Conference Calendar
California STEAM Symposium 2025
February 7-8, 2025 | San Diego, CA
TikTok Meets STEM: Harness the Power of Vertical Video Projects In Science Classrooms
Saturday, February 8
1:45 - 2:45 PM PT
Pacific H/I
Vertical video has transformed the way people consume and learn new information, becoming the dominant format on social media for its ability to convey messages in a digestible and accessible way. In today’s digital world, young people are not just passive consumers of media—they're actively shaping it by becoming creators themselves. Meeting students where they are at and engaging them in new and dynamic ways is key. This session will empower science educators to harness the power of vertical video by incorporating media-making projects into their classrooms, allowing students to creatively communicate scientific concepts and demonstrate their understanding. Session participants will learn from a science educator who has successfully implemented these projects, gaining practical insights on how to introduce media-making in their own classrooms.
The session will also provide free, adaptable curriculum resources that educators can easily integrate into their teaching practices. Additionally, participants will discover ways to elevate student voices beyond the classroom by participating in KQED’s Show What You Know Youth Media Challenge. This platform offers students an opportunity to share their media projects with a wider audience, fostering a sense of purpose and ownership in their learning. By the end of this session, participants will walk away with the tools, resources, and inspiration to bring media-making into their science instruction and support their students in becoming effective, creative science communicators.
AME Institute Bay Area Pop-Up
February 28, 2025 | San Francisco, CA
The 2025 AME Institute Bay Area Pop-Up is a one-day event to strengthen the K-14 ecosystem that supports Arts, Media, and Entertainment education in the Bay Area and beyond. Educators will engage with industry trends and technology, level up their skills, connect with colleagues, and access the resources they need to train the next generation of our creative workforce.
You won't want to miss...
- Kick-Off Event at A.C.T.'s Strand Theatre
- AME Expo with local and national resources for AME educators
- AME Institute swag bag
- Afternoon programming hosted by KQED
- Breakfast, lunch, and a networking reception at Adobe!
California Association
of Teachers of English
(CATE)
February 28-March 2, 2025 | Burlingame, CA
If You Really Knew Me: Center Belonging and Student Voice Through Multimedia Storytelling
Saturday, March 1
10:00 - 11:15 AM PST
Invite students to reflect on their values, identity and experience, then share their story or speak their truth with a multimedia personal narrative project. Media making strengthens writing, speaking, listening and language fluency, in addition to boosting confidence and centering student voice. In this interactive session, join Facing History California and KQED to explore identity development activities that spark self-reflection and community building, then jump into the creative possibilities of KQED’s First Person project. Come away with ideas, inspiration, ready-to-use modifiable curriculum resources in English and Spanish, and an opportunity for middle and high school students to share their work beyond the classroom.
Teaching Current Events and Navigating the Changing Media Landscape
Saturday, March 1
3:15 - 4:20 PM PST
Helping students evaluate online information can sometimes feel like tiptoeing through a minefield. And that was before AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney came on the scene. This session with KQED and Facing History prepares educators and students to take stock of their media choices, unpack media bias, and evaluate online sources using proven methods, including our favorite game: Share or Beware!
California Council
for the Social Studies
(CCSS)
March 7-9, 2025 | Burlingame, CA
Teaching Current Events and Navigating the Changing Media Landscape
Friday, March 7
2:40 - 3:40 PM PT
Bayside 1
Helping students evaluate online information can sometimes feel like tiptoeing through a minefield. And that was before AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney came on the scene. This session with KQED and Facing History prepares educators and students to take stock of their media choices, unpack media bias, and evaluate online sources using proven methods, including our favorite game: Share or Beware!
Making Media, Making Change: Youth Voice as Civic Action
Saturday, March 8
11:10 AM - 12:10 PM PT
Bayside 1
How can young people see themselves as an active part of civic society? Join KQED and Facing History for a workshop exploring how young people can make their voice heard. . Educators will explore free resources and tools designed to help students harness the power of civic action, including audio storytelling to share their viewpoints on a range of issues.
Spring CUE 2025
March 20-22, 2025 | Palm Springs, CA
Visit us at our table in the Mesquite Hallway!
The Truth Really Is Out There: Help Students Spot Misinformation In the Age of AI
Thursday, March 20
4:00 - 5:00 PM PDT
Concurrent Session Room 12
Helping students evaluate online information can sometimes feel like tiptoeing through a minefield. And that was before AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney came on the scene. Fortunately, the strategies professional fact-checkers, journalists and media producers use to find reliable sources still work, whether that information is produced by humans or generated by AI. In this ever-evolving, interactive workshop from KQED public media and classroom media literacy experts, you’ll learn ways to support students to develop healthy skepticism without turning into cynics as they gain vital online reasoning skills to use in your classroom and while navigating the internet in everyday life. Then, practice evaluating credible sources using a variety of methods, including Share or Beware!, KQED’s interactive, easily modifiable source evaluation game. You’ll leave with ideas, teaching tips and free, ready-to-use resources to help students find reliable sources no matter where they click.
TikTok Meets STEM: Harness the Power of Vertical Video Projects In Science Classrooms
Friday, March 21
9:00 - 10:00 AM PDT
Concurrent Session Room 10
Vertical video has transformed the way people consume and learn new information, becoming the dominant format on social media for its ability to convey messages in a digestible and accessible way. In today’s digital world, young people are not just passive consumers of media—they're actively shaping it by becoming creators themselves. Meeting students where they are at and engaging them in new and dynamic ways is key. This session will empower science educators to harness the power of vertical video by incorporating media-making projects into their classrooms, allowing students to creatively communicate scientific concepts and demonstrate their understanding. Session participants will learn from a science educator who has successfully implemented these projects, gaining practical insights on how to introduce media-making in their own classrooms.
The session will also provide free, adaptable curriculum resources that educators can easily integrate into their teaching practices. Additionally, participants will discover ways to elevate student voices beyond the classroom by participating in KQED’s Show What You Know Youth Media Challenge. This platform offers students an opportunity to share their media projects with a wider audience, fostering a sense of purpose and ownership in their learning. By the end of this session, participants will walk away with the tools, resources, and inspiration to bring media-making into their science instruction and support their students in becoming effective, creative science communicators.
Explore a Framework to Center Youth Voice When Using GenAI Tools
Friday, March 21
4:00 - 5:00 PM PDT
Concurrent Session Room 13
Many educators see generative AI tools as a barrier to student critical thinking and learning. Often missing from the conversation are ways these tools can help foster student voice, encourage self-expression and boost media literacy. This is not a “what is AI” or “how to use AI” session. This session builds from the assumption that supporting young people to share their stories and learning through media-making should be a central part of the curriculum. We’ll then unpack KQED Education’s new framework for productive and ethical student-focused media creation with GenAI. We’ll look at a range of GenAI tools with our usual tool-agnostic lens and go into field-testing mode with your classroom in mind, exploring student-focused practices to help young people share their stories, learning and viewpoints. You'll leave with foundational methods to help guide the use of GenAI in your classroom media projects, along with free, ready-to-use resources. Come make sense of the GenAI landscape with public media experts committed to youth voice.
KQED Resources
Youth Media in the Classroom
Free, ready-to-use lesson plans, videos and resources that promote youth voice and help students practice media making, media literacy and civic engagement. Find fresh ideas for all grade levels and subjects, aligned to standards like CCSS and NGSS.
KQED Youth Media Challenge
Invite your middle and high school students to share their voices and ideas beyond the classroom by creating original audio, video and images and publishing them on the Challenge Showcase. Choose from three standards-aligned projects that include free step-by-step curriculum and supports. Great for ELA, social studies, STEM and more.
Youth Takeover
Youth Takeover is a unique year-long program that partners with high school classrooms from the nine Bay Area counties to help students produce audio feature stories destined to take over KQED's broadcast, podcast and online programming.
Above the Noise
In this award-winning video series, host Myles Bess cuts through the hype surrounding controversial topics in the news that affect the lives of young people. Each video comes with a lesson plan and viewing guide to help facilitate civil conversation with students about complex topics.
PBS Learning Media
Bring the world to your classroom. KQED and PBS have curated FREE standards-aligned videos, lesson plans, interactive media and more for teachers of grades K-12.
Professional Development
As a leader in public media and education, KQED offers free workshops, courses and certification in making media and media literacy to educators in all roles, subjects and grades.
KQED Teach
KQED offers free hands-on media making and media literacy learning for educators in all roles, subjects and grades. Through live workshops and self-paced courses, teachers learn by doing to build necessary skills to prepare students to analyze and evaluate their media landscape, as well as participate in civil discourse digitally through media creation.
Looking for district or school-level training? Reach out to Almetria Vaba, our Director of Partnerships & Distribution.
Earn Graduate Units for Media Literacy PD
Submit your course completion certificates from KQED Teach to earn grad units from our higher ed partners at the University of San Diego or Teachers College of San Joaquin. Increase your earning power and your media literacy skills at the same time!
About KQED
KQED is a nonprofit, public media station and NPR and PBS member station based in San Francisco. As a leader in media innovation, KQED provides free standards-aligned classroom content and professional development courses that educators can trust. Our resources help educators strengthen their media literacy skills, empower youth voices, and encourage civil discourse.
Got questions?
Email us at [email protected].