News Items

President's Message - Winter 2006

January 23, 2006

Carolyn Wilson, AML President

This year promises to be an exciting one. Once again, the Association for Media Literacy is planning a series of events for members that explore a number of timely and relevant media issues. We are also involved in a number of new initiatives to promote the importance of media literacy in the education community and beyond.

Members' Events and Courses for Teachers:
As you know, our first big event was held on November 2nd: Marketing to Teen$: Teaching and Parenting the iGeneration and was hosted by the National Film Board. Our panel of experts--both marketers and educators--spoke about current strategies, techniques and tactics being used to sell to tweens and teens. Panelist included: Max Valiquette, President, Youthography; Debbie Gordon, Managing Director of Mediacs Media Literacy Workshops; Anne Sutherland, EVP, Nucleus Strategic Planning, and co-author of Kidfluence: Why Kids Today Mean Business; and Richard Kanee, Manager, New Media Business Development for CHUM Interactive.

Check out our EVENTS listings on our website for information about our events in ‘06 including: Media and Global Issues: Getting Connected; Teachers’ Movie Night Out; and our annual Sharefest.

Neil Andersen is teaching the Additional Qualifications course in Media at York University from September '05 to January, '06. This course has been open to teachers receiving their Part 1, 2 and Specialist qualifications.

For the first time, Ian Esquivel and Barry Duncan are teaching a course that is being offered through OISE at the University of Toronto. For information on future offerings, contact Barry Duncan at baduncan@interlog.com


New Initiatives:
Don Jones, Sylvie Webb and I were involved in the Think Literacy initiative of the Ministry of Education. This summer we wrote a document for teachers from grades 7-10, which will provide them with strategies for teaching media literacy in the Language Arts and English classrooms. The document is a very practical resource with innovative approaches. Once the final document has been approved, teachers will be able to access it on the AML website. We will post information from the Ministry on the release date of the document once this becomes available.

Lisa Laviolette has been part of the Ministry writing team responsible for the revisions being made to the curriculum documents for elementary Language Arts and secondary English courses. Some members from this writing team may be asked to revise the Media Studies course at the secondary level as well. We are hopeful that a best practice document for teachers will be produced and that there will be professional development opportunities offered for teachers in media studies and critical literacy.

The AML Executive is also involved in planning the first ever National Media Literacy Week, along with the Canadian Teachers Federation, Media Awareness Network and CAMEO. This week will be held from November 19th – 24th, 2006. National Media Literacy week is a follow-up initiative to the CTF 2003 survey Kids' Take on Media, where more than 5,700 kids across Canada were interviewed to get a picture of the role of media in the lives of Canadian young people.

The goals of the National Media Literacy Week include:  

• providing leadership and motivation to education, parent, and cultural/community organizations to incorporate media education into home/classroom practice 
  
• increasing an appreciation and awareness by Canadian education experts of the importance of media literacy (supplementing reading, writing and numeracy skills) 
  
• increasing the use of resources for media education required for professional development and classroom use
  

"The advertisers aren't evil. They are just doing their job, which is to sell a product.  But the consequences, usually unintended, are often destructive to individuals, to cultures, and to the planet."  - Jean Kilbourne