Developing Critical Thinkers: How PBS KIDS is Approaching Media Literacy

Kids are growing up in a media-rich world surrounded by changing technology and with digital devices at their fingertips. PBS KIDS strives to help kids safely navigate these experiences by creating engaging, educational content that supports foundational media literacy skills — providing the tools kids need to think critically and imaginatively about media and its messages, and encouraging them to be responsible media creators. In this panel, children’s media producers and PBS KIDS colleagues will discuss the strategies being used to foster media literacy skills for young learners and ways they are incorporating media literacy education into PBS KIDS content.

Register for free as a 2024 U.S. Media Literacy Week participant, and you will automatically be registered for this event.

 

Banned Books & Events: From Censorship to Access with Drag Story Hour

In an era where the landscape of censorship is rapidly evolving, libraries and educational institutions face new challenges in promoting freedom of expression and media literacy. This panel discussion explores how the concept of banned events is emerging as the next iteration of the long-standing issue of banned books.

With a focus on Drag Story Hour, panelists will delve into how these events navigate the complexities of media literacy in a polarized United States. Experts will discuss the strategies employed to uphold the values of inclusivity and diversity, the role of libraries as bastions of free thought, and the impact of media literacy on fostering a more informed and accepting society.

This session aims to provide insights and practical approaches for educators, librarians, and community organizers to effectively respond to and counteract the challenges posed by modern censorship. Register for free as a 2024 U.S. Media Literacy Week participant, and you will automatically be registered for this event.

Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas

The Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas is committed to democratic ideals and social justice values. We relate to the media as a dialectical space for criticism and celebration. The media are complex tools whose effects do not always coincide with the intentions. The media can promote democratic participation, support social justice, and offer considerable joy, but they can hinder democracy, ignite violence, and manipulate individuals and society. Our goal for this conference is to facilitate critical discourse about our mediated society with the intention to deepen our understanding and support each other’s work in the transformation of society, to make it socially fairer and environmentally sustainable.

UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMET) Symposium 2023

Structure, Organization and Activities
The 2023 International Symposium will involve a hybrid series of presentations, dialogues, keynotes, cultural activities and engagements over a four-day period focused on Peace, Culture and Social Justice.

Everything will be disseminated open-access via ZOOM and Facebook Live, then uploaded to DCMÉT’s YouTube channel with the consent of presenters.

We are planning for roughly 18 sessions in English and 7 in French and 10 in Spanish. We will also have approximately10 sessions in Korean as well as 4 keynotes that will be simultaneously interpreted.

The one-hour sessions will be structured as dialogues with 3-4 presenters around themes that will be cultivated and developed through several meetings before the Symposium. A central focus will be on peace, culture and social justice with critical overlapping analysis and engagement emphasizing overlapping themes, such as democracy, global citizenship, transformative education, Indigenous knowledge, rights, development and reconciliation, social media, the environment, and solidarity.

Two program coordinators for each language are responsible for developing the sessions, and they are also members of the Organizing Committee, which will be led by Paul R. Carr (the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair DCMÉT) and co-chaired by Gina Thésée (the Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair DCMET). There is also a local organizing committee in Seoul, and a communications sub-committee that will coordinate media relations and dissemination in the four languages ​​of the Symposium.