How can media literacy education address genuine community needs? This workshop uses a design thinking model where small groups work to develop a program or service using media literacy education practices to address a specific problem in the community. The program builds on the Media Literacy Education Program Quality Criteria developed by Damiano Felini. Participants first determine the most important features of a quality media literacy program before working collaboratively and under deadline pressure to create a plan of action for implementing media literacy in their community.
Exploring Digital Empathy & Civic Media
This workshop explores the affordances and challenges of digital media to connect with others and drive social change. Participants will learn and apply the five principles of civic media and then choose their platform or medium, moving through the stages of production and learning various techniques to be socially, emotionally and cognitively more connected to each other and their community. This workshop can be offered in-person, fully online or hybrid.
Teaching Propaganda and the Persuasive Genres
Why are propaganda and the persuasive genres not included in all subject areas from K-12 and college? What instructional strategies are most effective in teaching about persuasion in activism and entertainment, political campaign messages, influencers and other new forms of online advertising? What skills do learners need in a world of marketing and algorithmic personalization? How should manipulative and dangerous propaganda be handled in the classroom? In this workshop, participants analyze and create propaganda to discover how to explore persuasive genres with students of all ages.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® for Nonviolent Communication
How can LEGO® enable and promote Nonviolent Communication? Participants learn about the four elements of Nonviolent Communication and incorporate them into play strategies and teamwork.
Truth, Lies and Accuracy in the Digital Age
This hands-on workshop is designed to develop better skills in finding accurate information and verifying quality. Learn strategies that help students analyze and evaluate media messages from both academic and non-academic sources online. Gain knowledge of a variety of digital tools that help people verify content. Deepen your own ability to search, analyze, consolidate and communicate data from online sources.
Youth Media & Community Engagement
This production-based workshop engages children, youth, instructors or community members who learn to produce influential media to inspire civic engagement. As participants learn instructional strategies that empower students as media creators, they deepen their understanding of the intersecting power of both personal agency and community development.
Social & Emotional Learning: Kids and Media
This hands-on workshop explores topics including media addiction, cyberbullying, internet safety, and misinformation through engaging and playful activities based on 20 years of research at the Media Education Lab. Students identify and reflect on their love and hate of popular culture and then work collaboratively to create a simple public service announcement (PSA) using a media platform of their choice designed to help others address social and emotional wellbeing with digital media.
Creating a Trauma-informed Classroom
We offer an equity-based, trauma-informed and healing-centered strategies to address social and emotional challenges within the classroom. Participants identify their own intersectionality then move towards needs assessment of their unique settings in a professional development that fosters a courageous environment that inspires and motivates action. This PD is based on Yonty's two-year ethnographic research on professional development in their dissertation: On Becoming a Digital Literacy Leader (2015).