Digital Media in Small Learning Communities

• In Event: Media Literacy and Outreach in Ethnically Diverse High Schools

Abstract

Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis employs the use of “Small Learning Communities” (SLCs) in various topical areas to serve its student body -- one of the most diverse in the city, including a large number of primarily underserved Somali, Latinos, and African-American students. I am working with College of Education professors and the Roosevelt teachers on a new digital media-oriented SLC for college-bound students called the DigMe program. DigMe students use digital and Internet technologies in order to better traditional subject areas including science, social studies and English, and they take coursework in critical media studies and media production, where they produce documentary film and other media artifacts. My own work with them focuses on launching an online student newspaper. Through this work, we are able to foster both technical skills and digital literacy in students, teaching them to question mainstream media while producing their own media.

Author

• Shayla Thiel-Stern, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities