Artifact # 2
Media Ethnography Project
A project designed to present to colleagues the ways in which the media effects students. This project focused specifically on how the media influences the products that are bought by students, the shows that they watch on television, and the ways in which they are currently viewing America's war on Enduring Freedom. This project also focused on how students choices are effected by those around them and how Bethel School is influenced by the media through corporate sponsorship.
Context
This project was created during my block
experience at Appalachian State University in the fall of 2001. I
worked on this project with five other Appalachian students in a small
group. All of the members of my group are interns at Bethel Elementary
School, the focus for our assignment. We used a variety of resources,
such as a digital camera, student interviews, and student work to create
a web page using the Netscape Editing Program. The information that
we collected can be downloaded by others over the Internet and can be used
as a resource for other teachers when considering how the media does influence
the minds of young children. My main focus for this assignment was
observing how children are effected by the media through the types of activities
that they do and the amount of television that they watch.
Impact
This project was designed as an informational
resource for our fellow peers and colleagues. By looking at the information
on our web page, others are able to see how the media influences students
and student learning. This is valuable because by knowing students
individually one is better able to teach them. Data was collected
by having the students take a survey and by interviewing them throughout
the month of September. This information is communicated with others
through the web page that we created as a group after collecting our data.
Alignment
In order to collect information in the form
of interviews, surveys, and pictures for this project, my group and I had
to use technology to analyze who our students are individually in order
to maximize student learning by teaching to the individual (Technology
Competency 4B). We used the digital camera, the Internet, and
the television in order to see what types of programs our students watch
and the types of products that they both buy and use in their own lives.
Technology was also used to communicate our findings with our peers and
colleagues because our information was presented in the form of a web page.
This project also can be used to communicate with others in the community
including parents and agencies. This communication is available because
others can view the information that was collected while we were conducting
this project by going to our web page (INTASC
10).