Healthy Food Web

In this lesson, students consider the role of snack foods in a healthy diet. The teacher then guides them on a tour of popular sites aimed at children, where the class identifies and classifies the advertising encountered there and looks at how the food products being advertised fit – or don’t fit – in the food groups found in the Canada Food Guide. Students then play the game Co-Co’s AdverSmarts to understand some of the techniques used by online food marketers and then create their own mock website promoting a healthy diet.

Digital Citizenship, Digital Health, Food Marketing, Internet & Mobile, Marketing & Consumerism, Online Marketing

Avatars and body image

In this lesson students are introduced to the concept of "avatars" and share their experiences creating and playing avatars in video games and virtual worlds. They then create avatars using a program that is intentionally limited in terms of available body types and gender markers, first creating an avatar of their own gender and then of the opposite gender, and then discuss the program and relate it to representations of gender and body image in games and virtual worlds and in other media. Students then create avatars using a much more flexible version of the program and compare that experience to the more limited version. Finally, students use the more versatile program to create avatars that represent how they see themselves and how they would like others to see them online and reflect on the choices that went into creating them.

Body Image, Digital Citizenship, Digital Health, Gender Representation, Internet & Mobile, Stereotyping, Video Games

Outcome Chart - Prince Edward Island - Communication and Information Technology Grade 3

In the working guide Journey On: Working Toward Communication and Information Technology Literacy, media-related outcomes are integrated throughout the CIT curriculum.

Comic Book Characters

In this lesson, students learn how shapes are used in character design in comics and animation and look at how male and female characters are depicted in comic books. Using a Comic Book Analysis sheet, students will record the attributes of male and female comic book characters. As a class, students will record common patterns and discuss what messages about men and women are communicated. Students then design a comic book character that uses shapes to communicate what they think a real hero is.

Comics, Gender Representation, Stereotyping

The Front Page

This lesson begins by helping students to identify and understand the different aspects of news outlets. Using these skills, students will then collect and identify news stories and categorize them according to subject matter.

Diversity in Media, Journalism & News

Video Game Verbs

In this lesson, students learn that video games are unlike other media because they are interactive, allowing players to do things and make choices. They then explore the idea of affordances and defaults by considering the “video game verbs” that different games allow you to do. They consider the commercial, technical, and genre reasons why some verbs are more often possible than others and then create a simple design for a video game in which players are able to do a wider variety of things.

Video Games

Once Upon a Time

In this lesson, students become aware of the idea of stereotyping and the role that stereotypes play in the stories and movies that they enjoy.

Stereotyping

Wacky Media Songs: Privacy and Security

This lesson series contains discussion topics and extension activities for teachers to integrate the TVOKids Original series Wacky Media Songs. This lesson focuses on essential skills for managing students’ privacy, reputation and security online such as making good decisions about sharing their own content, understanding data collection techniques, protecting themselves from malware and other software threats, and being aware of their digital footprint.

Cyber Security, Internet & Mobile, Online Ethics, Privacy

Wacky Media Songs: Reading Media

This lesson series contains discussion topics and extension activities for teachers to integrate the TVOKids Original series Wacky Media Songs. This lesson focuses on how media are made, how different media and genres tell stories and communicate meaning, and the affordances and defaults of different networked media.

Food Marketing, Internet & Mobile, Marketing & Consumerism, Media Literacy 101, Movies, Music, Television

Outcome Chart - Alberta - Health and Life Skills Kindergarten

This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Alberta Health and Life Skills Kindergarten curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.