The Media Spot

The Media Spot recently submitted a proposal for for a Knowledge-Networking Award from the MacArthur Foundation to develop an area of our website into a Media Literacy Learning Network (MLLN), via an initial pilot program. The writing process helped us galvanize ideas we've been rolling around for awhile, and create a clear direction for the future of TMS and this website. A special thanks goes out to The Learning about Media Project, Renee Hobbs of The Media Ed Lab, Dan Storchan of AUSSIE PD, and Pablo Conrad at PS124 for discussing the ideas with us and agreeing to contribute to the pilot network.

From the competition's site:

Knowledge-networking is "do-it-yourself" field-building, collective matchmaking across communities of those who have and those who seek information, so that each can teach and learn from the other.

For those of you who don't know, that's right up our alley...

The goal of our learning network will be to create a "living curriculum" for media literacy-based student production on themediaspot.org, open to input from educators and media literacy experts from "virtually" anywhere through the power of our existing social netoworking platform (Drupal). Educators who don't have access to media education consulants in-the-flesh can access online professional developement through the network. Media literacy experts can develop their ideas through collaboration, or learn from the archived experiences of other consultants.

The pilot program will bring us together with other media education consultants and classroom teachers in Brooklyn and North Carolina to develop, execute, and assess a series of student multimedia productions in order to kick-start growth of the network, and inform the network's use of Drupal and school blogs.

This network will exponentially increase the relevance and reach of the production experiences and curriculum-building resources on this site through transparent educator and expert assessment and experimentation.

Winners of the MacArthur award will be announced early in 2008. In the meantime, we've started working on the site tools, developing the blogs at our pilot schools, and experimenting with online PD with pilot schools and some of our currently contracted educators. Keep your fingers crossed!