The 6th annual Northeast Media Literacy Conference

Start: 2008-04-11 00:00
End: 2008-04-11 12:00
Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Courtesy of the NEMLC:
The 6th annual

Northeast Media Literacy Conference

April 11, 2008

University of Connecticut, Storrs

The New Media Literacies for Today’s
Plugged-In Generation!

Whether you are a teacher, parent, counselor, or others who work directly or indirectly with young people, the upcoming 6th annual Northeast Media Literacy Conference should be of great and timely interest.

The Conference on April 11, 2008 again features an unusually diverse group of innovative leaders and topics in the study of the mass media and its great impact upon today’s young people and their thinking, priorities, decisions, actions, and their values.

For our 6th annual conference, we are focusing on some of the new media literacies and their needs and realities in light of today’s rapidly changing technologies and their impact upon and growing involvement by our children and youth.

Featured are two outstanding, innovative leaders as keynote speakers, providing up-to-date, fresh approaches and perspectives to the growing media literacy field:

Dr. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist and digital enthnographer from Kansas State University, recently uploaded a short video to YouTube called Web 2.0, the Machine is Using Us. The video dramatically demonstrates how the Web is changing how we communicate and how fast. This production quickly became the most viewed video on YouTube, watched by over 3 million people. He is also author of a new film, A Vision of Students Today, and a timely blog, Digital Ethnography. Wesch is a true activist for media literacy. He teaches teachers how to use the Web, because, he believes, students are good at being entertained by technology, but they're not particularly good at using it to locate, identify, and sort valuable information.

Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired – What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online, has great insight into how being a teen today is very different from what it used to be and what teens are really doing on the Internet and with technology today, including such timely activities as social networking, blogging, and cyberbullying.
What are LiveJournal, Xanga, Facebook, and MySpace and how have they become so much a key part of young people’s lives? Why is it critically important for parents, teachers, and other adults to be knowledgeable about and better understand these expanding, ever-present media forms? Goodstein examines the threats of today’s technology to young people, but also provides “fresh insights into the positive ways young people use the wired world in their lives.”

In addition, the full day’s conference program includes twenty timely workshops based on key media literacy related areas – The Role of Today’s Advancing Technology, Mass Media’s Depiction of Today’s Culture and Values, Philosophy and Theory, Standards and Curriculum, Classroom Activities, Research and Evaluation, Teacher Education, and Media Production.

Please mark your calendar - Friday, April 11, 2008.

Proposals for Workshops will be accepted until December 15, 2007. (A proposal will be considered after this date only if there is room in the program and the topic will add balance and/or diversity to the workshop offerings.)

Access the Proposal Form at our conference website at http://medialiteracy.education.uconn.edu

Check our website periodically for conference updates.

We hope you will join us!

Dr. Thomas B. Goodkind, Conference Coordinator
Northeast Media Literacy Conference 2008
Neag School of Education
University of Connecticut 2033
Storrs, Conn. 06269
t.goodkind@uconn.edu
tbgoodkind@snet.net
860-486-0290 office
860-974-1814