Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - it's four days long and (most times) I'm able to spend it with my children and extended family.

I'm grateful for family.

Coming when it does - at the end of November, long after the audaciousness of leaves, when most have fallen and what remain on branches are crisped and brown, bronze, and russet - it's a reflective time.

I'm grateful for seasonal change.

There's so much that's scary and challenging in the world right now. And, while many parts of the world have been living this reality for too long, more and more people are waking up every day, committing to changing hearts and minds in communities.

For that, I'm grateful.

I'm sharing the Paul Simon youtube here because I've loved "American Tune" since I first heard it and it's something of a Thanksgiving Day classic in our house. His lyrics capture the heart of America - the impact of each individual, hard work, imperfection and compromise, heartbreak, poverty, struggle, immigration "in the age's most uncertain hour".

I'm grateful for the poets.

"Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe", shared with me by a longtime friend and artist in Virginia, is a happy little piece. It reminds me of the Hallowe'en party seven of us went to at that button factory in New Hampshire when we all dressed as the "Finalist Dance Troupe". Great memory - I want to live in this film's landscape because of it.

I'm grateful for faraway friends (and memory) and the abundant technologies available to me that keeps us connected.

And, finally, I'm sharing another song sent by a friend in Nova Scotia - it's Adele singing "Hello", accompanied by Jimmy Fallon and folks from SNL playing classroom (do they mean simple percussion?) instruments.

This joyful expression reminds me how grateful I am for teachers, the availability of public education in the US, and, especially, of the importance of making the arts available to all of our children.

I'm grateful for all of the artists who share their gifts and visions and hopes and dreams.

What are you grateful for?

Time to Bring Public Policy and Social Media Together for Progress

I've had a great summer, much of it spent off the grid unplugged from email, tapping into social media for fun. It's been great connecting on a more personal level with family and friends in real time talking, laughing, crying, sharing, hugging.

Thinking back to when Facebook arrived on the scene in February 2004: I was slow to adopt. I signed up eventually and connected to family and local friends. When Twitter followed in March 2006, I decided I was not going to try to keep up with yet another platform. Not so for businesses, corporations, institutions, and the like. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook opened up a whole new world of marketing strategy for them.

"We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it." ~ Erik Qualman

After being accepted in 2011 into a 6-month program for women interested in pursuing political office, I was introduced to Twitter and quickly grew to enjoy it. I set myself up on LinkedIn later that same year and leaned into the idea of using Facebook as a way to connect with folks on a range of issues, too. This video gives a snapshot of social media at the time:



Gone are the questions asking if social media is here to stay. Clearly they are, though how kids and adults are using social media today has changed dramatically.

Consider a PEW study published earlier this year that provides an overview on American teens and their use of technology and social media. One finding showed that 92% of teens were online everyday, with 24% online "almost constantly".

So much has changed - and is changing - across our media-saturated landscape. Schools and individual teachers are working to bring media literacy to students, but media literacy is not broadly implemented in our public schools and media literacy is rarely part of the public debate on education. Still, more and more politicians and policymakers are getting on twitter and facebook to connect to their stakeholders and constituents.

I'm a member of the national advisory council for Media Literacy Now. We want our elected representatives and policymakers to engage with us on social media. As more and more elected people are engaging stakeholders and constituents through Twitter and Facebook, we can connect with them in meaningful ways to impact awareness of the urgent need for media literacy education and other key public policy issues of our time.

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Posts, Podcasts, tweets

• Educational Software Gets Attention from State Politicians
• ISTE: Standardized curriculum for teaching tech skills
• 9 things we learned about phones from a teenager
• Growing up Digital: 3 truths for the adults
• A Parent's Guide to All that "EdTech" in Your Kid's Classroom

Should apps be part of a library’s story time? Ask @mediatrician: http://t.co/qpvRT2r27a #BackToSchool

— CtrMediaChildHealth (@cmch_boston) September 2, 2015

Tips for an online age: What not to share http://t.co/JYnTEtDlso @MBrodeur via @BostonGlobe

— MediaLiteracyNow.org (@MediaLitNow) September 1, 2015

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Addendum: cross-posted September 9 on Media Literacy Now blog

Media Literacy

Media is powerful.

Today's media landscape has dramatically changed over the last decade and our children are now living in a world of 24/7 media.

Results of a national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed (2010) that