Making Your School a Commercial-free Zone
Schools are supposed to be public spaces, but more and more advertisers are using them to target youth. Corporations know just how much time kids spend at school, whether in class, in after-school activities or just hanging out with their friends, and they don’t want to pass up a chance to reach them there. A school setting delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the education system.
Put Your Best Face Forward
In this lesson, students start by discussing the phenomenon of “selfies” and serve as experts in advising the teacher on the standards by which the “best” selfies are judged. They then discuss a number of statements taken from interviews with youth that highlight issues of self-representation, body image and gender standards, and learn about “photoshopping” images. Finally, students apply what they have learned by modifying an image that is at least 50 years old to meet “selfie” standards.
Buy Nothing Day
In this lesson Buy Nothing Day is used as a jumping-off point to look at the role of consumerism in our lives and culture.
Defeating Distraction
Level: Grades 9-12
Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts
This lesson is part of USE, UNDERSTAND & ENGAGE: A Digital Media Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools.
How to Train Your Algorithm
Level: Grades 9-12
Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts
What happens when students investigate their own digital lives?
When adults talk about young people and screens, we often talk about them rather than with them.
So when I had the chance to speak with four students from a Grade 5/6 class at Glenmore Elementary School in Kelowna, BC, I wanted to hear what they had to say.