Part 1. Students will define and describe “new literacies.”
First, we’ll review videos that have most engaged you: your favorite advertisements, memes, YouTube parodies, cartoons, or something else entirely.
As the group watches them, consider:
- How messages (particularly through visual media) are designed;
- How different kinds of stories (in movies, books, comics, YouTube videos, memes, TikToks, etc.) are organized (e.g., short and punchy, longer and prescriptive, more like a class lecture vs. interactive, etc.);
- What about their aesthetic/formatting/video quality conveys information that is not explicitly stated;
- The ways multiple smaller-scale media are threaded together to tell a bigger story (e.g., the stories and experiences told through Marvel Cinematic Universe movies vs. books vs. comics vs. games).
As you zoom out from one individual advertisement or YouTube video to the broader ecosystem they belong to, it becomes clearer that different kinds of media leverage different qualities of engaging entertainment and advertising to teach/inform.
This is also why it’s important to think about potential ripple effects of effective messaging and the value of ethical instructional media design—whether and how designers adhere to best TPACK practices (i.e., synthesizing learning theory, pedagogy, content knowledge, and technology) makes a big difference in how people perceive and interpret the world around them (which ultimately influences their decisions-making and behavior).
For example, take the following scenarios:
Scenario A:
“While out in the schools as an IB/M Neag student, you hear one teacher saying that she has started using an oil diffuser in her elementary classroom to help keep students calm and focused. But a parent has complained, “Lavender causes cancer in boys!” You aren’t sure what to make of her claim, so you do what any self-respecting teacher does—you turn to the internet.”
Scenario B:
“As an IB/M student out working with a cooperating science teacher, you are introduced to a science simulation site called Gizmos from ExploreLearning, Inc. The teacher tells you that his crazy administrator is questioning the cost (and value) of such technology. He has asked you to investigate the website and find any scholarly research evidence that the simulations work, in order to get his administrator off his back. Use all your research skills and the resources of UConn to quickly and effectively examine the claims about Gizmos.”
Activity:
In 10-15 minutes, locate internet resources [pasted into shared GoogleDoc] that help your group verify or refute one of these claims. Evaluate each site you find, noting stylistic choices, how information is presented, what supporting materials are woven throughout them (if any), and what about it makes it “feel” convincing or not. Synthesize the results and then share out to the larger class.
[If lab time becomes a constraint, these reading could be assigned to 2 different groups, followed by whole group discussion of both]
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Not all educators and instructional designers take the time to evaluate both the cognitive and emotional frameworks of media design, and it can have potentially problematic consequences. It’s on us to engage in good faith distribution of factually accurate information.
You can learn more about instructional media design, particularly concerning the way social media amplify messages, via the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab’s Bad News Game (2018). There are additional teacher resources available here.
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Part 2. Students will apply their understanding of TPACK to leverage 21st century skills of collaborative writing with new literacies for transmedia storytelling to demonstrate co-construction of knowledge.
Activity:
Working in groups of 3-4, you will create a brief (i.e., less than 3-minute) piece of multi/transmedia that communicates an important message concerning either:
- A specific disciplinary learning objective (e.g., math, science, language, history); OR
- Something you think other educators should know about the wise integration of educational technology into their classrooms (i.e., why/how future teachers should think about one of the topics covered in this course).
The medium, content, organization, and audience for your videos is up to your respective group groups depending on your particular knowledge and technological expertise. Suggestions include:
- A series of two-part TikToks where a specific learning objective is addressed through quippy jokes or skits (e.g., duets [side-by-side], stitches [one video after another]);
- A longer video structured as a direct statement to the audience (e.g., Crash Course style);
- An interactive gaming experience designed using tools like Twine where the audience participates in the narrative.
Whatever your group creates, it should be no longer than THREE (3) minutes in duration.
Examples of teacher-designed media include:
Next week, you’ll brainstorm and share how you plan to organize/record your videos. We will reconvene to talk about how/why you came to the design decisions you did.
After that, your group will begin the creation process (recordings, video editing, etc.). A final version of your work should be ready for presentation during our final synchronous class session and then uploaded to Taskstream.
ALL group members must submit a copy of the link for everyone to receive credit.
Stretch Goal: Create a piece of transmedia that combines instructional video objectives with an existing transmedia storyworld (e.g., Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Disney, etc. “universe”), teaching about the concept as part of a broader narrative (i.e., tell a slice of the larger narrative’s story while incorporating particular instructional objectives/content).
