TAKING A WALK THROUGH AND ABOUT MEDIA
LITERACY A
BY CHELSEA ATTWELL
group of kindergarten children walks two- by-two, with iPads in hand, through the ur- ban streets and walking trails of our community
in downtown Toronto. Te children chat en- thusiastically while capturing photos and short video clips of their favourite climbing structure at the park, an interesting sign, a beautiful flower on a spring day, a tall tree! Tey then return to the classroom to engage in collaborative media-making experiences. Tis is an example of what media literacy
education looks like in our classroom com- munity. How is this media literacy educa- tion? Well, take a walk with me and I’ll share a little about how easy it is to get started with media literacy. Tis past year marks what I could call my
11-year anniversary of learning and unlearn- ing all things media literacy. I was always drawn to using multimodal texts like books, commercials, music and websites to support
student learning along with field trips and community outings. Troughout the com- pletion of my specialist certificate in media literacy, my colleagues at the Association for Media Literacy (AML) helped me under- stand that media literacy is more than tan- gible texts and includes the environments in which our students live and learn. Although I currently teach Kindergar-
ten, the community walk experience is eas- ily scalable for Kindergarten to Grade 8 students and beyond. Tis broad and inclu- sive approach gives educators permission to seamlessly integrate media literacy across the curriculum. Combined with the strategy of teaching not just through media, but about
ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ FEDERATION OF ONTARIO 21 ➔
PHOTOS BY CHRISTINE COUSINS
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