Post for June 28th - Response to the Use of Teaching Agents

The two articles we read for this week were very interesting, but I have issue with the idea of implementing the types of teaching agents they discuss. These articles discuss the use of avatars as a way for students to communicate with regarding issues on a specific assignment or topic. These avatars are a form of artificial intelligence that hold a certain expertise on a select topic. The use of these agents seems like a very useful tool, although I cannot imagine the amount of time a dedication it takes to set up such a tool.

Part of the purpose of these avatars is for students to "learn with technology" (Doering, 2008). Being interactive in learning is very important, and I see how being able to learn with a technology can be beneficial. Also these avatars provide students with instant access at any hour of the day so students don't have put their work on hold until they hear back from someone. In my own experiences with technology, it can be very frustrating to hit a snag in a project, and have to wait to hear back about the issue in order to continue. On the other hand, in my experience, I always remember how to do something better when I have had to search and experiment with how to do it myself. This is one thing I feel these education agents lack. I have no experience with using these agents (and having experience with them may change my perception), but I don't see myself utilizing this technology.

As I said above, I feel seeking out how to fix any issues you have in a project or learning process will have a much more lasting impression on the student than will immediately asking the educational agent a question and receiving the answer. Seeking out the answer can be very time consuming, but it teaches the student to be very resourceful. It also seems that these agents, particularly the one used for eFolio, are similar to the "help" link that appears on almost all interactive websites. It seems clicking the "help" link on the eFolio site could have been just as informative, if not more informative, than the agent. Clicking on the link requires a little more searching around and doesn't have the friendly humanistic demeanor of the agent, but it is a way to get the same information.

Maybe I don't quite understand the true purpose of the teaching agent, or maybe it's not clear the full capabilities of this technology, but it appears that what the agents do is already available to students. I can understand having an agent that is an "expert" in a certain topic, but there are plenty of experts in the online world - this one can simply be directly controlled. I feel that helping students to learn how to be resourceful (and, of course, critical of their sources of information) will ultimately benefit the students more. It seems there may be a rising need for this type of technology, but I will have to be further convinced.

Sources

Doering, A. et al. (2008). "Conversational Agents and Their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction". Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 19(2), 251-270.

Veletsianos, G. et al (2008). "When sex, drugs, and violence enter the classroom:
Conversations between adolescents and a female pedagogical agent". Interacting with Computers. 20(3). 292-301.

Post for June 28th - Gizmoz Avatar

Post for June 25th - Two Media Literacy Assignments

Activity #1: Gender Typing in News Broadcasts

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment assignment is for students to think critically about news broadcasts on television. More specifically, students will look at how television typifies gender by looking at co-ed news broadcast teams.

Procedures:

• Students will be assigned to watch a local news broadcast that features both a male and female newscaster. During the viewing, students are to keep a log on which stories are told by the male and female newscaster. Students are also to make note whether or not the male or female newscaster received the same amount of air time and equal amount of stories. Also, students should note what the "big stories" were and who told those stories.
• After viewing the broadcast, students are to write a summary of their findings. In the summary students are to discuss the following: What types of stories did the female newscaster tell? Male? Who told the most important stories? Who claimed the most airtime? Or was airtime equal?
• During the next class, students would talk in small groups about what they found. Then as a whole class, students would discuss whether or not women are gender typed in the news: Do women tend to tell more sentimental stories? Do the men tell the more important news?
• After this discussion, the class would view a few clips of the character Robin from the TV show "How I Met Your Mother," to look at the types of news segments she's assigned to discuss and the only types of news jobs she can find. (This will require some organization and preparation from the teacher)
• After viewing the clips, students would reflect in writing on whether the scenarios parodied on the TV show hold any truth to their news viewings.

***Thanks Anna for the inspiration to create this activity!***

Activity #2: Advertising Persuasion

Purpose: The purpose of this activity is for students to demonstrate their understanding of how advertisements persuade consumers to buy their products. This activity would likely come at the end of a unit on media literacy as it assumes the student knows and understands how the consumers are influenced to buy.

A great resource for helping students to understand advertising persuasion is to watch the video "The Persuaders" from the Frontline series on PBS. This show touches on many aspects of the influence of the media, and would be a great companion to this activity.

Procedures:

• With an understanding of media influences students will utilize the techniques advertisers use today in order to make a print ad for "school."
• To help students better prepare for this assignment, students will view an assortment of billboards, posters, TV commercials, radio commercials, and internet advertisements. At this point in the unit, these forms of advertisements will be familiar to students.
  
• After viewing each ad, students will discuss the following: What is the advertisement trying to sell? How is it trying to sell it? What persuasive strategies is it using? What is the motive behind the advertisement?
  
• After viewing all of the selected ads, students will discuss the following: How are these ads similar/different? Which ones are effective? Which ones are not effective? Which ones are most memorable? Why?
• Next, students will work in small groups to make a print ad persuading people to consume education (to go to school, stay in school, etc). They will use the same techniques advertisers use to make profit, in order to "sell school." Such persuasive strategies include humor, fear, sex appeal, logical arguments, emotional arguments, celebrity sponsorship, and using popular music. Each group will choose a different strategy to focus on.
  
• After completion of the ads, students will present them to the class, where the class will answer the same questions they asked about advertisements above.
  

This activity may prove difficult for students as they are advertising and selling something that typically is not sold, but I feel it can be a very powerful activity for students. Students will get to experience advertisement from the seller's point of view. I also envision these ads being placed around the school for all to see.


Possible Modifications: Make an advertisement for a novel read in class, or do the above in a TV, radio, or online advertisement.

Post for June 21st - Teaching News vs Fake News

Rationale for teaching the below assignments:

Below you will find two activities/lessons that a geared towards teaching students about parody. To do so, these activities use a familiar source of information, and a commonly parodied medium, the news. The below assignments are very useful in that they will help students develop skills they need to be critical about where their news sources are coming from. Students will look at the practices of news broadcasts, how they select stories, and how they position a viewer. Doing these things are skills necessary for students to think critically. Using a familiar medium, such as the news, provides a good base to use these skills.

As said in "When Fake Is More Real: Of Fools, Parody, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" by Kothe (2007), "fake news" encourages its viewers to be critical of their news sources as they make fun of the news practices, relay of information, and selection of information to share. Not only does "fake news" criticize news sources, and encourage its viewers to be critical, but it also informs the viewer of actual news stories. In a world where we are continually bombarded by media messages, it is increasingly important to teach students the skills necessary to sift through the information they receive, find what's valuable, and most importantly, discover what is reliable. To be smart consumers, we need the skills to be critical of the information we receive - the below activities will help students to be critical.

Kothe, A. "When fake is more real: of fools parody, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart". The Journal of American Popular Culture. 6.2 (2007). www.americanpopularculture.com.

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When I was thinking about possible assignments for this post, I came up with a couple of activities that would complement each other. The possible assignments posted below would ideally be done in succession.

Assignment #1

The purpose of this activity is for students to gain an understanding of how "fake news" such as "The Onion", relates to and parodies real news sources.

This activity may take more than one class period depending on class length and the resources available at the school.

The day before, students would each be given a news article from "The Onion" to read as homework. As they read, students are to take notes on things they notice about the stories and the reporting of the news.

During the next class, students would go online to try and find a news article that talks about the same or similar issue as their first article. Students would then read the found article and make comparisons between the two news articles. While doing so students will think about the following:

• What is different between the two articles?
• Which source seems to be the most reliable? Why?
  
• What aspect of the story does each article focus on?
  
• What does each article make you think as a reader?

After making this comparison, students would share their findings in small groups and then choose someone from the group to share with the whole class. After all groups have shared, the class would talk about the idea of parody, and how the articles from "The Onion" are parodies. The teacher would touch on the specific things the students found in their research to make key elements of parody more clear. After defining parody, the class would then look at how "The Onion" as a whole mimics and parodies newspapers and news articles.

Assignment #2

The purpose of this activity is for students to further explore parody by creating their own parodies.

This activity again may take more than one class period depending on class length and the resources available at the school.

The teacher would prepare a current episode of "The Daily Show" and several news segments/stories that appear in "The Daily Show" from other "real news" sources.

To start, the class would review the idea of parody and their findings from the previous day's activity.

Next, the class would view several "real" news segments (in the sequential order that they appear on the "The Daily Show"). While viewing each segment, students would make note of the following:

• What was the segment about?
• What information did you get from the segment?
• What information was left out?
• How do you feel about the story/situation/issue presented?
  

Students are to do so by making two columns on their paper, numbering each segment, and writing their comments for each segment on the left side.

After this, the class would view the prepared episode of the daily show (or selected segments), and students would make note about each "fake news" segment in the right column across from their notes from "real news" broadcasts. While making notes, students would look for the following:

• What is this segment about?
• What information do you hear? What information is left out?
• What aspects of the original story are being made fun of?
• How does this segment make you feel about the story/situation/issue presented?

While viewing all the clips, the teacher should give students a few minutes between each clip to finish their notes.

After viewing, students would briefly share their responses to the real and fake news segments in small groups. Next, each group would share a little bit of what they found to the whole class. The teacher would make a chart on the board similar to what the students wrote in their notebooks to visually compile the class responses.

The teacher would lead a discussion on how and why John Steward chose to parody and make fun of certain news stories/broadcasts based on the information the students found.

As an assignment related to this activity, students would create their own news parody in small groups (3-4 students). To do this, students are to choose a news source/segment to view from a newspaper, podcast, TV broadcast, or radio. They would read/watch/listen to the news segment, study it and parody it in the same style. So if students chose a local TV new broadcast, students would either prepare a skit or video to parody it. If students chose a newspaper article, they would write the parody. When finished, the projects would be shared with the class. The project would conclude with a written reflection from the group on their choice of news story and source to parody, what specific aspects of the news source and story they parodied, and their experience in creating a parody.

Post for June 18th - Activity for Critically Analyzing the News

In helping students to learn how to critically analyze the news and the value in doing so, I would bring in a video of a local newscast to be viewed as a class. I would have students take notes during the viewing - some students writing the individual segment topics/titles and some students timing how long each segment lasted. As a class, we would then look at and discuss why the news would give more time to some topics over others. Next I would bring in the local newscast of a different non-Minnesotan city and follow the same procedures as above.

After viewing both broadcasts, I would have students look at the differences and similarities between both local news broadcasts. We would look at what the Minnesotan broadcast might say/reveal about Minnesota culture, and relate those ideas to the other broadcast.

I would follow up this activity with a project where students make skits of different news broadcasts of various communities within and around the school. This would give them the chance to make selection and cater to the audience they want to serve. With this project, students would be able to experience how a news broadcast may want to tailor their stories to a specific audience, but also how they may want to be careful about their selection of news in order to maintain an audience.

Post for June 18th - Local TV News Viewing

6:00 PM Kare 11 Local News

Viewing Log

Weather/Breaking News
Story #1: Weather Storms in the Area from the night before
Time: 1:15 minutes

Weather/Local News
Story #2: Austin Tornadoes!
Time: 1:19 minutes

National News Teaser
Story #3: Music Piracy
Time: 22 seconds
Preview for 10:00 News

Local News
Story #4: Denney Hecker Lawsuit
Time: 1:47 minutes

Local News
Story #5: St. Paul Police Abuse Test
Time: 46 seconds

Local Events
Story #6: Special Olympics MN
Time: 26 seconds

Local News
Story #7: Lowry Ave Bridge Closing/Demolition
Time: 58 seconds

Entertainment Story
Story #8: Black Bears in North Metro
Time: 1:50 minutes

Visual
Story #9: Sky Cam View of Lake Calhoun
Time: 10 seconds

Weather
Story #10: Weather Report/Forecast
Time: 3:50 seconds

Sports
Story #11: Sports Report - Twins and US Open
Time: 3:22

Local Events
Story #12: Back to 50's weekend
Time 28 seconds

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Reflection on viewing:

I typically watch the KARE 11 newscast at 5:00 pm, but have never paid too much attention to the actual stories and the amount of time spent on specific segments. I typically go to "Google News" when I really want to get news information. What I found to be really interesting is the large amount of time spent on weather and sports. The weather most definitely overtook this newscast, probably because of the big storms the night before, but even with the daily/weekend forecast came up, the amount of time given to the segment was significantly longer than other segments. Sports was the next thing with a significant amount of time given for the forecast. This puts an emphasis on entertainment value (sports) and the news casters' ability to recognize the concerns of the public (is more severe weather coming? and what will the weekend look like?).

The minimal time spent on local stories such as the Special Olympics or the Lowry Ave bridge closing shows the audience how little these events are valued. The major emphasis on weather shows the importance of that the news station holds on the weather as well as the public. It was really interesting to see how little time was actually spent on news stories, and how the emphasis was on sports and weather. This show how TV news is very focused on entertainment value vs actual news reporting.

Post for June 14th - Comparing and Contrasting Professionalims in the Media & Professional Organizations

The view of professionalism from the media, as shown in my previous post, is vastly different from the view of professionalism found in various professional organizations. Professional organizations are focused on maintaining a professional atmosphere and demeanor by following a code of ethics and general professional guidelines.

Looking at www.socialworkers.org I found a code of ethics for social workers that focuses on being caring and respectful of clients (valuing the dignity and self-worth of a person), behaving in a trustworthy manner, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and being in compliance with other general professional guidenlines (refraining from: sexual relations with clients, the use of innaporpirate lanugage, and harassment). Even though this is a code of ethics for social workers, I think these guidlines are true of any professional environment.

Another representation of professionalism I found is from a professional development company's website, www.professionalismmatters.com. This company provides opportunities for people to learn how to be professional. Aspects of professionalism they find important are: organization, time management, manners, and integrity. So not only is professionalism someone's behavior, but also how they perform in their work environment.

Lastly, I wanted to look at professionalism of a business, rather than an individual person. To do this, I looked at the Better Business Bureau's accreditation standards (www.bbb.org). To be accredited from the BBB a buisness must follow these guidelines: build trust in the marketplace, advertise honestly, tell the truth, be transparent, honor promises, be responsive, safeguard privacy, and embody integrity. These aspects of a professional business are very similar to the professional guidlines from the two sources above.

So where is all this in the media? It seems the representation of professionalism in the media is very counter to the representation of professionalism in a professional setting. If you look at the TV show "House, MD" and follow the actions of the main character, House, you see he violates most of the professional guidlines above - but that's half the fun. The only real professionalism House has is his dedication to serving his patients. Otherwise, House uses drugs, is dishonest, breaks into patients homes, breaks confidentiality codes, is full of harrasing and rude comments, and does not always act in a trustworthy manner. In the show, House is a professional doctor, but part of the reason why the show is entertaining is because of his atypical professional behavior. Rarely does he feel the consequences of such behavior.

The media does not fully support the message of professionalism that the above organizations project. I don't think the writers of TV shows are concerned with projecting the professionalims of their characters, but are more concerned with ratings. To get higher ratings, a TV show must be entertaining. Seeing people act unprofessionally catches our attention because it is different from our normal everyday expectations.