Ithaca College

Project Look Sharp’s Cyndy Scheibe led a training session for about 40 librarians in conjunction with the Board of Cooperative Educational Services on Sept. 22 in Fulton, New York. The session began with conversations about the roles librarians play with teachers and the role of technology in children’s lives in their education. In the afternoon, Scheibe led a discussion about media literacy, copyright issues and fair use.

Scheibe said for many teachers and librarians, teaching media literacy is an issue of time, especially with common core standards and state modules. This training session was meant to discuss media literacy and find ways to integrate it into what students are already learning.

"Librarians have always been the gatekeepers to media for children in schools. And part of their job is learning new technology and supporting the work of teachers and students when they're exploring new topics,” Scheibe said. 

Scheibe showed examples from Project Look Sharp’s lessons, such as the third grade Africa curriculum. She also showed a video of Chris Sperry, another member of the Project Look Sharp team, leading a constructivist media decoding session. Toward the end of the day, one of the librarians volunteered to lead a decoding herself of one of the commercial lessons from Project Look Sharp’s website, “Real Bugs.” After she was done, Scheibe and the audience gave feedback.

For more information, you can email us at looksharp@ithaca.edu or contact us by phone at 607-274-3471. You can also reach Cyndy Scheibe at scheibe@ithaca.edu.

Project Look Sharp is Ithaca College’s Media Literacy Initiative. Project Look Sharp supports the integration of critical thinking through media literacy in school curriculum and teaching. They do this through developing and providing lesson plans, media materials, training, and support for educators at all education levels. The purpose of media literacy education is to help individuals of all ages develop the habits of inquiry and skills of expression they need to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, and active citizens in today’s world.