Educational Media in Action

Delia Pompa Media is in living rooms, classrooms, and even the palm of your hand, so how can parents and teachers get the most out of the time kids spend in front of the screen? Please join me for Educational Media in Action, part three of the Reading Rockets webcast, Educational Media: Screen Time and Literacy.

Announcer: Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast series is provided by the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Delia Pompa Hello, I’m Delia Pompa. In the previous segment of this webcast, we discussed the impact of educational media. In this segment, our panelists will talk about some practical options for making media an education tool. Welcome Dr. Linebarger, Ms. Lewis, and Ms. Guernsey.

Lisa, when it comes to media, you have some guidelines you call the three C’s. Tell us about those.

Lisa Guernsey: Yes, they are content, context, and your child. And I arrived at these, actually, after reading the research. I came to it thinking I would find some guideline about how much time children should be spending in front of the screen at say age 2, 5, 7. Instead, the research really pointed me to how much the content matters, which is something we’ve talked about quite a bit, right, but making sure you see what’s on screen, you know, understand that the characters are really using techniques to help children learn what is onscreen. That it’s appropriate for them and their age level.

Context might be something that we don’t hear quite as much about, but I think it’s just as important, which is how- number one- how does it fit into the child’s day. Number two; is it something that’s building on what they’ve already learned? Does it help them connect to something that’s already happening in their world? Say there’s something that they’re seeing on the screen that’s about the beach. Maybe there can be a moment where a mother could bring in some context by saying, “hey, we went to the beach last week. Look, they’re going to the beach this week.” Or, “Look, they built this sandcastle.” You know, “Hey, maybe next we’re at the beach, let’s make sure to build one. We can do it better than that.” You know, these are perhaps for younger kids, but that’s the kind of context I’m talking about. And then also making sure that the screen is not just background noise to children, that they’re really having purposeful interactions with what they’re seeing. That it’s really a storytelling moment for them instead of just wallpaper background that they’re really just playing around and not paying attention to.

And then there’s, thirdly, the “your child” piece, and that’s just really understanding that all children are different. Their age matters so much, and they’re gonna bring different levels of understanding to this based on what age they are, but also their developmental age matters, meaning that some five-year olds may be ready to fully kind of understand or grasp some literacy concepts that other five-year olds are not yet ready to grasp in that way. So parents and teachers really have to tune into the individual child and find out, okay, what’s going to be most appropriate for this kid at this moment in their learning experience?

Delia Pompa: Deb, you had an interesting experience in this field. What happened and what did you discover?

Deborah Linebarger: Well, when I was trying to come up with a dissertation topic, which was really challenging, my now 16-year old, who was then 3, was messing with the TV buttons. And I knew I wanted to do something in television in literacy, and he got the closed-captions stuck, and for weeks my husband and I could not figure out — of course, we threw the manuals away — couldn’t figure out how to turn them off. And so as we were sitting there watching, and I was sort of bemoaning that I didn’t have a topic, my husband said, “You know, for the last, like, four weeks, all we’ve done is read the television. Why don’t you do something with that?” And at that same point, my graduate advisor was at the summit at the White House on early learning, and she came back and said it. It was like, you know, sort of aligning of the stars. So my dissertation examined on-screen print in the form of captions with elementary school kids. And they did learn.

Delia Pompa: I was gonna say so what did you learn from your dissertation?

Deborah Linebarger: They were able to read specific words, and I carefully constructed those with appropriate, you know, numbers of repetitions and the script and everything, and I followed up and got a grant from the Department of Ed, and found that it extended into commercially available programs, so on-screen print is really powerful. Now, kids only look at it about 10 percent of the time, but when they do, it can contribute to better word recognition, better fluency, and better comprehension.

Delia Pompa: So what else can parents do to make screen time more educationally sound for kids?

Deborah Linebarger: Well, in that same study, the other half of it was co-viewing. So we are trying to really understand what parents could do to co-view with their kids, and so part of the issue is — you know, I could give you all these wonderful co-viewing strategies. You know, stop and preview and all of that, but parents aren’t going to do that, so we had to be realistic. And so we tried all these strategies. At one point, we turned the volume down, and a couple of the kids actually got up and left. So we decided that was probably not the best strategy. But we came up with taking your child’s spelling list and asking them to watch — we were using captions at the time &mdash and circle the words on their spelling list that they saw on the captions, or we gave them an alternate list, you know, the Dolch word list, like the most common words in the K through 3rd grade primers. And then the other part that they did was write down words that they thought were interesting to the story. And when the kids did these kinds of things, we took it into homes and tested it out, and the kids who did that performed significantly better than the kids who watched just the captions alone, who did better than those who had neither of those.

Delia Pompa: Lisa, walk us through an example of how a parent can watch a TV show with a child.

Lisa Guernsey: I think there’s two routes. There’s the more intensive one, which is really you’re literally sitting on the couch with your child, and you’re saying, “We’re gonna take this moment to watch the show together.” And it’s really — it’s a very warm moment to for you and your kid, too, right? You’re snuggling up together, and you’re watching, and maybe you could even pause it once in awhile, right? And say, “Hey, what happen there?” And, “What do you think is gonna happen next?” And those can really help build some sequencing and some narratives and skills in kids. There’s the less intensive method, which is the one that I kind of used a little bit more in my home. Honestly, like, if I was gonna take the time to be on the couch with my kids, then that was book time. You know? That was when I wanted to be with the book with them.

So I would make sure that when they were watching, it was a time when I was kind of around. I was maybe folding the laundry and kind of — you know, seeing what was happening on screen, but not necessarily 100 percent engaged with it. Maybe I went around the corner and was unloading the dishwasher, or maybe I was finishing up, you know, some other kind of project around the house, but I was aware of what they were seeing, so that as soon as the program was over, I could kind of check in with them just for a second or two, you know? Maybe it was something silly, like, you know, that goofy character, you know, he reminds of your cousin, Aiden. Or I could actually ask them, like, “Did you get it? Like, did you get that thing that Clifford was saying there at the end? What do you think they should’ve done At the end of the show?” That can just provide your child with a sense that your mom, your dad thinks that this TV program is something that you can learn from, and you can get something from. So, if a child starts seeing you start asking questions around it, they’re gonna just be more prone to tune into it that way, to understand it as something that’s informational or that’s something like a book. Instead of just, “Oh, this is veg-out time. This is when my parents aren’t paying any attention to me whatsoever.”

Delia Pompa: Let’s take it back to the classroom. Marnie, you’ve encountered some skepticism, you noted, when trying to integrate educational media into the classroom. What do you think is at the root of that skepticism, and how do you respond when you encounter it?

Marnie Lewis: I don’t think it’s so much the material, I think it’s getting past the technology. Part of my job is to make sure that the technology works. So first you got to get them the technology, then you’ve got to make sure in works for them, and it’s reliable because it teaches time is so valuable, and if they consistently though to the technology and want to show that educational media and it doesn’t work again and again, then what happens is they stop using it. So that’s the number one frustration, I think, that my teachers have is when it doesn’t work. But I feel like I’ve kept it working where they are actively using the educational media.

I think the other struggle is that it’s overwhelming. There’s so much out there. Currently, we have subscriptions to two video databases that are subscription based, and they basically focus on one. They haven’t even migrated to the other one because they’re so robust a number of videos in the Discovery Streaming, that they can get to Learn 360. So, those are the two main things, I think, that keep them held back.

Delia Pompa: It would help us a lot if you could describe a classroom that’s doing a good job of integrating educational media into the curriculum.

Marnie Lewis: Sure. I have a couple teachers. One, for instance, she’s an amazing science teacher, and she’s teaching these complex ideas. And at any turn, she has gone on the web and she’s looked for those simulations, simulating volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and tectonic plates, and she’s looked for video clips. And she’s taken that 30 seconds or that two-minute video, and she’s ready to play it at the time when she’s instructing. And she does a phenomenal job, and it really brings it home for these kids. And the test score show that they’re learning.

Another component is when you have your class in a lab setting, you, once again, there’s a lot of sites that they can use. And I think Lisa brought this site up at BrainPOP.com. It has amazing resources because it’s the full circle, where you can show a very short video that very clearly explains the topic at anywhere from reading to math to science to social studies, and on any topic. And they actually have a Brain Pop, junior for the younger level, K-2 and even 3. And along with that component are quizzes. There’s an easy quiz, a hard quiz, and then there’s activities that the kids can actually choose to do. So if a teacher is properly going in and doing this, they are gonna show the video, maybe as group setting. There’s moments to pause while you’re playing the video, talk about it, question, continue playing, let the kids go take the easy quiz or difficult quiz on their own, and then have them do an activity to demonstrate understanding.

Delia Pompa So it’s all integrating.

Marnie Lewis It is a full, integrated lesson. And it’s almost done for the teacher, which is why I love it and I pay for the subscription because I really believe in it. And it sort of takes that edge off the teacher, and it sort of models for them what a great, integrated lesson looks like.

Delia Pompa So Deb, how much research has been done on integrating media into the classroom, and education media in the classroom itself?

Deborah Linebarger: Actually, there is quite a bit. We find that when we can conduct things in classrooms, and we’ve compared classroom versus home, just strictly viewing, it goes back to a point that Lisa made about context. So where it’s occurring really affects how kids process it. So in that classroom, the issues that it really seems to boil down to are sort of the professional development issues. So when it’s seamlessly integrated, as Marnie is describing, then it’s just really powerful and really effective. But if you have to fuss with, you know, connecting the SmartBoards, I guess is the new thing, or the, the principal may be really excited about all the new technologies. My middle school principal got this fabulous television news production studio with green walls and everything. It’s, like, the coolest thing, but you know, is that enough? Can a teacher come in there? Do they know how to use it? And so it really comes down to someone like Marnie, who can really sort of help teachers get to the point where they can seamlessly integrate. Otherwise, there’s the gaps. Kids get bored. Kids and lose interest, and it becomes harder. And often kids — at least I’m finding with my own children — have way better media skills. And I always thought I was pretty savvy, but way better media skills than I do, and they don’t see each media device as a separate device. They see it as a way they get information, and so what we have to do, as educators, is really seamlessly transverse this landscape while helping them in terms of the conventions associated with it, and especially the ethics surrounding what you’re using and making good decisions. We really need to incorporate that in it as well, so they can be savvy about the kinds of content.

And I know this kind of thing actually does work. When my 16 year old was 7, he would go to people’s houses and say, “This is inappropriate content for someone my age. It has too much violence.” Now, that makes him sound incredibly geeky, and he’s really not. But I would get parents to call me and say, “Boy, you know, seven-year old telling me I’m a bad parent because I put in “Men in Black,” I think was the example. And, you know, my daughter, the same thing. The mom came in, and she was looking at the wall, and everyone else was watching the show. And she said, “Are you upset?” “No. My mom said this show is inappropriate. It really has too much violence, and the relationships aren’t very good.” And so I think it goes back to setting up the routines and the expectations. And that becomes very powerful, and if you can do that in the classroom, and help parents understand how to do that at home, it’s wonderful.”

Delia Pompa So clearly, sometimes kids know more about this than we do.

Deborah Linebarger: Oh, yeah.

Delia Pompa: But if we still have a responsibility to work with them, Marnie, so one of the hot button issues for teachers has been differentiated instruction. How can teachers use educational media to achieve the goal of responding to different kids needs?

Marnie Lewis: Yeah, it’s a wonderful opportunity, especially with the online media. The closed captioning is a great, new tool, especially with the Discovery Streaming because most of their videos now come with closed captioning options. Actually, Brain Pop does as well. And when the kids are watching this, the idea is that you can set each child up in a lab situation, or even a center situation, and they have their headphones, and they could watch it at their own pace. They can rewind it. “I missed that.” Because you want to set them up with an activity. So whether they have a list of questions that they have to answer, and activity at the end that needs to happen. They need to know what they’re looking for when they’re watching this media. Then they can do it at their own pace. And there, once again, there’s that audio component, along with the visual and the text, so all of this allows for that differentiated instruction from the highest user down to the lowest. If they don’t want to use the closed caption, they don’t have to look at it. But if they don’t need the audio component, they don’t have to- they can take the headphones off. So it allows for great diversity with ease.

Deborah Linebarger: Could I add one thing to that?

Delia Pompa: Actually, we’re gonna wait for the next segment

Deborah Linebarger: Okay. Great.

Delia Pompa: And you’re gonna add some more because you’ve given us so much to think about already in this segment. But before we wrap up this segment, let’s take a moment to look ahead.

Lisa, what are your thoughts on the future of this field?

Lisa Guernsey: Well, I think there’s a couple of places where we need a lot more research. I feel like parents are asking lots of questions that are ahead of maybe where the research is. The first is differentiating between background and foreground TV. We’re seeing a lot of homes where TV is on all the time, or even something on the computer is on all the time, and we need to learn more about how that’s impacting children. We’re already seeing some real negative effects, particularly at younger ages, in language development particularly.

Then, the second piece that I’m pretty fascinated in is how we can use the creation of media to help kids learn literacy. So, you know, using video cameras, and their own kind of digital cameras to create books and new things online. That would be a new area for research.

Delia Pompa: Thanks. Deb, I was gonna ask you about the holes in research, but I hope you’ll also come back to your previous comment. But what are the holes in research?

Deborah Linebarger: You know, the biggest sort of emphasis right now in the effects literature has to do with kids two and under. So what are the problems and what are the benefits of media exposure with that age group. And then the second biggest question is this difference between foreground and background exposure. So we’ve actually been studying it in our lab, and we find that the more exposure to background television — it’s just on in the room, it’s not directed at you, but you’re there— It’s disrupting executive function, which is sort of self-regulation, emotion regulation, sitting still, attention to things that I think when these kids go to school, it really is very apparent. I mean, you could probably almost identify the kids who have more. There’s a body of literature on noise, and background television, I think, fits into that literature. And if I could say anything, if you’re not gonna believe me on the content issue, if I could just get you to avoid background television exposure, I would be ecstatic. And we’re also looking to see if background music is a problem as well.

Delia Pompa: So that’s where research is taking us?

Deborah Linebarger: That, and then the lowing – economically disadvantaged kids, and their use of media.

Delia Pompa: Marnie, now the big question. How do you see the relationship between educators and media changing in the future?

Marnie Lewis: What it becomes or what I hope it becomes? I would like to see that the educational media become non-negotiable, that it be required, not just sort of expected. I think the teachers are gonna be pressured by the students coming in and the parents demanding the changes in the usage of the educational media that’s available. And my hope is that educational departments and the higher-ups realize the value, especially through all the research that’s being done, that there is a tremendous amount of value in this resource, and that we need to really start harnessing it a bit better.

Delia Pompa: Thank you, everyone, again. That marks the end of my questions, but in part four of our webcast, our audience will have some questions of their own. I hope you’ll join us.

For more information about how you can help the struggling reader in your life, and to watch the rest of this webcast, please visit us at www.readingrockets.org. Thank you for joining us and take care.

Announcer: Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast series is provided by the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Announcer: Funding for the Reading Rockets Webcast Series is provided by the United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.