Dr. Lee McGaan  

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last updated 1/12/2015

News and Media Literacy Development Programs

For the Citizenship Course, INTG 415 - Media and the Self-Directed Citizen - Fall 2015, the major term project required teams of Monmouth College seniors to develop web-based materials that are intended to serve as media / news literacy teaching resources for students in public school classes or in lower division college courses. These programs can also serve as "stand alone" information resources for use in libraries or for individual users.  Each program consisted of an informative media message in the form of a slide show or video with an accompanying teachers guide for use by teachers in public school classes.  While several of the projects from this class require additional refinement and user testing, three of the course projects are sufficiently developed for display here and for use by educators and the public.  These three projects and accompanying materials are described and linked below. 

Below is the list of the teams, their members, with the titles and descriptions of their chosen news or media literacy program project.  Links below each team listing take you to the web-based educational program itself and to the teacher resource / users' guide prepared for this assignment. 

The students who created these projects retain the rights to their materials but teachers, students and the general public are invited make use of these news literacy projects by following the links below.  Links on the INTG 415 Course Assignments page will take you to a detailed description of the News Literacy Program assignment given to the INTG 415 class. 

Educators wishing to include news and media literacy projects in their own classes are welcome to adapt and make use of the News/Media Literacy Program assignment from INTG 415, "Media and the Self-directed Citizen" (as well as the News Bias Analysis Assignment and the News Information (Accuracy) Evaluation Assignment under the terms of the Creative Commons license shown on each assignment page.)

News/Media Literacy Programs

Team 1  -  Print News:  Assembling the Story.  How does a local news event become a story in the newspaper?  What are the roles of the reporter and the editor?  Where does the information come from and what happens when it’s not all there?

Team Members / Producers:  David Beutle, Gavin Bogan, Ace Hennricks, Matthew Smith.

View the Video Program         Users' Resource Guide

Team 2   -   News Background: Getting the Big Picture.  We often encounter news stories that tell us details about something that is currently happening. But how do we find the background information that helps us understand the context of the story and its accuracy?  When events are complex, controversial and have a history, it can be difficult for the news consumer to understand current events.   sThis news literacy program focuses on Ebola Crisis news coverage to illustrate strategies the news consumer can use to understand the context of current events?

Team Members / Designers:  Anne Begley, Alexandra Riedle, Kara Teresi, Victoria Torres.

Ebola: News Background Slide Show         Teachers' Guide

Team 3  -  The Wikipedia:  Can We Trust It?  How is a Wikipedia article constructed and by whom?  How does the Wikipedia organization attempt to control editing and content in controversial articles? What does it mean when a page is locked? When is the information likely to be reliable and when is it not?

Team Members / Designers:  Brittany Keifer, Sarah Myers, Victoria Philbin, Brianna Stasch.

Wikipedia Editing Slide Show                   Teachers' Guide