Ithaca College

In 2018, Project Look Sharp will begin to offer its high-impact professional development online, in order to support more people to become leaders in media literacy education.  

The first training that Look Sharp will be offering digitally is entitled “Facilitating Challenging Topics in the Classroom using the Skills of Media Literacy.”  This transformative course is structured to provide a supportive learning community in which educators learn to design short, high-impact “activity projects” that leverage classroom teaching, while skillfully navigating “hot-button” topics.  

The course begins on January 9, at 7-8:30 pm EST (GMT-5), and Sox Sperry, Look Sharp’s Curriculum Writer, will deliver this training over six weeks. 

Enrollment for the course opens on Dec. 4, and only twenty teachers will be accepted, in order for Sox to provide personalized support and to gather feedback about this pilot run of the online training. In exchange for this valued input from participants, the course is offered at a deeply discounted price of $195. 

Educators who would like to see the outline of each week’s topic and learn more are invited to visit the website projectlooksharp.org/learn/challenging-topics and sign up to receive additional information, including a detailed syllabus that will assist with securing funding and PD credit. 

Sox Sperry, Project Look Sharp’s curriculum writer and trainer, began his career as a teacher and curriculum designer for a school devoted to engaging students in critical reflection and action on social issues. He spent the next several decades teaching nonviolence with teens and adults who had been arrested for violence. His curriculum work at Project Look Sharp has focused on helping teachers to explore hot-button issues related to social justice, identity and climate disruption.

For more information on Project Look Sharp and its staff, please visit: projectlooksharp.org

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.