Simple, Practical Applications of Media to Education

When I met with my potential first reader for thesis, I was very impressed with his ideas for simple, yet practical applications of media to education. The ideas particularly resounded with me, because over the summer I had an internship at the University of California, San Diego, in their Professional Development Institute, which dealt with helping teachers better their techniques. We held a conference for the Los Angeles Unified School District (Local District 6) for ESL (English as a Second Language) kids, as well as a retreat for a new charter school that didn’t know how to find resources. Both could use simple applications of media to help kids in their classroom and find administrative resources. Also, I read some e-newsletters on the use of technology and education with input from teachers on what worked for them, and my potential thesis reader’s ideas were very much inline with the ideas teachers reported worked best. Here are some of his ideas:
1. PowerPoint: Use this to create
a. Digital vocabulary flashcards and
b. Jeopardy-style review games. (Keep in mind, he only works with foreign language classes.)
2. Photo essays: Students make essays multi-sensory by (after writing the paper) finding photos to go along with the story and narrating it. This can also be done for poetry readings.
How much more interesting is that both for the student and the teacher who is reading it? I would like to try doing something like that. I feel that finding concrete visual representations of our writings also helps us to keep it related to the real world, as well as make us think about our conceptual ideas visually, which could solidify our understanding of our thoughts.
3. Video games: using popular “smart” video games (like SimCity or Civilization) as learning tools. The games would be in another language, and students would have to pause the game and look up the words being said in order to progress in the game, which becomes very compelling, as any gamer can tell you.
On a related note, the widely acclaimed book Everything Bad Is Good for You by Steven Johnson is basically an apologia for video games and uses statistical and otherwise concrete information from neuroscience, economics, and other disciplines to prove that video games actually make us smarter, as evidenced in increased IQ scores over the past 30 years during which video games and other new media have flourished. Coincidence? He thinks not. So this concept of video games as useful educational tools that are not only fun, but effective is not new; rather, there is significant data to support the theory.
4. Comic Life: Apparently, there is this really cool program called Comic Life that allows the user to create comics in an incredibly easy process, as this prof showed me. He uses it to make his own practice worksheets, finding them more useful and interesting than boring book materials that present situations that are often far removed from the real life of modern students. The comics could also be helpful in student projects and perpetuating the same concept as the photo essays and digital flashcards: that thinking about ideas visually as well as mentally increases comprehension of them.
5. Garage Band (Apple): to make own music
6. Toys: Toys are not usually studied in Media Studies, but I don’t see why they couldn’t be. They are instrument through which we express ourselves. Like many of these educational ideas, the use of toys is useful when learning a language, probably not as apparently useful in other courses, especially at the college level. The toys could be used to practice vocabulary not only by identifying the word for the objects, but also through creating stories with the objects to narrate in another language and even to record such stories by video camera or for a photo essay.
7. Video Conferencing: This would allow students to talk with people from the foreign country whose language they are studying. Skype is a new program that offers free video conferencing, even internationally.
8. Media Education: He mentioned so many Internet programs (video conferencing, social networking, etc., etc.) and commented that with this whole world available for anyone to enter, Media Education classes should really be offered as early as elementary school, if only to inform students of what is out there, what is helpful, and what is potentially dangerous. Such a class would be particularly helpful, because most parents are not familiar with this online world that develops more and more every day.
9. And more…