Category Archives: clips

City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media

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I am pleased to announce that the special issue of Learning, Media and Technology that I co-edited with Ernest Morrell is now available. The entire issue’s table of contents, including our introduction, can be found here. You’ll probably have the most success accessing through your/a university’s library.

Much of this issue came together as I was in the throes of dissertating. I am grateful to Ernest for his mentorship in this process and to the contributors of the journal for their powerful contributions. I also appreciated learning from and getting the occasional you-can-do-it-hurry-up emails from the journal’s editors, Rebecca Eynon and Neil Selwyn.

Ten Reasons I Haven’t Been Blogging (and That Time I Went Bowling)

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Oh, hello there.

Fancy seeing you ’round these parts.

There are excuses aplenty for the radio silence over here. Here’s the general gist (though I hope, with the summer, to be a bit more present):

1. While I’ve been pretty quiet here, I’ve been busy doing a ton of writing elsewhere. There are several “in press” things to update y’all about when they’re available soon. Likewise, I’ve still been occasionally blogging over at DMLcentral. Did you see Iron Man 3? Me too.

2. My first year at Colorado State has been an intense one. The adjustment to university labor has taken more of my time than I anticipated. I enjoy the work, but it is that–”work”–and so time previously spent blogging is now spent grading, office hour-ing (pretty sure that should be a verb since it’s a different mental space than other forms of work on campus), fretting over dwindling class time, and slowly finding allies interested in broadening campus diversity.

3. Did you know everyone I collaborate with that is not at CSU works in a different time zone? Yeah, ol’ Mountain Standard ain’t so hot with the West Coast/Central/East Coast folk… pretty much everybody. This year has also taught me I’m not so great at trying to do basic math (there was a month long period where I was consistently an hour or two early or late to meetings…). To see a bit of the work happening in my classes this semester, check out this resource from NWP’s Digital Is.

4. Oh, Ally and I bought a house. No biggie. Packing, moving, signing (and more signing) and painting and fence building and picture hanging and furniture shopping and house hunting and HOA-ing … that didn’t take any of my time during the months of January through now. (Olive appreciated the new tactical advantage of spotting dogs and rabbits and potential threats that are blocks away to bark at.)

5. Super secret writing project #1. I’ve invested a lot of time into this project. And currently topping 70,000 words, I’m not ready to share too many details yet. Stay tuned.

6. Super secret writing project #2. See #5 (except for the 70,000 words part… this one’s still got some incubating to do).

7. Not so secretive writing: I have a special edited journal issue out now (will link in a separate post) and a couple of other co-authored pieces trickling into press throughout the summer. Huzzah laboriously slow academic publishing schedule. Pretty sure much of this work has been in various stages of review & revision for the better part of a year and a half.

8. My colleague Cindy O’Donnell-Allen and I will be launching the third iteration of the Saving Our Stories project with local elementary school students. It’s going to be amazing and it will warrant summer reflection.

9. I have joined the advisory council for the Northside Aztlan Community Center.

10.

#SurvivorTheVoiceAmazingRaceMadMenBreakingBadSharkTankTVMakesMeFeelLikeAChumpButIWatchItAnyway

 

Bonus: And then there was that time I went bowling for the Department of Education. (Did I mention I’m really bad at bowling?) [The camera adds 10 pins… or something.]

Bowling PSA from Antero Garcia on Vimeo.

 

Catching up on DML

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A busy semester with updates in abundance soon. For now a few quick, DML-related notes:

 

Coming up soon: discussing mobile devices and pedagogies, creating action, and driving in the snow.

That time I gave an ignite talk for an audience of one

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During the NCTE convention last month I gave a five-minute ignite talk. It was fun and stress inducing and of a different style than the other presentations and meetings I participated in while at the Las Vegas conference. Apparently, the talk was supposed to be recorded but it wasn’t. I was asked to repeat the ignite talk in a small room directly to a camera … which is weird. I tend to feel more comfortable being awkward and bumbling in front of a group of people than being awkward and bumbling in a room with one person. In any case, I’ve blogged about all three of these topics before (and I’m currently trying to write up something academic-ish about Dark Twisted Pedagogy). Enjoy!

 

 

Trust and Mobile Media Use In Schools

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I have an article in the most recent issue of The Educational Forum. Like this post, it is titled “Trust and Mobile Media Use in Schools.” The article is a part of a special issue focused on New Literacies. The article can be found here.

Abstract:

This article shares findings from a year-long study about social practices of high school youth with mobile devices during school time. In particular, this study found that students see their school time as fluidly social and academic. Educators and policy-makers need to carefully consider these social practices when preparing 21st century youth for engaging with technology in responsible and meaningful ways beyond their time in school.

Recent Publications On Participatory Culture and Learning

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I want to share two recent publications that came out that I wrote focused on participatory learning in schools. Both focused on the alternate reality game I created as part of my dissertation research, Ask Anansi, these two publications look at the challenges and constraints of sustaining participatory learning within today’s public schools.

First, in the most recent issue of Knowledge Quest, I have an article titled, “Inform, Perform, Transform: Modeling In-School Youth Participatory Action Research through Gameplay.”

Here, I focus primarily on how Ask Anansi functioned as participatory action research (PAR) and some of the limitations of YPAR within traditional school power dynamics. Buffy Hamilton, the special issue’s co-editor wrote a great blog post about the issue here. I would like to piggyback on what Buffy wrote and just say that this issue is full of really powerful work looking at participatory learning. I know many of my education-based colleagues may not necessarily be looking to publications from the American Association of School Librarians for PAR and YPAR resources, but this is a good one.

Next, the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab released the recent report, “Designing with Teachers: Participatory Approaches to Professional Development in Education.” In it, I wrote a chapter titled “A Conversation with Anansi: Professional Development as Alternate Reality Gaming and Youth Participatory Action Research.” Notice a trend here? This piece is a bit more playful than some of my other work, functioning primarily as a discussion of how args can function as teacher PD while also acting as a mock-interview with a talking spider. Henry Jenkins wrote about our working group’s major findings on his blog here. I am grateful to Henry, Erin Reilly, and Iona Literat for inviting me to participate in this working group.

Ask Anansi Sample Worksheets

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This post acts as a sort of digital appendix for my contribution to the Participatory Learning And You! (PLAY!) white paper “Designing With Teachers: Participatory Approaches to Professional Development in Education.” Two sample worksheets from the Alternate Reality Game that I created, Ask Anansi, can be downloaded here.

[I will update this post with a link to the final document once it is available.]

New Column in English Journal

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Just a quick note that I have a column in the current issue of English Journal. It’s titled “‘Like Reading’ and Literacy Challenges in a Digital Age.”

The article describes how my ninth graders challenged my understanding of literacies today, the pedagogy of reading audiobooks, and how a 90 year old poem is changing today.

If you’re a subscriber, you can read it here.

Reflections on my Conversation with Roger

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Several months ago, my former student, Roger and I, sat down and had a rich, two-hour conversation that was recorded as part of an initiative at StoryCorps to capture stories about teachers. For me, this was an opportunity to connect with a student that taught me significant lessons about life, teaching, and the challenges of being a young man in South Central Los Angeles. Though I’d been out of touch with Roger for nearly five years, he was a student who allowed me to grow as an educator for reasons that can never be accurately captured in a two minute edited piece on NPR. Nevertheless, I feel privileged for the opportunity to share the unique insight and intelligence that Roger embodies. I am honored to be able to reconnect with Roger.

One of the best media products a student created in my class my second year of teaching was a podcast Roger created in which he narrated the world around him using found sound, interviews, and reflection, and music. Roger’s story challenged me to look at him differently and is a recording I still continue to listen to with inspiration. Asking Roger detailed questions about this recording during our StoryCorps conversation allowed me to continue my own journey as a teacher. The piece speaks to the powerful work Roger conducted as a scholar. I hope to share it on this site one day with Roger’s permission.

If you ever find yourself in the Library of Congress, I encourage you to look up the full interview and  spend two hours hearing him talk at length about the rich education Roger was getting while not in my classroom. Thank you Roger for allowing me to grow in my early years as an educator and for being willing to reflect publicly on the radio this morning.