Spring Saturday SAVY, Week 2, Media Mania: How We are Impacted by What We Watch (5th-6th)
Hello TV, Movie, Book, and Touch Screen Fans!
It was so nice to get right back into the world of media with our students and dive even deeper into how these resources are perceived and evaluated. We started the day with a review activity by playing Jeopardy to remind us of everything that we learned last week. Everyone came to play with the lead going back and forth between all the teams.
We then moved into the world of research and discussed how the scientific method comes into play when we study how people interact with, as well as are influenced by, the media they consume. We watched some fun videos, as well as talked through the design of a media study all about the game Cross Road.
Students then were challenged to think about how media is discussed by their families, friends, teachers, and the world around them. This led to some interesting talks about healthy screen and media limits the students have experienced, as well as the ones they hear about from their friends and peers. We then challenged the students to work in teams and come up with the “perfect screen time limit” for people in their age group. This led to the creation of poster presentations given to the entire class. Students were incredibly insightful about how different media may influence limits, such as determining whether educational media should have restrictions.
We ended the period before lunch by designing our own media study as a class. We thought about whether the show Bluey leads kids to behave differently and discussed how each part of an experiment could influence the results, from how long it takes to what we show each participant.
After lunch, we engaged in a fun activity where students let their opinions be known about the different features that are commonly included in media. Students had some pretty strong opinions about features like animations, sound effects, and interactivity. We tried to quantify these opinions by having students go to different areas of the room to show their agreement with statements about these features.
We ended the day by doing one more research design activity where students split into groups and came up with their own study. This was meant to help them start thinking about what study they are going to create completely on their own for next week’s final project. It was so great to see everyone collaborate on this assignment!
I cannot wait to end the class strong next week, as well as to have the opportunity to see what amazing studies your students will think up that have to do with the media they may be exposed to in their everyday lives!