Media Literacy Workshop
The workshop was facilitated by:
1. Prof. Chris Sperry the Director of Curriculum and Staff Development for Project Look Sharp, a media literacy initiative at Ithaca College;
2. Dr. Irvin Rother (McGill University, Canada) a multi-award winner media educator with over thirty years of experience teaching, consulting and designing curriculum at the school, university, provincial and international levels;
3. Dr. Frank W Baker the author of three books: most recently “Media Literacy in the K12 Classroom” (ISTE). He also contributed two chapters to “Mastering Media Literacy (Solution Tree Press.) He maintains the Media Literacy Clearinghouse website, www.frankwbaker.com. He has written teaching standards for English/Language Arts and Visual/Performing Arts in South Carolina where he resides.
Topics of discussion included: construction of media messages for different audiences, key journalism issues in Kenya, critical thinking and the news and how people interpret messages through their own lenses among other topics.
The two days were full of activity and interaction. The training revolved around group discussions, watching and critically analyzing of news videos. One of the videos analyzed was President Barrack Obama’s speech on ‘Obamacare’ campaigns where participants were tasked to write television and radio news scripts, headlines, social media messages and photo captions.
The workshop was attended by more than forty Multimedia Journalism students. Speaking to a few of them, they expressed their gratitude on how the training had provoked them to critically think before formulating mass media messages.
The workshop ended in a celebratory mood where the participants who successfully completed the two day training were awarded with certificates.
