Teaching Film, TV, and Media Studies: Week 1 post

Beach, Introduction and Chapter 1:

As I was reading the introduction to Beach’s book and chapter 1, what struck me was the constructivist nature of his approach to Media Studies. He seems to give a great deal of weight to our own readings and creations of media texts, while at the same time encouraging a critical examination of the media texts that surround us, including our self-authored texts. It reminds me a great deal of the Tech Tools for Educators class that I took a couple years ago. In that class, we examined and used a variety of Web 2.0 tools, like blogs, wikis, and other things I’ve unfortunately forgotten. One of the major discussion points we kept coming back to was the idea of constructivism. We discussed endlessly how we could use technology and Web 2.0 tools in our quests for more constructivist learning with our students. Beach’s first three points in chapter 1—Media/Film Study helps students build upon their own “active use of the media,” “move digital literacies from the bedroom to the classroom,” and “learn to communicate in multimodal ways”—remind me very strongly of those constructivist conversations. Beach’s approach appears to be active, rather than passive—students do not just mindlessly consume media. They are constantly creating and re-imagining, constructing their own texts and communications. I really liked Beach’s point about moving digital literacies into the classroom It is so easy to say, “I don’t need to teach them about technology; they’re smarter than I am!” But the sad truth is that they are seriously lacking a full understanding of how they can use these technologies. I also liked this point because I think it lends itself nicely to what seems to be Beach’s other main concern: critical literacy.

I think this is the part of his…philosophy, for lack of a better word, that resonated with me the most. As much as I want kids to be constructing their own learning and knowledge and using technology to communicate in “multimodal” ways, I’m more concerned about their ability to see through, question, and challenge the reality that media producers try to construct for them. The constructivist piece is vitally important, because once a person understands how knowledge and information can be constructed and manipulated, that person can begin to examine how the media messages we’re fed on a daily basis are constructions as well. I especially liked his point about the importance of students recognizing that “the meanings of these texts do not actually lie “in” the text, but rather in how audiences construct the meaning of media texts within specific social contexts.” I’ve found that students often have a difficult time prying themselves away from the here and now, the me, and the immediate present to really, truly, truthfully consider alternate points of view, which is such an important skill!

I really am looking forward to digging into this more deeply and figuring out how to implement it in my classroom, but my brain is getting foggy, so I think it’s time to hit the hay. Night all!!