MEL Monthly Meeting
These gatherings are designed exclusively for the 71 people who are currently affiliated with the Lab as core team members, fellows, affiliated faculty, graduate students, or project collaborators.As our work continues to grow in reach, scale, and impact, these monthly meetings give us space to stay connected, share updates, coordinate…
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Together We Rise: December 2025
Dear friends of the Media Education Lab community,Like many of you, we are still processing the school shooting that took place at Brown University last week and the days of fear and anxiety that followed. Many members of the MEL community, including myself, live, work, teach, and study in and around Providence, Rhode Island. Many of you reached out to us in the past days, appreciating the…
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Media & Family Conference
The Catholic University of Croatia (CUC) hosts the "Media and Family in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" conference on December 10, 2025, focusing on media's impact on family life, alongside broader communication conferences addressing disinformation, with participation from international experts, promoting media literacy and digital citizenship, reflecting CUC's engagement in contemporary…
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New Models for Academic Peer Review: A JMLE Discussion
 What are some alternatives to the double-blind peer review system of academic journals? Not surprisingly, there are quite a few! Each model is trying to fix different weaknesses of traditional double-blind peer review (bias, slowness, opacity, gatekeeping).  Join JMLE Editors for an informal conversation to learn more about the options available as we consider a path forward.  DATE: Thursday,…
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Cell Phones, Social Media, and Student Well-Being
Cell phone and social media use have shifted rapidly in the last few years, raising urgent questions about school cell-phone bans, cyberbullying, psychological impacts, and academic performance.This webinar reframes the conversation through a digital empathy lens, blending media literacy practices with trauma-informed approaches that support student wellness and mental well-being. We’ll explore…
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Media Literacy in Massachusetts: A Landscape Scan
The first-ever major statewide initiative to document the scope of media literacy education in American public schoolsClick here to read the report To better understand the status, challenges, and opportunities for advancing media literacy education…
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Media Literacy in Action, 2nd edition 2025
The blurring of entertainment, information, and persuasion is reshaping work, life, and citizenship. As a result, our relationship to media has never been so important nor so complex. By asking critical questions about what they watch, listen to, read, and use, students can be better prepared to be responsible communicators who can use a variety of formats and genres for self-expression and…
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Create to Learn
Create to Learn helps learners create multimedia texts as they develop both critical thinking and communication skills. Written by Renee Hobbs, one of the foremost experts in media literacy, this book introduces a wide range of conceptual principles at the heart of multimedia composition and digital pedagogy. Its approach is useful for anyone who sees the profound educational value of creating…
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Teachers Guide, Media Literacy in Action
 This Teacher’s Guide will help you get the most out of the new textbook by Renee Hobbs, as it offers practical guidance on using this textbook in the classroom. Whether you are an experienced teacher or teaching media literacy for the first time, this guide…
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Create to Learn Online
When students create media to represent their learning, they really learn! At the Create to Learn Online website, you can access more than a dozen free and low-cost digital tools for creating podcasts, videos, infographics, animations, videos, remix and more. Plus, you can view and upload multimedia work samples and access study notes and PPT slides…
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The Media Straight Up! Media Literacy Guide for Middle School
THE MEDIA LITERACY GUIDECreated by Renee Hobbs and the Media Education Lab and co-sponsored by Drug Free Pennsylvania. Access the PDF from the Pennsylvania Department of Drug Prevention Programs. Renee Hobbs and a team of Pennsylvania educators developed The Media Straight Up to…
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THE HIVE
When teachers and library media specialists use a student-centered approach to media production, learners create to learn, developing cognitive, social, and socioemotional competencies through creative media production that can support academic achievement across the subject areas. This model consists of six stages where students collaboratively learn to produce media messages. Based on five…
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Librarians on YouTube
Librarians are often challenged to connect with their communities (learners, fellow educators, and the public) with limited time, among competing priorities, and especially recently, across distance. Among many creative approaches to engagement, YouTube offers a fresh approach for librarians to build connections beyond the physical spaces of the library and outside of formal learning environments…
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