Lisa Nielsen: Innovative Educator

     The third blogger that I have been following is Mrs. Lisa Nielsen. In her blog The Innovative Educator she discusses a lot of pressing issues in the modern classroom such as an increasing reliance on technology as well as the impacts of the media and technology on students. She also posts blogs that provide you with trending posts so that you can look at what is trending in regards to the education system and provide you with information and insight that you may not have previously had access to or knowledge of.

     In Mrs. Nielsen's blog post from March 30th Everybody Panic! The 5 Ways Social Media is Changing our Brains she debunks popular myths associated with social media and the way it impacts our students and children. Although social media plays a big part in people's lives in the twenty first century, it is merely taking over for things that people have been doing for decades in an easy accessible form. She argues that instead of reading the newspaper, checking voicemail and talking to people on the phone we now do all of those things on one device. I agree that social media and phones are not a major hindrance on students and that they are not doing anything that has not been done before. I also believe however that the constant access to these media devices leaves students more exposed and vulnerable to media messages and ideals.

Retrieved from: http://mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/images/body_image_boys.jpg

     In physical education we have to be particularly worried about media and the impact that it has on our students. What the media portrays as healthy is often not and can lead to reduced body image, self confidence and self esteem if students do not know how to deal with the images that they come across on a day to day basis. Things such as bulimia, anorexia and unhealthy weight loss can become a major issue as well as unhealthy weight gain and steroid use. It is crucial to teach our students about media and how to become media literate so that they can see pictures like the one posted above, create their own ideas and opinions on it and realize that relatively no one is as picture perfect as the media makes them out to be, In a physical education classroom this can be done in a number of ways, the major way being discussing it through health class. When I was in high school I was never given the opportunity to address these body issues in the media, I was simply given the definition of terms such as anorexia and bulimia and told I needed to know them for the test. If we are to truly teach our students about the media and their impact they must be exposed to the pictures out there as well as the truth behind them, they need to be able to develop their own individual thoughts and ideas on them so that learning actually occurs. Bringing media sources in and having class discussions on them and their true meanings is a simple way to begin to develop this media literacy in our students, they need to be media literate in order to have their own individual thoughts instead of those thoughts being placed there by the media and as a result lowering self-confidence and body image. As someone who has been affected by this it is extremely important to me to teach a better understanding of the media to my classes and with social media being so prevalent in their lives it is an extremely relevant topic.

References 

Nielsen, L. (2016). The innovative educator. Retrieved from:  http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/

Nielsen, L. (2016, March 30). Everybody Panic! The 5 Ways Social Media is Changing our Brains: The innovative educator. Retrieved from:  http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/2016/03/everybody-panic-5-ways-social-media-is.html