September 20, 2023 – Our online environments present unique challenges: extremism, online hate and the spread of misinformation and AI-generated deepfakes, just to name a few. But studies have shown that it takes just 10 percent of the people in a community to set its values. Spreading positive content can have a real impact.
On November 5, 2009, MNet Media Education Specialist Matthew Johnson participated in the Association of Canadian Studies' conference Knowing Ourselves: The Challenge of Teaching History of Canadian Official Minority Language Communities, speaking on the topic Media, Diversity and Our History. What follows is an expanded version of his remarks.
Outcome:
Investigate the importance of personal safety to health and well-being.
Indicators:
(a) Identify potential risks to personal health and security as a result of overreliance on personal devices (e.g., hearing loss due to overuse of audio devices, injury to self and others due to distracted driving).
This outcome chart contains media-related learning outcomes from the Ontario Grade 5 Health and Physical Education 1-8 curriculum with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
Rating systems can be helpful when trying to choose appropriate movies, but with many different systems in use in Canada, they can also be very confusing. To help make sense of the differences, here's an overview of all the systems currently in use.
That’s why it’s important to talk to kids about casual prejudice which is the use of words or phrases that are negative towards a particular group - and help them learn how to push back in situations where they’re not sure if the person meant to be hurtful.
Here are some tips on how to help your kids respond to casual prejudice online:
The expectations in the compulsory courses of the English curriculum are organized in four strands, or broad areas of learning: Oral Communication, Reading and Literature Studies, Writing, and Media Studies. The program in all grades is designed to develop a range of essential skills in these four interrelated areas, built on a solid foundation of knowledge of the conventions of standard English and incorporating the use of analytical, critical, and metacognitive thinking skills.
This chart contains media-related learning outcomes from Ontario, Curriculum for History CHM4E: Adventures in World History, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site.
One of the biggest changes in our understanding of bullying has been an increased awareness of the important role witnesses play in any bullying situation. This has been partially because of cyberbullying, which makes it possible for witnesses to be invisible, to join in anonymously, to revictimize a target by forwarding bullying material – or to intervene, to offer support to the target and to bear witness to what they have seen. Just as we're coming to realize how important witnesses to bullying are, though, we need to be careful to recognize how complex their role is.
Unlike static images, which rely solely on composition and fixed visual elements, video media also direct the viewer's attention through rules of notice involve motion, editing and sound.