Celebrities and World Issues - Lesson
In this four-day unit, students will examine the role of popular culture celebrities in creating awareness of world issues.
In this four-day unit, students will examine the role of popular culture celebrities in creating awareness of world issues.
In this lesson, students consider the role of technology and media in their lives and then spend a week either tracking or limiting their media use. They then share their experiences and discuss how the ways that digital media tools are made may cause us to use them differently (or simply more often). Finally, students draw on those insights to create a mindful media use plan. In an optional extension activity, they interview other students for a video exploring their experiences and reflections over the course of the project.
After the controversy surrounding last year's proposed copyright bill C-61, which eventually died on the order table when Parliament was prorogued, the Federal government has decided to hold consultations across Canada before introducing a new version of the bill. While only time will tell how responsive the government will be to the public's submissions, the series of town halls and round tables is definitely a good start in making the process transparent and taking the views of a wide variety of Canadians into account. Below is an expanded version of MNet's submission to the Round Table held in Gatineau, Quebec on July 29th 2009.
In this lesson, students are introduced to Earth Day and the theme of “Green Cities”. After listening to a short presentation on the concept of a “green city” and elements that constitute a green city (e.g. renewable energy sources such as solar panels, more energy-efficient buildings, recycling programs, cleaner air and water) students participate in an activity where they count the number of parks on a map of their city or neighbourhood. Maps are then analyzed as a medium as students discuss how they are created, things they can and can’t show, and their effectiveness at communicating environmental information.
This lesson series contains discussion topics and extension activities for teachers to integrate the TVOKids Original series Wacky Media Songs. This lesson focuses on enabling students to make media and use existing content for their own purposes.
For more than twenty-five years, Canadian teachers have been at the forefront of getting students online and preparing them to use the Internet in safe, wise and responsible ways. Thanks to the SchoolNet program in the 1990s, many young Canadians had their first experiences with networked technologies in their classrooms and school libraries. However, MediaSmarts' recent Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III study shows that even now, our so-called "digital natives" still need guidance from their teachers.
I have been blogging for over 14 years, freelance writing for almost as long, and on social media for the same amount of time. It’s become my normal to take photos for sharing later (I rarely share ‘in the moment’) or check the news on a social media website before traditional news outlets online. I actively use my phone to stay connected with family and friends, for my job, and as a camera.
In this lesson, students examine different types of remixes – from works created by editing a single text to ones that draw inspiration from existing texts – in order to develop a definition of “remix.” They learn about the legal considerations in making remixes under the Copyright Act, consider ethical issues around remixing, and develop a code of best practices for remixing. Students will also consider the differences between remixes that are primarily creative versus those that are done for purposes of criticism, and create their own critical remix.