Dr. Guofang Wan sharing books she has written witht he audience.

ATHENS, Ohio (March 8, 2010) – Guofang Wan, a professor of teacher education and media literacy expert, was the featured presenter at The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education research forum on March 5. Her presentation, “Media Literacy: Theories and Practice,” focused on her research and publication over the last fifteen years.

Wan explained that because media is a source of information, entertainment, enrichment, learning, teaching and communication, its impact is large. Wan believes that media literacy education is necessary to enable student to use media, instead of allowing the media to use its consumers.

 “Media literacy, for me, involves understanding the nature of media, because it is not value free,” she said.

Wan’s interest in media literacy began when she watched Barney and Friends, the popular children’s program, with her daughter and realized the impact it could have on the development of literacy in children.

She conducted research in which she viewed and studied the content of 25 episodes of Barney and Friends.  By doing so, she sought to identify what opportunities for learning literacy and getting children ready for school the show had to offer. She also evaluated how the literacy messages conveyed by the show reflected the current process of becoming literate.  She found that the reading activities, writing activities, physical settings and listening and speaking activities all seen in Barney and Friends provided children with rich literacy learning experiences.

Wan then began developing curriculum that advocated for incorporating media literacy into the educational experience. She published a set of four non-fiction books that help students become more sophisticated and critical consumers of television, the internet, music and print media.

“You can’t call yourself literate without being media literate,” Wan said.

She shared two non-fiction children’s books she wrote, published by Capstone Press and used in the Accelerated Reader, the world’s most widely used reading software. These books ask children to question television and the Internet.

She also investigated the use of digital stories in teaching children, especially in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, which and found that it was effective to teach English to children through the use of digital stories.  This knowledge led to web-based EFL instruction for students at a Japanese University.

Wan’s research has also looked at the way Chinese students utilize media. She surveyed more than 1,500 students in three cities in China, looking at how much time students used media and for what reasons. She found that - like the United States-China has a high amount of media and internet users. However, neither China nor the United States have formal media literacy education programs incorporated into school curriculums.

After sharing her research, Wan asked students and faculty to consider whether media literacy education should be legislated or integrated. Regardless of whether media literacy education is integrated into the classroom through practice or laws, Wan is sure of its importance.

“You can’t call yourself literate without being media literate,” she said.

The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education Faculty Research Forum provides faculty members the opportunity to present their research findings to interested students and faculty as well as answer their questions. Forums are held Fridays at 12:00 p.m. For more information, visit http://www.coe.ohiou.edu/news-events/events.htm.

Story by Morgan Lyles; Photos by Julie Van Wagenen.