Learning objectives
The course aims to achieve the following objectives, aligned to the "Dublin descriptors":
1.1. To know the main features of nowadays digital media, especially in reference to children’s and teens’ lives.
1.2. To know the basic terminology and concepts of media pedagogy and media literacy education, as well as their historical development.
2.1. To design media education activities, aimed at specific targets.
2.2. To critically analyze and elaborate the concepts studied, linking themes, authors and trends.
2.3. To connect the theories to typical cases of media-educational work, analyzed and understood with the conceptual tools of the discipline.
3. To critically analyze mainstream media texts, and the processes/products of media literacy education activities.
4. To communicate in oral and multimedia format their own thoughts on the studied issues.
Prerequisites
The course requires the prior knowledge of terms, concepts and theories of theory of education, social pedagogy, teaching methods, educational design, docimology, and history of education.
Course unit content
The course intends to offer a guided design experience of media education interventions, each dedicated to one or more salient features of contemporary digital media.
For this aim, the teaching methods related to the analysis of texts and use of media – methods aimed at children, adolescents and adults in school and out-of-school contexts – will be examined in greater depth. Through the knowledge of these methods and thanks to the experience of guided design, we will try to reconstruct, by induction, a theoretical framework of media pedagogy, with its history and its orientations.
Bibliography
Compulsory texts:
1. V. Codeluppi, Il tramonto della realtà, Roma, Carocci, 2018.
2. D. Buckingham, Media education. Alfabetizzazione, apprendimento e cultura contemporanea, Trento, Erickson, 2006.
3. D. Felini, Crossing the Bridge: Literacy between School Education and Contemporary Cultures, in J. Flood, S. Brice Heath e D. Lapp (a cura di), Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts, New York-London, Erlbaum, 2008, pp. 19-26 (disponibile nel corso online di Pedagogia dei media su http://elly.dusic.unipr.it/).
4. D. Felini (a cura di), Educare al cinema: le origini. Riflessioni ed esperienze di pedagogia dei media fino agli anni della contestazione, Milano, Guerini, 2015.
5. materiali didattici caricati nel corso online di Pedagogia dei media su http://elly.dusic.unipr.it/.
One book to be chosen among:
- C. Di Bari, A. Mariani (a cura di), Media education 0-6. Le tecnologie digitali nella prima infanzia tra critica e creatività, Roma, Anicia, 2018.
- G. Bonaiuti, A. Calvani, L. Menichetti, G. Vivanet, Le tecnologie educative, Roma, Carocci, 2017.
- D. Felini (a cura di), Video game education. Studi e percorsi di formazione, Milano, Unicopli, 2012.
- M. Gui, A dieta di media. Comunicazione e qualità della vita, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014.
- G. Riva, Nativi digitali. Crescere e apprendere nel mondo dei nuovi media, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014.
- G. Riva, Selfie. Narcisismo e identità, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016.
- F. Colombo, Il paese leggero. Gli italiani e i media tra contestazione e riflusso, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2012.
- M. Ranieri, S. Manca, I social network nell'educazione. Basi teoriche, modelli applicativi e linee guida, Trento, Erickson, 2013.
- S. Goodman, Teaching Youth Media. A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production, and Social Change, New York, Teachers College Press, 2003.
- R. Hobbs, Digital and media literacy, Thousand Oaks (California), Corwin Press, 2011.
- D. Walker (a cura di), A Pedagogy of Powerful Communication. Youth Radio and Radio Arts in the Multilingual Classroom, New York, Peter Lang, 2014.
On methodological aspects of designing, evaluating and assessing media education:
- D. Felini, R. Trinchero (a cura di), Progettare la media education, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2015.
The textbooks are the same for students who attend and who not attend the classes.
Teaching methods
In a totally experimental way, this year's course will be built as a long project work, thanks to which students, individually or in pairs, will be accompanied to understand some features of contemporary digital media and to design media education activities aimed at explaining those same features to fictitious target groups.
The guiding text for the course is: V. Codeluppi, Il tramonto della realtà (Carocci, 2018). The other texts in the bibliography will be combined with it.
Given the workshop nature of the course, the frequency of the lessons is strongly recommended.
Within the project work path, other forms of lessons will be available: lecture, simulation, group discussion, online cooperative work.
Assessment methods and criteria
The final evaluation will take place through an oral examination, which also considers the term papers carried out by the students.
The questions concern the concepts of media literacy education, the connection between terms, concepts, theories, and trends, and the link between theories and typical media literacy education experiences in different contexts and with different audiences.
The examination which shows, with proper language and terminology, the understanding of the basic concepts is considered sufficient. The appropriate reference to authors and trends, the connection or comparison between theories, and the application of theory to practice (and vice versa) are elements that concur to determine a grade above satisfactory.
