The Hashtag Bowl: Media Literacy Opportunities (Pt 2)

Jan. 30, 2015 Whether it’s using hit movies like Frozen as an icebreaker to talk about social shunning, bullying, social emotional tough stuff or Super Bowl ads as learning tools to ferret out what’s REALLY being said, sold, packaged, and presented at every age and stage, Shaping Youth is all about leveraging pop culture touch points as ‘teachable moments’ to instill critical … [Read more...]

Using Media to Uplift and Inspire: When to Tune In, Not Out.

Dec. 20, 2011 True confessions, it’s been a heckuva challenging year, and it got me thinking about what different people do to bootstrap themselves out of adversity in its many forms whether it’s “first world” stress, third world crisis, health, home or holiday blues. I turned to our SY advisory board child development specialist, Dr. Robyn Silverman and pointed the ‘whatcha … [Read more...]

Harry Potter Alliance: Using Pop Culture Pervasiveness Positively

July 17, 2011 No, I haven’t seen the Harry Potter grand finale yet.Yes, it’s been covered from every angle, dominating Twitter streams, Facebook status lines and yielding the largest weekend box office on record with one out of four tickets sold going ka-ching for the wizard boy.And maybe it'll be worthy of the 3D hyped up media zeal, but like the Twilight series or any other … [Read more...]

Media That Uplifts & Inspires: Positive Picks For Youth Outreach

Sept. 10, 2016 Update World Suicide Prevention Day is flooding my Twitter account, with poignant posts pointing to the desperate need for mental health resources and outreach, especially among youth and children. With this in mind, I'm going to tweet a loud 'shoutout' to organizations making a huge difference in this dialogue, from symptoms, outreach and support at … [Read more...]

Blog Action Day: Overcoming Poverty With Global Water

It’s been a hairy day of stressful mayhem, as I slid in my socks on the linoleum floor of digital deadlines to file my grant app for the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media Learning Competition with literally about 2 minutes to spare. Between technical glitches and last minute shifts in recommendation letters I found myself in that intense phase of heart palpitating … [Read more...]