emotion, then convince with reason.
So What, Now What?: I asked about resources that my Mandarin and Cantonese speaking students at my school could use, and Alice sent them already!
Presentation 2E = Reading Literacy: Critical Thinking as a Tool Against the Dissemination of Disinformation by Daniela Pellossi (Brazil)
Summary: (taken from program) This presentation explores a teacher education course held in a public school in São Paulo, Brazil, as part of a doctoral research in Portuguese language, in the field of reading literacy. The course was focused on the importance of reading not merely for comprehension but with a view to analyzing, identifying, comparing, contrasting and evaluating the variety of the pieces of information that we are all exposed to on a daily basis. The goal of this paper is to examine the discussions and the activities performed throughout the course, which equipped educators with the necessary tools and strategies to empower themselves and their students to navigate this complex information landscape with discernment. We propose to show that, in order to achieve a critical reading level, it is utmost to come up with debates on reading strategies, inquiring and social accountability. Educators recognized that reading has become more superficial given the fact that, although nowadays students read more in amount of information, they read less in depth, which goes in the same direction of the studies of Wolf (2019).
3 Key Points:
1) Daniela’s work is influenced by David Buckingham.
2) Accounting to Walsh, it’s vital to “find the cracks” and see where educators can integrate media literacy into their schedules.
3) Daniela used ad campaigns to examine explicit and implicit messages.
So What, Now What?: No next steps to take with this one.
Media Artifacts:
June 28, 2024
3:00 p.m.
Session 4
Presentation 2A = Ecomedia Literacy in a High School Sustainability Class: Year 1 Challenges and Success by Joanna Marshall (USA)
Summary: (taken from program) How did a class on sustainability and media literacy class come to be at a suburban high school? This practitioner will discuss how the course was designed with a focus on ecomedia literacy, climate justice and centering the voices of indigenous people. You will receive a first-hand account of how teachers are tasked with navigating constraints placed upon them by district initiatives while promoting a critical digital literacy component to the course. Information will be provided that describes the constraints aligning the course to district requirements of a career pathway. Further, details will be shared how using Antonio López’s resources from the Ecomedia Literacy website were adapted and applied in the classroom.
3 Key Points:
1) Teaching is highly contextual and relational. Joanna described her context (US / Illinois / class of 12 students of 2/3 boys, 1 ASD, 1 ELL, etc.) and what’s “on her plate” (Jewish Affinity Space, chemistry teacher, Illinois Media Literacy Council and 176 days of no repeated outfits!)
2) There is a gulf between policy and implementation. New rules are brought in with no money for professional learning, so we need research on factors that inhibit and promote the application of these new guidelines.
3) The resources she used to teach this course included things like Antonio Lopez’s site, Environmental Racism, The Story of Stuff, Common Sense Media, and Indigenous perspectives. A great quote from her students during this process (e.g. when they looked at their social media feeds to see if they followed any environmentalists): “Plants don’t have a social media presence”.
4) There is a place for pop culture in the classroom – it is a site of joy and rigor.
So What, Now What?: I love Joanna Marshall as a person and as a presenter. There are so many parts of this I want to share with the Grade 7 and Grade 8 teachers at my school, who are keen environmentalists. I could have written at least another paragraph on all the things I got out of Joanna’s talk. (By the way, if you look at the first photo here, the member of the audience is Antonio Lopez, who inspired a lot of Joanna’s work for this presentation. That’s a tribute to the content of her session!)
Panel = The Use of AI with Youth: Comparison of Cases from Portugal, Greece, and the U.S. by Yonty Friesem, Estrella Luna-Munoz and Irene Andriopoulou (USA, Portugal, Greece)
Summary: (taken from program) With the rise of generative AI, many educators fear academic dishonesty, misinformation, and copyright infringement. This panel will offer participants a glance at how various educational settings address teaching about degenerative AI and its ethical concerns. The panelists in this session will present case studies from Portugal, Greece, and the United States. Looking at similar assignments with different audiences and goals will allow us to examine the similarities and differences in using media literacy education to prepare our students and educators for a world of uncertainty with manufactured realities used as propaganda. By the end of the session, participants will be able to apply the multiple approaches to their particular educational setting to introduce the ethical use of generative AI to their students.
3 Key Points:
1) Most of the students noted that the biographies generated by AI were very similar, although only a few students reflected on the designer bias and other problems (such as that in the generated biographies of Malala Yousafzai, they didn’t mention that she was shot or that she moved to the USA).
2) Some of the students did not even want to write their own answers to the process of the AI searches (for example, to the question “what skills do you think you need to analyze AI critically?”, some of the responses were along the lines of “other people needs skills, but not me”!)
3) Language was a huge issue as part of this study; students got better results when the LLM command used was in English instead of Greek.
4) “AI is both a sword and a shield”.
So What, Now What?: I really liked seeing the cross-country collaboration, and some of their prompts reminded me of versions of things I used with my primary division students in exploring AI! I took a lot of photos of their slides because I want to try some of these “AI Joint Assignments”, maybe with Tracey Donaldson from Woburn Jr PS and do a TDSB mini-version of this study.
June 28, 2024
4:30 p.m.
Session 5
Presentation 4A = Designing in Media Literacy by Ines Leroyer (UK)
Summary: (taken from program) Whether you believe generative AI and immersive technologies have the potential to change the world for good, or that it poses more risks than benefits, such technological changes are likely to have a significant impact on the future of our society as a whole. This is certainly true for the communications industries and for the media literacy sector. Media literacy is about peoples’ knowledge, understanding and skills. Online services and platforms that exist now and will emerge in the future, will by definition be uniquely placed to improve users’ media literacy in the moment. This can only happen if services prioritise users’ media literacy and this is why Ofcom published Best Practice Principles for Media Literacy by Design. This session will discuss how media literacy can be part of ongoing and future technological changes and how a multi- stakeholder approach that include industry actors can help ‘design in’ media literacy.
So What, Now What?: I didn’t take any notes for these sessions because I was busy timing the talks so that we’d have a fair, equal amount of time to present.
Presentation 4B = Restoring Civic Health in a Culture of Distance by Paul Mihailidis (USA)
Summary: (taken from program) Today we live in a culture of distance. In our homes, in our schools, in our places of work, and in our public spaces, we’ve inserted technologies to cultivate distance between us and those people, places and ideas around us. We’ve normalized distance as a natural outcome of our mediated lifestyles. Our technologies connect us to information, to ideas, and to people, albeit outside of our immediate proximity and removed from our physical communities. The reliance on mediated environments impacts our ability to be present with others, not necessarily in communication, but in relation. The Covid-19 Pandemic only exacerbated the effects of distance in daily life. Young people suffered learning loss and isolation exacerbated by the pandemic. Vulnerable populations, especially those in isolated areas, suffered from removal from the types of human contact necessary for their livelihood. This talk will explore the problem of distance in our digital lives and focus on how we can move to restore civic health through prioritizing restorative principles of proximity, care and agency. This talk will explore how immersive technologies continue to normalize distance in our lives – from AI and its manipulative capacity to mixed realities and their ability to synthesize authentic fabrication – and focus specifically on their civic implications.
So What, Now What?: I didn’t take any notes for these sessions because I was busy timing the talks so that we’d have a fair, equal amount of time to present.
Presentation 4C = Teaching Teachers and Tots the Ins and Outs of Algorithms and AI by Diana Maliszewski (Canada)
Summary: (taken from program) Media literacy education should address the proliferation of Large Language Models (often referred to as Artificial Intelligence) in all aspects of teaching and learning. This presentation will examine the process at both ends of the spectrum – from reviewing an elementary teacher’s inquiry with her primary division students to better understand how algorithms function, to that same teacher’s learning journey as a student herself in the second stage of the Media Qualification course for educators offered by the Association for Media Literacy (AML) and its focus on AI.
3 Key Points:
1) Students make astute observations when using AI, but they just do it in kid language. Grade 1s knew Akinator wasn’t magic in 2023 and learned the definition for an algorithm. Kindergarteners noted in 2024 the flaws in the AI drawing of their TL but also considered the input.
2) Teachers tend to silo their learning, unlike toddlers. The Additional Qualification course by AML helps to de-silo with lots of personalization.
3) It’s helpful to allow all learners to explore the AI / LLM tools in a safe environment.
So What, Now What?: This was my second talk. 21 people were in the audience. The group enjoyed getting copies of the 1989 book “Media Works” as prizes for asking questions (of any of the panelists) at the end. My fellow panelists said that this was the smoothest operated presentation of the conference because we all respected the time slots and shared the question period well. I had some very nice compliments afterwards, from people who said they would have liked to be a student in my class because of the positive energy.
Presentation 4D = From Bylines to Bytes: Algorithmic Perceptiosna dpractices in Portuguese Journalism as a Foundation for Enhancing Informed Algorithmic Literacy by Ana Pinto-Martinho (Portugal)
Summary: (taken from program) The pervasive influence of algorithms on communication processes has become a focal point in contemporary research. It encompasses research into the evolving dynamics within journalistic organizations, the transformative role of new technologies in shaping the public-media relationship in the journalistic sphere, and the intricate landscape of algorithmic gatekeeping
(Napoli, 2019; Manninen et al., 2022). Despite extensive explorations surrounding algorithmic literacy, a noticeable gap remains in understanding it, especially among journalists (Swart, 2021). This work, grounded in a mixed-methodology approach, addresses this gap by examining how journalists can more effectively navigate and engage with the fast-evolving influence of algorithms in the media landscape. It aims to discuss actionable algorithmic literacy insights that can inform educational initiatives, training programs, and industry practices. In doing so, we address immediate concerns in the journalistic community, and contribute to the broader discussions on media literacy, technology integration, and responsible use of algorithms.
So What, Now What?: I didn’t take any notes for these sessions because I was busy timing the talks so that we’d have a fair, equal amount of time to present.
All in all, it was a fantastic conference, topped off at the end by a lovely dinner by the sea with Carol Arcus and a dozen and a half other conference attendees, and concluded with strong drinks, excellent company and enjoyable conversation.
