MMC+week+three

Mighty Media Crew's Week Three...

Current event highlights:

On Monday, we read an article from the Philadelphia Daily News about Ziainey Stokes, an 11-year-old girl who had been bullied at the catholic school that she attended in West Philadelphia. Exhausted by nothing really being done to help victims of bullying, the young girl wrote President Obama for some assistance and she actually got a response. The article, seen below, led to a very enlightening discussion in our classroom. In fact, one of the “Mighty Media Crew” was so moved by Ziainey's story, and because he had been a former bullying victim himself, he decided to use his own “powerful voice” in a You-Tube video where he also asked President Obama to help stop bullying. Below you will find Caleb’s video: media type="youtube" key="msskYN5dUc8" height="229" width="288" The volume is very low so you may have to adjust the volume on your computer to hear it properly)

On Wednesday, the "Mighty Media Crew" and Ms. Laranko's Class went on a field trip to WHYY TV where a former PVK instructor, Mr. Henry, served as our tour guide throughout the station. The students were also able to meet a group of young filmmakers as they put the final touches on the projects they have been working on all summer. Check out some of our pictures:

On Thursday, I introduced a game called, "Remove the Pedestal", to the students. The crew likened the game to Jeopardy but I disagree! LOL. Basically, they had to match facts about their favorite celebrities that had been taken from a credible online source to the picture of the celebrity that the information was about. It was my attempt at proving to the students that celebrities are human beings just like they are and do not need to be put on pedestals. Don't forget to ask the students about the game! I will try to get some footage if we have time to play in week four.

On Friday, we attempted to test out the late, Marshall McLuhan's, "The Medium is the Message" theory, but we ran out of time before we could complete the lesson. However, during the early part of the day, the students learned how to apply everything they have been learning this summer to their everyday media life and to their homework. For example, we started by applying the same process used to find the main ideas in our current events articles to a song. The students were given a copy of the lyrics and asked to follow along as the song played. Before we watched the video, the students had to identify the author, the purpose of the story in the song, and the intended audience--they then had to try to predict what the storyline would be in the video. We then had a brief discussion about who's point of view is being heard in songs. The students provided some of their best responses after we analyzed the song, "I Am Not My Hair, by India Arie. I will post some video responses this week!