"building the capacity of public media and technology organizations"
I'm more or less continuing work on some of the same projects described in my last report. At Brighton High School we are finishing up post-production of the first episode of BHTV, which the TV production class has worked all semester to produce.
Erin Taylor asked me to write a little something for the upcoming VISTA digest... here is what I submitted (a sneak preview!):
You would think creating a new media literacy series would be easy enough. There are enough of them out there. Thus, when I was asked as a brand new VISTA to create a new media literacy curriculum for Project: Think Different, I figured I would just quote some Noam Chomsky and maybe throw in some media statistics and get something at least presentable together. The task seemed simple.
But, (there is always a “but”) I needed to make the curriculum accessible to teens. Boston teens. Boston teens living in the neighborhoods in which teenage death rates are the highest, in which an attraction to hip-hop music and commercial materialism are identifying aspects of the youth culture, and in which young people are most likely to be portrayed in the news media in relation to situations of crime and violence. Clearly these are the teens in the greatest need of media literacy awareness, but how in the world was a white, relatively affluent, punk, college-graduate female from Austin, Texas ever going to create something that actually works for these kids? Seeing as my first days in Boston included getting severely confused by public transportation, being shocked at how many people lacked innate kindness, and staring in disbelief at how the seemingly numerous Dunkin’ Donuts actually all had customers, the task seemed slightly daunting at best. How could I ever relate?
Comment from lauren bratslavsky on October 19, 2006 - 1:16pm
great article and what a great project!
Comment from Peter Miller on January 11, 2007 - 2:05pm
Colleen, I've been meaning post how incredibly thoughtful and intriguing I found your Digest article, too. I've sent a version of my thoughts as a comment to the Digest – let me echo gariet and Bill's interests, too, and request to see the curriculum, but let me suggests, too, that this be put on the Digest site, too, at the very least, a link on how to get it. In addition to being interested in see the curriculum, I want to let you know how impressed I was by the vivid sense you convey about life on the streets and your quick introduction to and immersion in it, your description of Project Think Different's Mission and the initial project development, and the photo of the Media Watch Team. Because it's so promising, do let me offer a couple of suggestions for your consideration. In contrast to the beginning of your piece, your description of the Media Action Series is outlined in somewhat rhetorical/ideological language. Some more immediate description along with a link to the series itself or at least how to request it -- surely this is the rousing conclusion one would hope to find to your work and that of the Media Watch Team and PTD. This appears to be exactly the kind of model project that the CTC VISTA Project strives to support and to share as widely as possible and I hope you all can make the most of it for yourselves, too. I look forward to learning more about this highly informative effort. best, ----peter miller
Comment from Colleen Kelly on February 6, 2007 - 7:00pm
Blame it on being WAY TOO immersed in my work at PTD.
So, Peter - first off - thank you so much for your kind words concerning my Digest article. I appreciate it! Also, I am grateful for the more personal comment on my writing.
As for linking to the curriculum in the article, I can't really re-write the article, but I can put a link for you here -
www.projectthinkdifferent.org/Media-Action-Series.zip
There it all is in a zip folder that you can download. I will blog about it soon. The stress of PTD has kept me a tad busy.