Learning Media

Another great resource I discovered through The Global Classroom Project was a combination of of two websites, one directed towards teachers, the other students. PBSLearningMedia is a website that was created for a similar purpose that this final RPAT is for.The PBSLearningMedia is a curation of digital, media resources in a variety of formats that are targeted towards specific grades, subjects and topics. This website also allows you to favourite and share websites, allowing you to start making connections and networking with other teachers.

As an expansion of this website, PBSLearningMedia has created a student friendly/centred website as well. Students have the ability to explore topics themselves, when they click on a task or topic they are interested, they are directed to an online library of a variety of sources that discuss that topic, from websites, to videos, to audio recordings to interactive activities. PBSLearningMedia is a great opportunity for students to direct their own learning and inquiry processes, while becoming more technological and media literate.Media “conditions us to habitual exposure patterns to the messages they want exposure for” (James Potter in Bullen, 2009), it becomes important that we teach our students the skills required to critically interpret the information they are constantly bombarded with on an everyday basis. As a future 21st century teacher, I would hope to use this website as a way to teach my student’s about media literacy. PBSLearningMedia, provides me some ease by placing a variety of media in one place for me to explore further. By starting with the teacher based website, I can control the media which the children are exposed to, teaching them to be critical of how media is constructed, but also how it can be used in education as a mode of extended learning.

While the teacher site may be a starting point, I would like continue with teh student site, and have the students direct their learning, because the children I teach will be digital natives, while I am a digital immigrants, they have grown up with the technology, I am just learning about. Providing them with such a wide variety of resources gives them a chance to grow and learn on at their own pace.