Humanities Express

Summer Workshop Integrates Media Literacy and Foreign Language Instruction

The implementation of new technologies, such as the Internet and other audio/visual formats, into foreign language teaching requires new forms of media literacy as instructors adapt these new technologies for classroom use and repurpose them for teaching. To help teachers of French and Spanish develop the critical perspectives and multimedia production skills required to integrate new media and foreign language instruction, Diane Birckbichler (French and Italian and Foreign Language Center), Jan Macián (Spanish and Portuguese), and Abhijit Varde (Foreign Language Center) recently taught a summer workshop entitled Major Media, which was offered in June as a 3 to 5-credit-hour intensive course.

The workshop integrated technological literacy and multimedia training. Participants first explored the formal operations and reception, in both the target culture and abroad, of each new medium. Then, for the remainder of the workshop, groups of participants created content-based, on-line modules for eventual classroom application, as they adapted and managed new media pieces using the latest Web design software. Topics covered included: media, visual, film, and informational literacies and cultures; culture-specific Internet and audio-visual resources; audio/visual capturing and editing; photo-editing; and Web site design and production. Readings addressed both theoretical and practical concerns with respect to major media.

The World Media and Culture Center (http://wmcc.osu.edu/) in Hagerty Hall hosted the workshop, providing participants with access to state-of-the-art facilities such as the Foreign Language Center´s Hypermedia Studio. Sponsored by SBC, which also sponsors College of Humanities instructional technology projects in Chinese and Japanese, the Major Media workshop has been offered annually since 2001 and has served teachers from school districts including Columbus Public, Gahanna Lincoln, and Upper Arlington as well as graduate teaching associates from Ohio State.

More information about the project is available online at http://majormedia.osu.edu/, including samples of student work from previous years.