Media Literacies for English Language Learners

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Media Literacies for English Language Learners

• Heather Linville
• Polina Vinogradova
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County

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Digital Stories at UMBC

• Undergraduate and graduate classes (for example,
  in Media and Communication Studies and
  Intercultural Communication)
• English Language Center classes
• Cross-Cultural Communication
• New Media and Culture
• As instructional texts
• As final student projects
• For example www.umbc.edu/stories

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What are digital stories?

• http//www.storycenter.org/stories/index.php?cat7
  
• http//cndls.georgetown.edu/applications/posterToo
  l/index.cfm?fuseactionposter.displayposterID183

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Digital Stories are

• Short (2-5 min long)
• Personal/autobiographical
• Narratives
• That use
• Verbal narration
• Visual images (still or motion)
• Musical background

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Benefits of Using Digital Stories

• They are
• Current
• Interesting
• Short (economical)
• Real
• Easy to use
• Free
• Abundant
• And students can relate to them

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Digital Stories and Media Literacies

• Multimodal cultural texts texts
• As springboard for speaking activities
• As prompts for journals or other writing
• Understanding that powerful messages can be
  created not only verbally, but also in a
  multimodal form incorporating verbal, visual, and
  musical narratives

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Sample Activity

• Watching
• for details and/or gist (see handout)
• and analyzing content
• Speaking about
• content and themes
• visual images and music
• cultural elements
• http//cndls.georgetown.edu/applications/posterToo
  l/index.cfm?fuseactionposter.displayposterID191

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Exploring Cultural Concepts

• Expressions of identity
• Verbal and non-verbal communication
• Language and accents
• Artifacts
• Images of people
• Cultural themes and meanings

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Why produce digital stories in class?

• Students voice their own cultural experiences
• They practice to create messages in multimodal
  form
• Work with multimedia
• They take ownership of their digital stories

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Development of Multiliteracies through Digital
Story Production

• Students
• Think how they can tell a clear and engaging
  story in less than 5 minutes
• Look for multimodal ways to make their stories
  powerful and engaging
• Learn not to rely on words only
• Learn about symbolic narrative means
• Discuss their digital stories with each other in
  class (story circle), give each other feedback on
  form and content
• Evaluate comprehensibility and clarity of their
  stories

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Me and Militaryby Younggull (Kane) Oh

• http//umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories
  /dselc08s.php

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Some thoughts

• Student empowerment
• Class size
• Student demographics
• Requires very careful planning and coordination
• Other software can be used Windows Movie Maker
  i-Movie Photo Story 3
• Lack of time? Digital stories can be produced in
  Power Point

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Differences in Eating Behaviors between Thailand
and the USby Thanabodin Lawpoolsri

• http//umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories
  /dselc08s.php

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Thanks for coming!

• Polina Vinogradova
• polinav1_at_umbc.edu
• Heather Linville
• heather1_at_umbc.edu