Frank W. Baker's Blog – April 2009 Archive (4)

Star Trek vs Star Wars (Newsweek)

If you've seen the cover story in this week's issue of Newsweek Magazine, then you know already that they're promoting the new "Star Trek" movie. What else is new? But what is not on their web site is this sidebar (which I have scanned) in which the editors astutely match up past and current administration officials with their Trek/Wars characters. Enjoy!

Added by Frank W. Baker on April 28, 2009 at 9:21pm — No Comments

Deconstructing Popular Advertisements

One of the reasons why visual/media literacy education is not more widespread is that educators haven't had sufficient training in deconstruction. With that in mind, I share the following web resource. The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding has devoted a portion of its web site to Current Popular Culture Advertisements, available to download and deconstruct. One of the reasons this site is so valuable is--you don't have to own the… Continue

Added by Frank W. Baker on April 20, 2009 at 10:14pm — 1 Comment

Columbine left its indelible mark on pop culture

A CNN news story: The massacre of students and a teacher within the seemingly safe hallways of Columbine High School has generated a lot of creations from artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers over the past decade.

Added by Frank W. Baker on April 20, 2009 at 9:39am — 1 Comment

NCSS' New Policy Statement on Media Literacy

Media educator Jeff Share, a past member of the NCTE Commission on Media, has asked me to share this news. The National Council for the Social Studies has recently published a new position statement on media literacy. It is a very important move that NCSS has both recognized and recommended media literacy be taught as part of social studies instruction. The statement, which Jeff helped write, can be found here. Please consider… Continue

Added by Frank W. Baker on April 5, 2009 at 1:16pm — No Comments