Giuliana Cucinelli
PhD student, McGill University; Faculty Lecturer, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University

Giuliana Cucinelli is a PhD student at McGill University and a full time Faculty Lecturer for the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. She runs the mProject, a new media education initiative exploring learning and living in an era of media convergence, at St. Georges High School in Montréal. The work she facilitates with students at St. Georges uses emerging and hybrid media genres and forms such as remix and mash up, and the dissemination potentials of the Web 2.0. The mProject is a laboratory for evolving pedagogical practice and an extracurricular activity for the pioneering group of students. One of the main goals of the mProject is to have students grapple in the classroom with the use of user-friendly and ubiquitous Web 2.0 applications within a critical framework, to produce work, and then be able to critically think about the message, the medium and the experience. Together, the students and team members participate in weekly media activities, which include podcasts, digital photography, video and film production, radio, media analysis, and much more.

Michael Cohen
English Montreal School Board, Communication and Marketing Division

Michael Cohen, a Communications and Marketing Specialist with the English Montreal School Board, organized a media panel session during last year's National Media Education Week. The session, hosted at East Hill Elementary School in Rivière des Prairies, Quebec, brought together students and staff from four area schools. Guest speakers from local television and radio news shows and local newspapers spoke about their first experiences working in media. The event ended with a 45-minute question-and-answer period where students' curiosity about the media shone through.

Erik Chevrier
Masters student, Concordia University; President, Co-op Collective Vision

Erik Chevrier, a Masters student at Concordia University, specializes in the consumer culture of youth. Through an interdisciplinary program (SIP) he is investigating what youth understand about advertising, the economy, and consumerism. He is president of Co-op Collective Vision, where he facilitates the development of many successful media education programs in schools and community centers. Erik has founded critical media pedagogy programs for youth through multi-media extra curricular activities which are currently offered at Roslyn, Royal Vale, Selwyn House and Willingdon Elementary Schools in Montreal. He has established an internship program for communications students at Concordia University to earn credit by facilitating these media workshops. Through his current workshops and many future endeavors, Erik continues to enhance access to quality media education programs in Montreal. Erik has worked with many community groups to fulfill the goal of offering accessible, affordable, and high quality media education programs.

Naomi Hyba, Michelle Olding and Hannah Jackson
Grade 12 students, Canterbury High School, Ottawa, Ontario

Naomi Hyba, Michelle Olding and Hannah Jackson, Grade 12 students at Canterbury High School in Ottawa, Ontario, spearheaded a media project that resulted in the creation of Athena, a magazine for girls by girls to serve as an alternative to today's mainstream magazines. They also used the magazine as a forum to discuss media messaging. Much of the magazine's content focused on keeping young women media aware and encouraging them to use critical thinking when it comes to the media, including a critique of Dove's Real Beauty campaign and an exposé on the unethical use of "eco-friendly" branding to market products.

Sean Rombough
Bureau Producer, Television News, CBC Nunavut

Sean Rombough, Bureau Producer, Television News, CBC Nunavut, is leading a project to promote the training and recruitment of youth in the field of television and video production in Nunavut. The project is a collaboration between CBC North and Skills Canada/Nunavut, a not-for-profit organization that actively promotes careers in skilled trades and technologies to Canadian youth. CBC North and Skills Nunavut have offered workshops for youth in a number of Nunavut communities, including Sanikiluaq, Arctic Bay, and Pond Inlet. Skills Canada Video Clubs have been established in these communities, which have been hugely successful thanks to the efforts of teachers and community leaders who have shown a commitment to the development of their community's youth. The young people involved in this project have received national attention and recognition for their work; the youth were showcased on CBC’s The National, and teams from Nunavut have finished in the top 5 twice in the past 3 years in Skill Canada’s national annual television and video production competition. As a result of this project, CBC North has hired some of these aspiring broadcasters on a short term basis. In spring 2008, Jena Merkosak, Danny Ishulutak, and TJ Innualuk were brought on as teen correspondents for the Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife, and offered their own unique insight (in English and Inuktitut) as they "discovered" the celebrations surrounding what is the North's premiere sporting event.

Tracey Whitcombe
St. Patrick's High School, Sarnia, Ontario

Tracey Whitcombe, a teacher at St. Patrick's High School in Sarnia, Ontario, had her Grade 12 Women in Society class participate in the Jeans Project. Her students used this project as a concrete way of affirming all the positive traits students possess while at the same time rejecting negative stereotypes that are often perpetrated by media. On one leg of a pair of jeans students finished the statement "I am..." and on the other side "I am not..."  They were to base the "I am not" leg on what the media makes them feel they should be, while listing their positive traits on the “"I am" side. The results were wonderful artifacts that were effective in making a statement against media stereotypes of women. Students displayed their pieces throughout the school to share their views with other youth.