Archive for April, 2013

Co-Creating? Digital?

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

A lot of my work at School One thus far has led me to consider individual practices and specific activities that students undertake in digitally-driven classrooms. I have not, however, really reflected on the concept of “school” as a whole. I realised this in a process of reflection, whereupon I dug up this snippet from my original independent major proposal:

 

IndependentMajProp

In seeing this, I found a way to rethink Friere’s idea of pedagogy into my work at School One. Friere suggests a method of learning/teaching/growing that positions the individual as the cultivator of her own growth. She interacts with her environment, both physically and virtually, to create her own empowering language that feeds into how she thinks, understands, is. I have considered this as self-motivated learning, but with a component that requires an active remaking and rethinking on the part of the student. However, I can’t help but consider how a digital environment feeds this type of learning. While Henry Jenkins (in Convergence Cultures: Where Old and New Media Collide) speaks to the possibility of discovering new worlds and avenues for learning, how do we encourage students to participate in this generative environment/way of learning?

This question does not only implicate the student; teachers, administrators, and parents play a role in the production of this dialogue as well. To increase the dialogue between all these participants will ultimately equip all participants with their own individualized processes of making meaning in their worlds. But what is the role of digital technology in this?

My initial reaction suggests that digital multimedia provides room for deeper, more intense conversations to occur. Further, given the multiple modes accessed through the interface of the screen, I hypothesize that digital technology also provides the space for conversation/learning to occur outside the boundaries of language. (See this project where I wrote on how alternate modes of presenting information brings greater depth to understanding/learning) But other than email/Google Docs, I struggle to see exactly how digital tools are impacting the communication surrounding student learning. Perhaps this comes with time?

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Goodbye Stranger Danger?

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

When I was taught about “Internet safety” at school, I was given an entire list of rules to follow:

1. Don’t talk to strangers.

2. Only use the computer where an adult can see what you’re doing.

3. Don’t upload any incriminating information, photos, or videos.

4. Never share your personal details with anyone.

5. Keep certain things private

… and the list continued on and on.

 

I was told to follow these rules in fear, else face the drastic consequences that a random online interaction could have on my “real” life. But in my work at School One, I have found that the attitudes towards these rules have relaxed over time. Conversations with students at School One indicate that the younger generation is not only aware of the mistakes that my generation made. They also demonstrate critical reflection on, and consequent internalization of the rules that govern “safe” Internet use.

The group of students that I spoke with today came from a variety of backgrounds: I had a self-taught hacker in my group, students from both levels of computer science offered at School One, and students with a vague interest in technology. Further, the use of social networks differed greatly: there was the self-proclaimed Tumblr addict, the student whose parents prohibited her use of social media, and the student who simply used social media to see what they hype was about. Even with such a diverse group of students, however, I found that their awareness of “Internet safety” remained consistent.

I began the discussion by asking the students how they used Facebook. All students demonstrated awareness of the controversy that the social networking site has caused, but said that this did not stop them from using the site. Most of the students in the group mentioned that they seldom posted anything of a truly personal nature; students said that they limited their interactions over the site, aware that anyone could be “listening” in on private conversations. But perhaps most salient was one student’s response that she deliberately manipulated each of her posts to only be accessible to particular audiences. This demonstrates a heightened awareness of audience and speaks to a sophisticated process through which these students mediate their identities. Students (in this focus group anyway) are aware of who their audiences are and how to manipulate them. In essence, they become gatekeepers to their online identities.

The conversation then led to a discussion about how students interacted with people that they met online. The students did not seem to have any inhibitions about meeting people online. In fact, a student pointed out that she had joined special interest groups online to explore issues inaccessible in her physical environment. But the ways in which the girls acted on these interactions differed. Some students created boundaries around themselves, ensuring that their conversations were limited just to the subject at hand. Others embraced full-on mediated experiences, explaining that they felt freer to express themselves on online spaces. But the consensus remained the same: students were unafraid to meet people online, and were smart enough to stay out of unsafe situations.

These discussions indicate that we need to reconfigure the “rules” surrounding safe Internet practices? Should we keep telling students the same things about online strangers, posting, and mediating identities to set up a framework? Or do we let the structures that seem to be slowly (but surely) forming to do their work?

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“It’s like watching a movie on mute….”

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

 

In my last post, I touched on the fact that the skill set for the future of the institution (as Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg) cannot be made into a set of “hard” objectives. Rather, the qualities needed in the production of digital, multimodal texts, and involvement in the participatory culture that surrounds it involve more abstract concepts which I seek to articulate in this post. Formulating my ideas around this has been a difficult task  — much of the discourse around the production of “new media” texts involves experimentation in some way, shape, or form. Nevertheless, my work at School One has helped me start to develop my thinking about being able to list out several skills that I believe are necessary in a student’s “toolkit”.

1. Flexibility

With digital platforms constantly evolving and changing at a rapid pace, the specific skills involved in learning say, Microsoft Word, become obsolete after a short period of time. However, without a basic understanding of platforms and interfaces, students are at a loss in terms of learning how to use new technologies. This leaves students in the dark in terms of adapting to new digital platforms. Thus, I think it integral to familiarize students with certain functions but encourage them to be flexible in terms of considering the tools that they have at hand. The skill of learning to be flexible and playful about digital interfaces allows for easier adaptation of newer tools/delivery technologies that as Henry Jenkins puts it, “come and go”.

2. Creativity and Critical Thought About Media Presentation

In my fieldwork, I have noticed that when asked about their production of multimodal texts, students are at a loss in terms of thinking through the methods in which they present their information. Students aren’t sure of what they are doing exactly, and take on digital projects for the novelty factor that digital tools bring (see my post on using iMovie for an English class). While students generally produce products that function the way in which they were intended, students are limited to the immediate effects that the tools provide. In order to push students to think out of the box and be more creative about their work, they need to be able to apply a critical lens to the way in which information is communicated. Questions that spring to mind are: what will this tool allow me to do that is different from written text? What are the other functions that this tool will afford me? Can I think of a better mode to convey what I am trying to communicate?

3. Fearlessness

In order to become part of the increasing conversations that occur on the Internet, students need to be able to learn to jump in and navigate through the endless amounts of information available at their fingertips. Given the overwhelming amount of information available, it becomes difficult to figure out how and where to delve in and join the conversation. I say this in the context of both my conversations with students as well as my own personal experiences — as a young student, it is difficult to find enough validation in what you want to say to be able to put it on a public forum. Tenacity and fearlessness are essential qualities involved in joining these conversations. These qualities are what students need to be able to join a public forum and make it benefit them.

At this point in time, these are three competencies that I can articulate to some degree. Through thinking through and framing my fieldwork within the questions that these skills now pose, I hope to work through 1) a more thorough definition of “media literacy”, 2) articulate what skills students need to be learning and how to address them within the medium of the school, and 3) present information that will ease the fear/confusion that currently surrounds the implementation of the one-to-one laptop at School One.

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Digital Toolkits

Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

While attending the Re:Humanities conference at Bryn Mawr College last week, I had the great pleasure of listening to Tara McPherson’s talk, “Feminist in a Software Lab”. McPherson highlighted several projects that allowed for humanities scholars to reconceptualize the ways in which they pose, research, and formulate scholarly questions through the use of digital technology. Coupled with “The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age” by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg, I turned back to one of my driving questions behind this Praxis: What skills and competencies are needed by students to succeed in a learning environment that will be increasingly shaped by digital technologies.

In setting out to answer this question, I turned to Davidson and Goldberg’s vision of the future of the institution. In their ten principles for the future of education, Davidson and Goldberg clearly articulate shifts in media social practices and how they relate to learning. The rationale for exploring their work proves primarily to position their findings as an “end goal” of sorts in order to consider the competencies required by students in order to succeed at an institution that Davidson and Goldberg predict will evolve with our changing methods of accessing information.

According to Davidson and Goldberg, the future of learning will be much more participatory, collaborative, and generative with the increased integration of technology into the process of education. Through McPherson’s projects as well as the observations that I have made at School One, I have definitely begun to see these shifts. However, I don’t believe that the participatory culture involved in digital media usage comes naturally. Rather, a certain unspoken, abstract skill set is involved in the production of digital media projects. And as I am seeing at School One, either the student has it or she doesn’t.

The project of articulating this skill set proves to aid teachers in considering how to teach their students that don’t “get it” naturally. Rather than throw students into digital media projects assuming that they will be able to, metaphorically speaking, swim, teachers should be carefully considering the methods through which they frame their assignments so as to provide students with a gentle nudge towards utilizing their tools to the maximum capacity. Thus, I aim to come up with a set of competencies and skills that students may need if Davidson and Goldberg’s vision comes into fruition. By doing so, I hope to provoke greater dialogue about the process through which both students and teachers alike conceive of their multimodal projects.

 

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