Impact of Educational Media

Delia Pompa: What makes for quality educational programming? What does the online world have to offer our kids? Please join me for The Impact of Educational Media, part two 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. Welcome to the Reading Rockets webcast: Educational Media: Screen Time, and Literacy. In part one, we discussed the reach of educational media and some of the issues surrounding it. In this segment, we’ll take a look at the impact of educational media, both good and bad. Thank you, Dr. Linebarger, Ms. Lewis and Ms. Guernsey for joining me today. Let’s start by focusing on educational TV programs. You’ve studied a lot of TV programs, Deb. What can you tell us about what makes for a quality program? What are the elements?

Deborah Linebarger: That it has a, a prespecified curriculum, that it doesn’t try to go too broad in their focus, and that they use experts and then they base what they’re doing in research. So either evidence-based practices or best practices from the field.

Delia Pompa: So how does an educational TV program compare to a traditional curriculum?

Deborah Linebarger: I always envision an educational television program as a supplemental to any traditional programming in the, in the classroom, and where it has its power is it can do a couple of things. It can visually represent some really difficult concepts, like understanding how the sounds in words go together, so /m/, /a/, /p/, is really a hard thing for really young children to pick up, so if you see it visually represented, you can learn it in that regard. It also is very motivating, so kids feel very competent at processing its messages. They can handle it, and so what we’ve found is if you can get kids early to reframe the way that they approach watching television, it can fundamentally shift the way that their viewing goes from that point forward. And they begin to ask questions and, and take what they’ve seen on television back to the classroom.

But it takes a clear- I think Marnie expressed it best- that it really takes a, a set of routines around watching television and expectations about what that should look like, both in the home and in the school. And I’m not saying that you can’t relax and enjoy, because by all means you can. But you can also sort of show the dual nature of television.

Delia Pompa: So Marnie, how can teachers integrate educational media into their lesson plans and make the most of it?

Marnie Lewis: There are various ways: using them as hooks to get the class interested in a new topic, to introduce them to the new topic, to reinforce what they’re already learning about in those complex topics. And literacy goes across all content areas, so especially in third grade, when they’re past learning how to read but really trying to comprehend what they’re processing and taking in. Those very visual interactants that the web provides are great educational media pieces.

Delia Pompa: Give us a specific example that might help our viewers understand how that hook is what lead kids into the curriculum or what they’re learning.

Marnie Lewis: Sure. Subject area may be ancient Greece and Rome, which I think is a staple across the curriculum areas. And it’s very hard to understand the ancient times of Rome and Greece. So what better way than to bring up a show that demonstrates what it looked like, a reenactment. So a lot of those, you don’t want them to be long clips. They can be very short, which is what really is needed in the classroom.

Other ways is, you know, in science area where you’re teaching them about how matter changes. That’s a really complex idea as well and visuals really help the child understand and comprehend what is happening- that you need heat and cooling. Just talking about it is one thing, but showing them with a visual is another way. Now you can do it with, you know, hands-on materials, but sometimes those aren’t accessible in every classroom. And everyone usually has access to a TV or a computer, hopefully. And that’s another means of getting the point across.

Delia Pompa: So can parents do this too, Lisa? Is there a way they can use educational media to enrich what’s happening in the traditional format in school?

Lisa Guernsey: Absolutely. I mean it would help a lot and I think that if, if teachers and parents started to connect more and so that parents knew, oh, they’re learning about this unit. You know, my second grader’s all over Abe Lincoln all of a sudden. You know, really interested in everything about the time period when Abraham Lincoln was growing up as a boy, for instance. And then, a mother or father or a very able caregiver at home could say, “Well, let’s go and see, you know, what’s on the web that’s related to this. Or let’s see if we can find a clip about this.”

I also have been finding that there, aside from just the web, there are software products that can be quite useful to parents in helping to reinforce what’s happened at school. We have been using a lot of BrainPOP at home. BrainPOP is a really kind of fun subscription service to these tiny little videos. They’re usually ten, maybe fifteen minutes long. They’re little animations, and they describe a subject or a topic that a child might have a question about. So my daughter was learning about China in second grade, and she came home and she popped in, she decided to do Great Wall because she kept hearing about this Great Wall. And up popped a video clip about the Great Wall of China that she could watch for ten minutes. It reinforced what she had been learning earlier that day. It also gave her some good questions to ask her teacher about the next morning.

Delia Pompa: Deb, let’s go back to your research. What programming element do you find contributes most to developing effective literacy skills and why?

Deborah Linebarger: I don’t know that it’s necessarily one but it’s a combination of, to get down to this sort of structural features. So, it also depends upon the age of the child. So, for preschool a really good story where the, let’s say, scientific content is weaved in very well with the narrative like Sid the Science Kid. When they’re really close together like that and weaved in so well, kids will actually learn the content better than if it’s sort of disconnected from what the main purpose of the story is. As kids get older they can handle more information, more content, so repetition of the ideas becomes really key.

And so in our lab work coding infant, toddler, preschool media using all of these different components, and we’re finding that when we use best practices that have been validated in the classroom or validated in the home, when those are being used, that’s the kind of content that kids learn the best from. So little kids, you know, speaking slowly, talking directly at them, rephrasing, repeating what they’ve said, those kinds of things can begin to simulate what Lisa was talking about with the social interaction enough that, depending upon how fast-paced things are, kids can begin to pick up components of it. So really, I look for programs that incorporate those kinds of best practices from the classrooms, and I often have teachers screen them and give me their feedback or try them out.

Delia Pompa: Can you give us some specific examples that you’ve found in your research?

Deborah Linebarger: Well, I’ve done summative evaluations or did they make their series goals with Between the Lions. And it’s really powerful for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten kids. I’ve done the study of Super Why, and it supports code skills, you know, merging and blending syllables and splitting words apart. I’ve studied “Dora the Explorer,” and it supports Spanish language vocabulary acquisition.

Delia Pompa: You’ve done a lot of research.

Deborah Linebarger: Yes, yes.

Delia Pompa: Well, there’s sometimes a gap between research and reality. Are, are there any findings we should take? Any of your findings we should take with a grain of salt, that you take with a grain of salt?

Deborah Linebarger: You know, the biggest, the biggest issue is, I can go and design an experiment, and I can, you know, maximize the impact of it. But it’s not exactly what’s going to happen necessarily, especially if it’s, you know, not something that has materials that can bring it into the classroom. So while I might design the experiment and deliver it, and they might get the full implementation of watching it twenty times, that doesn’t mimic what’s really going to happen in the home. And so when I see these effects, it’s great but it doesn’t often occur naturally. And I think that’s the biggest disconnect in trying to bring parents into the picture of saying, if you use these programs, they’re powerful and teachers to help reinforce that as well. So that would be, that would be the biggest.

Delia Pompa: Lisa, you’ve created an acronym, which I find fascinating, to represent the positive elements of educational TV: SPLERN. What is SPLERN, and what elements does it stand for?

Lisa Guernsey: So it’s a shorthand way of going over some of the things that, that Deb’s already mentioned.

But “S” is for straight-line storytelling. So especially with younger kids, you want to find a program that takes them from point A to point B and doesn’t include a lot of diversions, because that’s going to really confuse them and they’re not going to remember kind of where they were.

So then there’s “P” for participation. Find programs that give children a moment to participate, answer back to what they’ve seen on screen. Pinky Dinky Doo does this in a really fun way. Blues Clues is known for it. Sesame Street’s been doing it for years. “Sid the Science Kid” also has it. There’s a lot of good programs out there these days that incorporate that.

So then we’re on to “L”. “L” is for labeling on screen. And that’s what I was talking about before with, with my example I gave earlier with Bob the Builder, where if it, if the character on screen, if Bob the Builder had actually pointed to the stall and labeled it and said, “this is a stall, we are going to build something like this,” that would have helped children very much to understand it.

So now we’re on to “E”. “E” is for engagement. This is the kind of the no-brainer. It’s got to be engaging content or children are just going to completely tune it out. “R” is for review, repetition, routine. Find a program, and this applies actually to the, to the web experiences children have as well, where they don’t feel like they have to relearn the experience of actually being part of that media. They don’t have to understand, “oh, this is going to happen when this character does this.” They already kind of know that’s coming. So they can really focus on what the story is and what the lessons are in that story. And then maybe even at the end there’s a moment where the character says, “Okay, we learned this today, and now we’re, you know, we, we covered this topic area” the same way really good teachers do.

And then there’s “N”, and that’s just for making sure that the content is nonviolent. Just as, as parents, teachers, all the way up through even the, the third grade, look for content that is, doesn’t have any aggressive moments in it, because children will imitate what they see on screen. They want to try it out, and it just makes our lives all a lot easier when, when children aren’t then suddenly, you know, punching and kicking and choking on other kids because they happened to see that on screen somewhere.

Delia Pompa: Let’s move from TV to online media. Marnie, with the impact of media, kids now have to develop a whole other set of literacy skills and that’s digital literacy skills. What are these skills, and, and how do you develop them? How are they developed in kids?

Marnie Lewis: Well, we talked about this a little bit before. It’s a marriage between the home and school, and it can’t just happen at school. It’s okay if it’s where the, the instruction begins, and we’re talking about teaching kids the ethical usage of technology, how do we appropriately interact with the technology on a computer. Trying to discern what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate. They’re pretty young, and they’re not able to make that dissertation, but that’s where the adult comes in. And they need to model for the child and say, “This is appropriate, this is inappropriate.” I set guidelines in the school that there is no violent games allowed. I make it clear to those, to the, those teachers as well. And sometimes they’ll try and sneak in there, and the kids will, will try and get to that line. And they’re like, “Is this, is this appropriate or is this not?” And they know to ask when they’re sort of questioning it. So you’re setting up that checklist for them as they go along.

And they’re, and so they’re learning: “So this is how I learn what’s right, what’s not.” And they need to learn how to find their media if you’re not going to give it to them, which we do. And which is appropriate because we’ve already researched it, we’ve evaluated it. We say, “This is appropriate,” and that’s what the parent needs to do at home, do the same thing. And I make it a little easier by saying, “Hey, you can come to this website, and I’ve already looked through all these sites, and if you want to send your kid to this site, you’re probably going to be okay.”

Delia Pompa: You mentioned teachers. Is there a set of digital literacy skills that teachers need also or adults need in general, parents and teachers?

Marnie Lewis: It is. It’s the knowledge of how to keep your child safe online, how to keep them within a certain parameter of, you can set up filters on your own home computer, and like I said before, most schools have filters set up. And it’s hard to teach a child how to beware of inappropriate places to go on the web when they’re already blocked at the school. So it’s a better opportunity at home to teach this because it’s most likely going to happen there.

Deborah Linebarger: I was saying one of the things we’ve studied in television that has transferred now into computers is sort of the conventions of using it. So I was thinking maybe, you know, knowing how to navigate menus and use a mouse and those kinds of things, as well as being able to adequately assess if this is a reliable source of information, which probably doesn’t happen as much until they’re getting older.

Marnie Lewis: It doesn’t, but once again you model it and introduce it where you’re taking them to reliable sites where they’re familiar with, that they see on TV, so the PBS and Nickolodeon, the Sports Illustrated, whatever it might be. every, every show out there has a web component.

Delia Pompa: Which leads me to another question, Deb. I mean, there’s a lot of cross-promotion of different platforms, cross-platform promotion of digital media, so TV shows have online components, online components have TV shows. So how do parents and teachers take advantage of this?

Deborah Linebarger: You know, we’ve recently in the last couple of years started a line of research Looking at character appeal and identification of characters and social interaction and trying to determine- back in the eighties, let me back up for a second, we measured these kids and followed them up when they were teens in the nineties, and we found that the more involved kids were with television the more likely they were to be affected negatively by violent content. so I’ve always been sort of militant with my children and when I speak with parent groups that please don’t buy, you know, Spongebob paraphernalia for your home, you know — bedding, whatever — please, let’s just get the media out of the house. But I, I’ve had to start to rethink that because with educational media in particular, you can take characters that they know and love from one platform and get them to go to another platform.

And so what we’ve found recently is that with Kindergarten and first-graders with Between the Lions, those who viewed it and used manipulatives in the classroom that were branded with BTL characters actually did better than those who had the exact same manipulatives, the exact same programming, but no branding on that. And so what we’re building on there is a love of a particular character. And in our most recent research with Martha Speaks, we’ve found that the more the kids like the characters and like the program in general. So the ones who report “high liking”, were able to learn more vocabulary words — and this is controlling for things like age, and parent education, and, and pretestability.

So while if I had answered this question five years ago I would’ve said, “I don’t know, you know, the media-saturated world…” But now I think it can be, when it’s harnessed in a positive way rather than an exploitive way, I think it’s a powerful way to help kids learn. And it relates back to Lisa’s point about engagement: they really like these characters. They want to do more with these characters. They find them really cool. So I think it’s a good thing.

Delia Pompa: Marnie, you must spend an awful lot of your time reviewing and exploring educational sites and games. What guidelines do you use in deciding what’s appropriate for classroom use?

Marnie Lewis: To me they seem almost self-explanatory, but I’m going to list them for you.

Delia Pompa: We don’t know them yet.

Marnie Lewis: I know, I have to remind myself of that often. I think when it comes down to it, you want to look at who’s sponsoring the site, who’s presenting it, what, what do the ads look like, the product placement, things like that. How many links are going to get the kids off track?

With PBS, what you have is, it warns you that you’re about to leave PBS Kids and maybe go to PBS Teachers by accident, for a child who’s navigating the site. So, another thing you might look for is actual pictures versus the cartoons, and also links that are updated, and how often the site is updated itself.

So it’s a wide range, but as long as you’re looking at it and you’re feeling it, you could sort of assess it with those guidelines, sort of get a good feel for what is appropriate. And also, depending on what age level you’re looking at, I’m going to see if there’s an audio component, especially with the younger set, it’s really, really important and extremely valuable to have that audio component with those web sites.

Deborah Linebarger: Yeah, they’re not necessarily reading at that point and you, it, it can’t make it yet intuitive enough for the kids to navigate, it’s, I guess, really difficult, so more audio is, is very helpful.

Delia Pompa: Now, Lisa, there are some sites that just sort of set off alarm bells for people, like, like those social networking sites and video-sharing sites. Is there any value for literacy in some of these sites?

Lisa Guernsey: Well, let’s take the video-sharing one first. So if we’re talking about, say, YouTube, I have used, and I’ve seen other parents use, and I’ve talked to some teachers who have been completely adept at using YouTube, what they have to do first, though is they have to go in on their own, do the search first, figure out what content they’re going to find, and read the comments underneath those videos, because it’s often the comments where you find the really inappropriate stuff. There might be a video of, say, two cute kittens playing with a ball of yarn, but the comments underneath it are not about kittens, but what do you think they might be.

So, do your homework. If you’re going to use these sites with children, just know what you’re getting first. And then, really take that opportunity to show them -? and here’s where we can bring in some more digital literacy: you can not just talk about the content, you can say, “Someone created this. They, this is we create kind of content.” So I’m going to talk about how books are made with kids, right? Someone had a video camera, and they made this video, and they uploaded it, and then they put this, you know, audio over it, and then they made sure that other people could see it. And this is a way for children to start understanding how all these things are created and then they can be more critical thinkers about what they’re seeing as well.

Social networking. Social networking I think is a little trickier with the age group that we might be talking about here. I have a seven-year-old; she wants a Facebook page. I’m like, she’s seven years old! So, and then why is that? Because she sees me using it. I mean, we’ve gotten to a point now where the grown-ups are using social networking, and so children see that and they see grown-ups are really engaging in it. We have to find a way for children to be able to build their own kind of social interactions online, but in a way that’s kind of, first of all not overwhelming to them but also gives them a chance that they’re understanding there are real parameters: “I’m talking exactly to the friend that I know at this exact moment,” and, and then if we can find ways to kind of allow them to do that, where we want them to do more writing, we want them to do more kind of crafting of their own language, but make sure that it is a one-to-one channel and that you know what’s kind of coming back and forth at the same time is really important.

Delia Pompa: Deb, and the same thing: is there a way that parents can evaluate whether a good, a TV program is good for their children to watch?

Deborah Linebarger: Actually, that’s a great question. We have been struggling with that as a group, as a research group, trying to determine how we best evaluate educational claims that different kinds of media make. And so, what we’ve boiled it down to are the best kinds of programs have a group of experts, they have a curriculum, and they’re willing to share it with you, versus saying they have a curriculum but not providing you with a curriculum document. It’s very much more than a one-page document. So you could look at it and you could say in literacy, you know, the scientifically-based reading research principles from the National Reading Panel report- vocabulary, phonics, phonemic awareness, text comprehension, and fluency- those are addressed if that’s the particular age group that you’re looking at. So, the experts, the curriculum that’s really detailed, and you have use of strategies that you know as a teacher, help kids learn in your classroom: are they using those?

Those are the kinds of things that you, that I would look for and that we have coded that have sort of distinguished better shows from poor shows.

Delia Pompa: what about how the characters interact and their behavior? Is there anything looked at there?

Deborah Linebarger: That’s such, that’s such a big area, and it’s one of my biggest issues with programming with my four children. It probably drives them crazy, but, the relationships between characters are so important because they’re very powerful models of interaction. And so the programs that treat parents as dumb, or teachers as dumb or clueless, or they call each other names, or they’re mean. You know, there’s one way to do conflict resolution that’s appropriate, and then there’s another where it’s just mean-spirited.

And so I would definitely say either you could use those as a model of not what to do, but I certainly as a parent or, and as a researcher would not ethically feel comfortable showing those kinds of programs either as an alternate stimulus. I can’t justify the negative relationships, because the prosocial effects in some ways I think are more powerful even than some of the educational effects.

Delia Pompa: This is such terrific information. Thank you, everyone. So far we’ve discussed the research happening in the field and what to look for in a quality educational media. Next we’ll explore how to put all this information into action. Please join us for part 3 of this web cast when we’ll be looking more closely at how parents and teachers can make the most of screen time. For more information about how you can help the struggling reader in your life, and to watch the rest of this web cast, please visit us at www.readingrockets.org.

Thank you for joining us.

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