Enniscorthy teacher at forefront of innovative ‘MediaWise’ resource
AN ENNISCORTHY teacher has been at the forefront of a new educational resource which will be introduced in schools this September.
Gearóid McCauley, a teacher at St Senan’s National Scool, Enniscorthy, is a member of the MediaWise Expert Working Group who devised a new free educational resource to help teach primary schoolchildren about the media, advertising and fake news.
The resource called ‘MediaWise’ from safefood is an eight week programme suitable for primary school children of all ages and has been designed to help children makes sense of the media world around them and the many messages that they are exposed to.
Gearóid McCauley said: ‘From a teacher’s perspective, we hope to meet the needs of our students, and develop their understanding of media. Children are very media and technology savvy but less aware of why the media sends them these messages, and the point of view these messages are trying to get across. As children believe what they see and hear, I feel it’s really important we give children the opportunity to understand what’s coming at them from the media and how they process that information.’
St Senan’s National School is one of a number of primary schools across the country piloting the programme and Gearóid said it has been very well received by staff, students and parents alike.
‘When I was contacted I was happy to get on board with the programme and when it came to the writing process I wanted to put it into teacher friendly lesson plans. It is designed to work with the current curriculum and is not an add on to the curriculum. It’s a cross curriculum resource and it can be incorporated into current lesson plans in a number of ways.
‘ There never been a specific resource for teaching media and I really feel that it is such an important thing especially in the age of fake news now. It’s a very appropriate time to introduce a resource like this into schools.
‘We looks at things like needs and wants, fantasy and reality and try to make children more aware.
‘Children are responding really well to the programme and we use a lot of drama and visual aid. We link it in with history, geography and a bit of maths too. We’ve been getting really good feedback and we’ve finished the pilot programme now and MediaWise will be introduced into all schools in September.
‘Schools will register on MediaWise. ie and have access to all the resources. It’s a really interactive programme and we look at adverts and analyse them using various skills.
‘It’s a really practical resource and when I was writing the plans I wanted it to be like that and something that the children could really get involved in.
‘Kids are already using tablets, phones, television, magazines and this is really just tapping into something that they already enjoy and helping them develop an awareness of the messages they are being exposed to.
‘We want them to know now to make good decisions and there is a lot of active learning in the programme. Kids don’t respond well to learning the same thing over and over again so there is a huge variety in MediaWise and it’s really open to teachers to design their own lesson plans based on what works for them.’
Gearóid said that MediaWise pro- vides 32 lesson plans with eight lessons for each of the four age groups across primary school. Lessons are suitable for each class grade, linking with a variety of curricular subjects, and using all teaching methodologies including interactive, child-friendly activities. ‘Ultimately it will provide primary school children with a good set of life skills for when they start secondary school.’
Gearóid who has been teaching at St Senan’s for a number of years also works with Enniscorthy Educational Centre.
Fiona Gilligan, Director, Marketing & Communications, Safefood said: ‘We know from research that children are bombarded with hundreds of media messages every day, whether that’s advertising, commercial sponsorships, online gaming or social media. Our own research has revealed that children as young as 3 see upwards of 1,000 TV ads for unhealthy foods over the course of a year.
‘Safefood’s remit includes the promotion of health amongst children, and with their exposure to so many messages, MediaWise is about helping them evaluate, interpret and critique these to make healthy choices.’
Media specialist Sheena Horgan who was also a member of the working group said: ‘ The rapid evolution of technology and our appetite for it, means Ireland is a very media-centric environment, and media, in its many forms, plays an important role in our children’s lives.
‘Because of this ubiquity, media literacy is an important and necessary contemporary life skill for children growing up in today’s Information Age. It’s also a requirement for full social participation and active citizenship. As parents, educators, organisations, as a society, we have a duty of care to our children to ensure that the dominance of contemporary media culture is of benefit to our children. Mediawise is about empowering our primary school children to have an active and critical relationship with current and emerging media. A relationship that is based on understanding and self-confidence, that will benefit them as they progress through their childhood and into adult life.’
Primary schools can access their free copy of MediaWise online from September this year by visiting www. mediawise.ie where schools can register their interest in the resource.