Blog Post
We are simply thrilled to have our friends at Narragansett Elementary School join us as a partner school this year. Under leadership from Principal Gail Dandurand, teachers Brien Jennings, Susan Sabella and others from this K-4 school are engaged in a reading and discussion book club using our new book, Discovering Media Literacy: Teaching Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School. Teachers recently notated the "big ideas" that resulted from their discussion and reading.
- Through active engagement
- High levels of talking
- Teachers differentially motivated
- Enhancing self esteem
- Asking questions about what they watch
- Moving from ignorance to awareness
- Tap creative energy
- More unpredictable conversations
- Why and how questions
- Represent reality
We are pretty impressed with the approach teachers are using to help children develop inference making, comparison-contrast, and reading and writing skills. There's tremendous power in using tools to develop the connections between thinking, talking and writing. Take a look at the VIDEO made by these teachers to illustrate the use of the iPad tool, Explain Everything. We're also pretty impressed with their careful mapping of digital and media literacy into Common Core Anchor Standards 2, 7 and 8.
Speaking and Listening Anchor Standard 2 Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
Reading Anchor Standard 7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
Writing Anchor Standard 8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate information while avoiding plagiarism.