Last Friday marked the end of my classes at OISE’s Bachelor of Education program, but I’m not done with my teacher training or talking to teachers.
In addition to a month-long internship at the Institute of Child Studies Lab School, I’m heading out to Huron Street School this afternoon to talk with elementary teachers about virtual worlds for kids. It’ll be part of an overall workshop on critical literacies in the classroom, much like my presentation at the OISE Dean’s Conference in March.
I’ll be looking at the underlying messages that are currently in most kids’ vws (ie the game/coin/consumption cycle of consumerism) and showing teachers how they can get their students to look critically at the messages, question them and reimagine their own virtual worlds with messages they’d like to see.
If you’re interested in learning more, there’s a blog for the presentation and a below are the ppt slides (but there’s no audio and slides really need audio to make sense – will work on that.)
Ooo wow, good luck, Liam!!!!
Thanks Izzy! It went really well. There were a few “So that’s what Club Penguin is!” remarks, which made me smile. All in all, the teachers were eager to add virtual worlds into their media literacy and critical literacies lessons. For me that’s a good thing all round.