Media Education Lab
Sponsored Content as Propaganda
What is sponsored content? Who produces sponsored content? Why? Is it fair or unfair? What are the privacy implications for consumers? To answer these questions, class members view a model screencast before crafting their own that...
Curated OER
The New Fant-"Asia": Contrasting Animated and Live-Action Filmmaking
Young scholars consider different stories and story-telling techniques of animated and live-action filmmaking, write proposals for animated films, and storyboard individual scenes.
Curated OER
Designing Babies
Students analyze current and emerging techniques used to select specific characteristics in offspring. They examine specific case studies and make ethical decisions based upon the Ethical Decision-Making Model.
National Geographic
Measuring Elevation Past and Present
After viewing a short video about a climb up Mount Everest, high schoolers read about triangulation for measuring distant elevations. Have your class work in groups to construct an inclinometer and then use it to measure the height of...
Curated OER
Marketing to Teens: Marketing Tactics
Enlighten young consumers to advertising techniques aimed specifically at their generation. Have learners answer questions about how advertisements are geared for a younger audience, then have them practice selling to other teenagers....
Curated OER
Interrogation Tactics in the News
Students investigate interrogation tactics at use in the world. In this global issues lesson, students watch "Torturing Democracy," and discuss the implications of interrogation techniques used by the United States following 9/11....
Curated OER
Counting Crows
Young scholars discuss the fable, The Crow and the Pitcher. In this literature instructional activity, students read the fable and create a crow sock puppet. Young scholars use their puppets to dramatize the fable.
Curated OER
History of Film: Creating Heritage Moments
Fifth graders, in groups, research a specified topic of Canadian history. They dramatize their findings, become familiar with many filming techniques and film themselves in a historical skit for presentation to the class.
Curated OER
Springfield Digital Storytelling Project #6: Grapes Commercial
Here is a fabulous lesson that should have your class very excited! They utilize the GRAPES formula in order to produce a commercial like ones we see on TV. Working in pairs, they must come up with a script, take video, provide music,...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Portraits That Capture Character
One of the great things about technology is that it lets youngsters visit museums that may be many miles away. With this resource, middle and high schoolers can visit the portrait galleries at J. Paul Getty Museum, located in Los...
Massachusetts Department of Education
Nostalgia
To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine how...
PBS
Stop and Animate
Get animated about animations. Future engineers learn about stop-motion animation using an app. Working in groups, they make their own animations where they have figurines move to music.
Agriculture in the Classroom
Farmland: GMOs and Organic Agriculture
Learn more about genetic modification, organic farming, and the role of biotechnology in agriculture by watching a documentary that shows how newly gained knowledge can be applied to specific situations involving farmers and the choices...
ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...
Curated OER
Soho Square
View the film Soho Square. Improvise sequences based around everyday locations and consider how theater and film differ in the way they engage an audience with the group of characters. Develop a group of performances using the extract...
Curated OER
Nursery Rhyme Modernization
Students retell a nursery rhyme updating it and create a video. In this Movie Maker nursery rhyme instructional activity, students use technology to update a nursery rhyme. Students incorporate special effects, actions, and captured...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
Media Literacy
Young learners today are bombarded by media manipulation. Help them develop the skills they will need to become savvy 21st century media consumers with a unit on media literacy.
Curated OER
This Was the Noblest Roman of Them All
High schoolers analyze the problems with staging and character using the play Julius Caesar. They summarize the final scene of the play and view film versions of the scene. Additionally, they prepare a promptbook for the final scene and...
Curated OER
Satire Witch Project
Students examine the use of titles with video. They create a short horror film based on a classic work of literature or other subject area writing. Students use a single camera and a single shot. Using Adobe Premiere Elements, students...
Curated OER
Tolerance: Words that Hurt/Words that Heal
Students "role-play" the part of a person who says unkind things and are photographed while doing so. They then act out a story about making friends. They practice saying kind things and are photographed. Word bubbles are added...
Curated OER
Imagining the Environment: Introduction
Young scholars examine the importance of the environment including the setting, lights, sound, costumes, and props for a play or story. They visualize the appropriate environments and practice applying the techniques.
Curated OER
It's All In How You Look At It
Students work collaboratively to create artistic renderings of digital photographs using a color value scale and grid techniques in this late-elementary school lesson based upon Ted Rose's book Discovering Drawing. The lesson includes a...
Curated OER
Audio Engineers: Sound Weavers
Students explore audio engineering. In this career education and "sound" science lesson, students define related vocabulary and make connections between the music they listen to and the job an audio engineer does after listening to...
Curated OER
Ethics and the World of Medicine
Students examine ethical issues in the field of medicine. In this ethics lesson, students explore primary and secondary sources regarding the discernment that medical professionals are presented with as they treat illnesses. Students...