For the last fifteen years, Yonty worked with a number of youth media organizations, universities and colleges in Israel. As part of his educational work, advocacy, and research, Yonty has presented at international conferences in Oxford, UK, Turku, Finland, and Guangzhou, China. In October 2010 he was a visiting scholar at the Media Education Lab. The collaboration with Professor Renee Hobbs and the Lab students led him to pursue his PhD as Hobbs’ advisee.
In 2012, Yonty became the manager of the Media Education Lab, leading a group of graduate and undergraduate students to produce curricula, workshops, conferences, and research in media literacy at theHarrington School of Communication and Media. Since 2014 as the assistant director to Professor Hobbs, Yonty's collaboration with local youth organizations broadened the outreach of the Media Education Lab to many successful youth programs in the state of Rhode Island.
About Me
Yonathan (Yonty) Friesem is a PhD student in the joint doctoral program in education at the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College. He is an award winning educator and filmmaker who advocates for media literacy education.
Research. Yonty examines the psychological and sociological development of adolescents in media literacy classrooms. In his last project he evaluated the First Star URI Academy program using quantitative and qualitative measurement to assess students’ academic performance. He initiated many curriculum evaluation projects in Israel such as the Supportive Filmmaking Program, the Photo-therapy Department at Musrara School of Art, online Israeli Cinema Studies at the Open University of Israel, the Department of Film and Communication at the Ministry of Education, and developed a historical review of the occupational therapy curriculum in the Israeli higher education. For his dissertation, Yonty is developing a measurement tool to explore the level and scale of empathic growth for students in both regular and special education classrooms. He is using cognitive and affective components of empathy as a psychological and sociological measure of youth interaction in the classroom and online.
Teaching. Yonty started as a videography instructor for the "Together" Project - using art to create empathy between Arab and Jewish children in Jaffa, Israel. After receiving a special grant for the guidance of youth-at-risk, the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, he decided to enter the formal education system. Between 2001-2008, Yonty specialized in teaching media literacy with special populations such as students with learning disabilities, students with behavioral and emotional problems, mentally challenged students, gifted students, and youth-at-risk. Yonty was a homeroom teacher at Yehud Comprehensive High School, while teaching in five different high schools. His students won many awards for their short films such as Yad Vashem Educational Prizes, Wim van Leer best film award for high school students, First Prize for Documentary Film - Dimona Short Film Festival, Contribution to the Community Grant from HOP TV Channel and the Ministry of Education, and Outstanding Contributions to Society Award from the City of Rehovot and "Metsila," the Israeli Anti Drug Abuse Foundation.
Since 2007 he has been teaching undergraduate students as Open University of Israel, Tel-Aviv University, and Temple University, as well as in different colleges suchy as Camera Obscura, Ma’aleh School of Television, Film, and art, Oranim, Academic College of Education, and the Academic college of Society and Arts. Since 2012, he teaches undergraduate courses in the Film/Media program at theUniversity of Rhode Island.
Education Management. Yonty was head of the cinema and communication department at Ferkauf High School from 2001-2004, and the head of the cinema and communication department at Yehud Comprehensive High School from 2004-2008. He was a web manager of theIsraeli media literacy teacher website, and the Open University online Israeli Cinema studies website. Yonty has been managing theMedia Education Lab since January 2012. He is collaborating with RISCA, RIIFF, VSA Art RI, Adoption RI, and First Star to bring media literacy to special populations in the state of Rhode Island. He is working on the educational outreach as well as coordinating research groups for PBS news Hour Student Reporting Lab, Project Look Sharp, and First Star URI Academy.
Since 2013, Yonty has been working with the executive director of VSA Art RI, Jeanine Chartier, the Central Falls public library, and the Central falls School distric to creat a media center called CF Cinema.
Workshops. Yonty offers many professional development workshops for educators and administrators who are interested in implementing technology in their classrooms. Since 2004, he is working with the Head of the Department of Film and Communication at the Israeli ministry of Education, providing media literacy teacher professional development. Recently at the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival he gave a professional development workshop to 200 TV executives of Guangdong TV center. He presented the core concepts of media literacy to the Israeli Democracy Institute. Nationally, he offered workshops and made presentations for educators, media practitioners, and administrators at PBS, NewCAJE, ScriptBiz, Northeast Media Literacy Conference, NAMLE, and NCA. Locally he gave workshops for JFRI, WordCamp, Promising Practices Multicultural Conference, URI Technology Symposium, and Blended learning & Technology conference. In collaboration with RISCA Yonty produced the Media Teachers’ Lab. Under his supervision, faculty and graduate students at the Harrington School of Communication and Media produced the Digital Engagement 2.0 Workshop for New England educators.
Curriculum Development. As a leading media literacy teacher and as an advisor to the national curriculum committee, Yonty developed many curricula for high school students in communication studies and film/media studies. At the Harrington School of Communication and Media, he developed curriculum for Film/Media 101 course, Nonviolence in the Media, and special topics in Media Production FLM 351. In the last two years, he has been developing a videography and social networks course for special populations such as foster youth, and youth-at-risk. In collaboration with VSA Art RI, and Adoption RI, Yonty Friesem and Kelsey Greene developed a media literacy curriculum for foster youth and their parents. Currently, he is working on developing a K-12 Media Literacy curriculum for the Central Falls School Districtafterschool program.
Filmmaking and Media Production. During his film studies, Yonty worked as a local news reporter and was an executive producer in theIsraeli Educational TV Network for two years. He directed five short films, and produced six. After winning the best short film award for his co-production of Mur’alim, he joined the feature production ‘Yeladim Tovim" as a co-producer. The award winning film was chosen by the New York MoMA to be featured in a retrospective of queer films from the last fifteen years. Between 2006 and 2008, Yonty produced theNational Dimona Festival for Youth Media Production, which featured 400 Israeli high schools short film contest and offered a three-day workshop for 3,000 students.
Yonty Friesem received a M.A. Magna Cum Laude in Management and Leadership in Education, Tel-Aviv University, a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in Social Science and Humanities at The Open University of Israel, and a professional diploma as a Video and Film Producer from Camera Obscura School of Art.