January 2020

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it

for a few minutes – including you. “

– Anne Lamott 

Hello!

Do you recognize these lovely images? If you grew up in the 1970’s, I bet you do. I have so many memories of creating hook rugs in my youth. I felt like an artist and a magician, making something beautiful out of nothing, watching the picture evolve as I hooked thread after thread. Believe it or not, I’ve revisited this hobby this year because I noticed a pattern creeping into my life. While I was watching a program on my TV screen, I also had my phone in my hand. Constantly glancing. Multi-tasking. Not paying full attention to either screen. Not wanting to choose. I decided that this was not a habit I wanted to continue. The little downtime I had each evening had turned into a continuation of my often frazzled day. I wanted to find something creative to do with my hands that didn’t involve technology (or, let’s be honest, M&Ms). I purchased a couple of options and have been hooked ever since (see what I did there?). 

My desire for some non-tech creativity was validated earlier this week when I attended the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Public Media Thought Forum as part of the NETA Conference . Austin Kleon was the opening keynote. You may not know his name but you most definitely know his work. He is the creator of “Newspaper Blackout” poetry  and has since written books, created workshops, and has become a creative guru spreading his humor, advice, and creativity around the world. His talk was beyond inspiring. I completely fell in love with his approach, swiftly bought his book and started to plug away (pun intended.) I also had a fun social media moment when he retweeted me. #fangirl  

While his approach is not anti-tech in any way, he does remind us about the importance of stepping away, taking a walk, using our hands, and looking up. He also has a great take on the notion of “art as theft” which I think is incredibly relevant to our work in media literacy as we are constantly teaching about sharing, remixing, and building on what has come before. I know some of you have brought “Newspaper Blackout” exercises to your classroom and media literacy lessons. I’m excited to continue to read Austin's work and practice my blackout poetry (when I’m not hooking rugs, of course.*)

Welcome to my new “What’s New” section of my monthly newsletter. It’s great to have you! I thought it would be nice on a regular basis to give you some news on what’s been happening at NAMLE. Let’s give it a shot!

KYLE – Donnell and I are super excited that Kyle Plantz has joined our team as Program Assistant. He’s smart, organized, proactive, and seems to get our jokes which is incredibly important. Kyle has jumped in and is working on everything from social media to newsletters to coordinating our org partner communication and outreach. He’s already thinking ahead to Media Literacy Week 2020 and Conference 2021. We are lucky to have him!

VOLUNTEER STRUCTURE – Our staff growth has made us re-evaluate our work flow and how best to engage volunteers.  Because more and more of our day-to-day operations will be managed by staff, we are now focusing our volunteer efforts on our biggest initiatives - Media Literacy Week and our National Conference. For this reason, we have dissolved our Leadership and Student Leadership Councils and will be forming new committees for MLW 2020 and Conference 2021.  If you are interested in being part of the team for these two major projects, please email Kyle at kplantz@namle.net .

PROJECTS - As Tony Streit, NAMLE’s Board President, mentioned in his January 23rd letter to members, we are in the process of flushing out our plans for a research project being managed by Sherri Hope Culver from Temple University. Sherri and I are working closely on timeline and plan. We will update membership with details as we go. Tony also mentioned our effort to bring national educational organizations together to discuss media literacy across disciplines. I am happy to say that since the beginning of the year I’ve already connected with NCSS , NCTE , ISTE , JEA , NCTM and others in an effort to bring our organizations together to move media literacy forward.

NAMLE AROUND TOWN - As I mentioned above, I had the chance to attend the recent NETA Conference in Washington D.C. where I had the pleasure of doing a pre-conference workshop with KQED and PBS Education entitled “Media Literacy In Your Community.” It was a pleasure to talk with people from around the country about how to enhance media literacy in their state. 

We thought 2020 was going to be a big year for media literacy and the first month has proven that to be true already. I’ve been watching on social media and in my email inbox and seeing some incredible work being done in our community combatting misinformation about big news stories like the Australian wildfires, the Corona Virus, the Kobe Bryant tragedy, and so much more.

Keep it up! We need you!

*Look - I'm getting there!!!

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