Online Media - How Does it 'Get' You?

Hi! 

Recently I had Year 7 English class that looked at the Media and how ideas are represented within it. It was a very relevant unit of work in light of our society's growing concerns with fake news, toxic online cultures, and the need to increase diversity both in front and behind the screen. It was also quite a useful topic as it allowed me to explore a broad range of ideas and activities while we try to get students back into some sort of meaningful routine after a prolonged lockdown.

The lesson idea below was created afterwards while I was reflecting on the unit. It focuses on targeted online media and the way that it interacts with users. Year 7 students have varying degrees of online literacy and are often experts at operating a range of apps and devices. There are, however, very few who understand the 'back end' of online technology. The rise of smooth smartphone-friendly user interfaces has meant that it's no longer all that necessary to understand the nature of an internet browser cache, what HTML is, or even how web addresses work.

At least, that is to say, it's not necessary if you're a casual user who relies upon social media to navigate the online world. 

But it is perhaps this lack of digital literacy that is ultimately letting our society down and opens some people up to exploitation. The Stage 4 English syllabus can assist our students here with outcomes and content dot points that look to address some of the issues around this. Some examples of how this lesson links to the current syllabus:

Outcome 2: A student effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies EN4-2A

• Recognise and practise responsible and ethical digital communication
• Analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations on texts, particularly media texts

Outcome 7: A student demonstrates understanding of how texts can express aspects of their broadening world and their relationship within it EN4-7D

• Draw on experience to consider the ways the 'real world' is represented in the imaginary worlds of texts, including (...) media and multimedia texts.

The following lesson looks at how cookies are used to track our activity online and the ways in which this leads to targeted advertising. 

1. Students start off by completing this worksheet - Tracking Activity.

During this activity they outline and describe what they were doing at set points throughout the previous afternoon and the morning before the lesson. This is then put aside, with the teacher explaining that this information will become relevant at the end of the lesson.

2. The teacher then leads students through a PowerPoint with some questions that combine comprehension and critical thinking skills. During this PPT, students learn about online cookies and the way in which advertisements online target individual users. 

PowerPoint Here - Online Media.

3. The final part of the PPT brings students back to the tracking sheet, which they swap with a partner. Each student must then use the information provided to gather information about the 'user' and then design an advertisement to target this person. 

I think it would be a useful activity in the sense that it allows for students to learn about online tracking without having to actually go online (which I often find a logistical problem - EG. Tracking down laptops for classroom use, monitoring and locating student passwords to get onto school network, relying on functionality of wifi). It's also useful in a more abstract sense as it helps students understand what it means when a website asks them to 'accept cookies', how their search history can be financially exploited by advertisers, and why advertisements seem to specifically apply to just them.

Disclaimer: All of the above material was created specifically for this blog in my own spare time.

Peace Train Comprehension - Remote Learning, 2021

Hello fellow NSW teachers, looks like we're back in lockdown and steering the remote learning train once again! What can one say?

Here's an activity I used with a mixed ability Year 8 class last year. It isn't complicated or revolutionary in any way, just a cute clip I found on Youtube for Cat Stevens' timeless song Peace Train. The worksheet I made is fairly straightforward and focuses on comprehension of the lyrics - I wanted something simple and not too difficult so the class could ease into remote learning. Getting as many students engaged as possible so that they stay in a calm routine, well, it's the name of the game at this point.

This is how it goes...

Step 1: Students watch the following clip:

This can also be seen here. I would recommend using some kind of Youtube downloader site (provided you have good antivirus software) so you can download your own copy. Having a downloaded copy usually leads to less problems than trying to access wifi - even (or especially) when teaching a full classroom as per normal routine.

Step 2: Students respond to questions on the worksheet. This can be uploaded as a .doc to a Google Classroom so students can just type into the boxes, or printed off as a worksheet if needed.

• Worksheet (Word version)
• Worksheet (PDF)

A lot of my students hadn't heard the song before and they enjoyed it, which is always a fun bonus. It was nice to have a lesson focused on something positive so students could disconnect a little bit from the negativity of the pandemic.

Anyway, that's all for today, like I said - it's a fairly straightforward worksheet. 

I hope your remote learning experiences this time around are as smooth and stress-free as possible!

Take care.

Stand-Alone Lesson: Parents Just Don't Understand

The last few weeks have been challenging for just about everyone. As Term 1 wound down, and the era of COVID-19 descended upon education, teachers found themselves needing to adapt to online learning platforms as a substitute for face-to-face teaching.

I don't have enough time, space, or inclination to go into my experiences in moving to Google Classroom during the last three weeks. There have been some failures, some ongoing challenges, and (I hope) some small successes. I'm still feeling my way through it all and learning about what I do and don't like, what I think might work, and how I might force things to work.

Suffice to say, this is still a teething stage. As it is for many teachers.

During the transition stage at the end of Term 1 I created the following Junior lesson in order to test a few things out. It may or may not be useful in your context if you need to fill a lesson separate to your current scope and sequence.

Firstly, students will need to watch the following music video. This was chosen in response to some Year 8 students who love rap/hip-hop... do you know how difficult it is to find family-friendly rap music? Luckily Will Smith was on hand to help me out. 

As it's a music video it would be remiss to only cover the lyrical content so I provided the students with a worksheet that covered their comprehension in terms of both written and visual literacy. The use of the table format to project questions alongside the relevant parts of the text is an adaptation of the Cornell note-taking method and is part an ongoing effort I've been making to get my Year 8 and Year 9 students to internalise the annotation process.

There are two versions of the worksheet - one for Stage 4 and one for Stage 5.

Parents Just Don't Understand - Stage 4 (Year 8 version)

Parents Just Don't Understand - Stage 5 (Year 9 version)

Note that the Year 9 version includes a question comparing this song to a previous song the class had studied. This can be adapted to suit your context.