Media Workshops

"As a media educator and researcher, my passion is to bring quality media education to schools. Screens large and small play a significant role in the lives of all of our children. Our schools should not be left out of the game. Schools need to prepare students for the world they live in, one where technology can be harnessed for education and in service to humanity.

                                                                                                                             -- Laurie Trotta Valenti, PhD

With a doctorate in curriculum design and media education, LTV offers workshops and programs for schools, clubs, parents groups and businesses on media issues. We have access to many curricula on such issues as cyberbullying, social media and teens, violence in the media, TV and toddlers, and can create the perfect workshop for your organization.

SmartKids TV

SmartKids TV, a series of interactive lesson plans for children age 6-10 to teach them about consumerism in the media, was unveiled in 2010. The first program SmartKids: TV & Advertising, was pilot-tested at a private elementary school in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Results were extremely positive, and SmartKids will be a part of the curriculum for years to come.  

SmartKids is available free for download here. If you use the curriculum, do write and let us know how your students responded! 

Arizona Kids Build (AKB) is a curriculum for 4-6 graders igniting students' creativity and thinking about architecture, the environment, and sustainability. AKB helps students understand how architecture affects their physical as well as emotional environment. In this 8-session unit, students learn that the process of creating buildings requires the melding of math, science, art, and communication/language skills.  They learn how to think about the structures they interact with every day and consider not only how they feel about them, but ways to improve them.  Arizona Kids Build is a project that grew out of the Arizona Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment (COTE) and enjoys n informal relationship with Taliesin West, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school in the Scottsdale, AZ desert. 

Cyber Civics™

A Digital Citizenship & Literacy Curriculum for Middle School (w/support for educators and parents). This turnkey in-classroom program meets an urgent demand to equip students with essential digital life skills.

Cool resources for virtual learning:

PBS    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/resources/virtuallearning/

Media Education Lab  http://mediaeducationlab.com/digital-workshops-digital-nation