DML 2012 – Beyond Educational Technology

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I’m thrilled to be a part of the Digital Media and Learning 2012 conference committee. The full conference description and call for proposals is listed below. I am organizing the theme Innovations for Public Education.

Particularly, I am hoping to see a larger cadre of teachers and students present at this year’s conference. If you are a teacher, student, or researcher working around the role of digital innovation in public education, please consider submitting a proposal to present. As noted below, proposals are due October 19th through Fastapps.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

BEYOND EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY: LEARNING INNOVATIONS IN A CONNECTED WORLD

Digital Media and Learning Conference Website: http://dml2012.dmlcentral.net/

San Francisco, California March 1-3, 2012

Conference Chair:

Diana Rhoten (News Corp.)

Conference Committee:

Tracy Fullerton (USC) Antero Garcia (UCLA) Mitch Resnick (MIT) Mark Surman (Mozilla Foundation)

Technology will revolutionize education. That was the shout heard around the world as early as the 1970s when “microcomputers” first appeared on the scene. In the last forty years, the exponentially increasing powers and dramatically decreasing costs of computer technologies have surpassed even the wildest dreams of those early days. Yet, there is still little evidence of any major technology-enabled disruptions to the structure and culture of mainstream education. Today, technology has once again become the rallying call for education innovation. Whether as efforts to establish new institutions, experiment with mobile devices, develop learning applications, or incorporate personalized and distance education platforms, information technologies and digital media are at the center of the education innovation conversation.

In 20th Century United States, schools were seen as the primary locus of education, where teachers are transmitters and students are receivers of information and knowledge. As a result, education reform movements focused on promoting school-based practices and processes that would maximize institutional efficiencies. In that context, the then emerging “education technology” community (as it has since come to be known) drew from the “best practice” of their time and focused mainly on the development of instructional hardware to increase standardized test scores, administrative technology tofacilitate record keeping, or content management systems to deliver traditional curriculum online.

More recently, however, cutting-edge research from the social and behavioral sciences has begun to show that an individual’s learning can be accelerated by tapping into personal interests that span different social experiences including but beyond schooling. Evidence also suggests that individuals may learn more efficaciously and more equitably, without gaps between rich and poor, when they learn in specialty domains and practice areas that they choose and for which they are motivated. Compared to older education paradigms, this 21st Century pedagogical view reframes learning as the creation and acquisition of knowledge through observing, interacting and collaborating with others anywhere, anytime. As a result, we are now seeing new technologies and digital media designed not to deliver a faster, cheaper schooling but rather to enable richer, deeper learning. As this new “digital media and learning” movement (as it is becoming known) expands, we are seeing the emergence of Web-enabled, mobile-based platforms that promote new models of peer-to-peer learning, anywhere / anytime learning, blended learning and game-based learning.

The “education technology” and “digital media and learning” views on education innovation represent differences in thinking not just about technologies for but also – more importantly – pedagogies and epistemologies of learning. While there are fundamental differences between these perspectives, we do not think these two visions need be or should be in conflict with one another. In fact, we believe they are complements to one another, with critical and necessary synergies between their approaches. For example, there is great evidence to suggest that “basic skills” and “core competencies” may be best learned in classroom environments but then augmented and advanced with the type of independent, interactive learner-centered experiences that new technologies can provide outside of the classroom. Building a new future for education and learning in a connected world not only allows but actually requires bridging in-school and out-of-school learning practices and philosophies through networks of learning institutions and alliances.

Inspired by Silicon Valley’s culture of technology-led innovation, the 2012 Digital Media and Learning Conference will explore ongoing questions and debates around the role of technology and the future of education and learning.

• What are the primary purposes and practices of education, and how can technology accelerate or decelerate them?

• When we talk about disruptive technologies, what systems and players are we really seeking to change and to what end?

• What sectors, institutions and populations are we mobilizing for innovation and for whom are we mobilizing them?

• How do we design, build and fund infrastructures around new connections across and configurations of learning?

• How do we cultivate a healthy, symbiotic ecosystem of innovation that leads to a future of Connected Learning?

In answering these and other questions, we hope attendees will challenge their assumptions and share their visions about what education and learning could or should look like in a connected world. To that end, we invite provocative sessions that address the intersections and tensions inherent in different approaches to innovation, and we strongly encourage interactive discussions that push panelists and participants alike to ask themselves where they are in the innovation conversation and how they plan to translate that conversation into action.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP, PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS

We welcome workshops, panels and papers along five themes: Making, Tinkering and Remixing; Re-imagining Media for Learning; Democratizing Learning Innovation; Innovations for Public Education and Digital Media and Learning.

Making, Tinkering and Remixing. To become full and active participants in 21st century society, young people must learn to design, create, and invent with new technologies, not simply interact with them. What are the pathways for becoming a maker and not just a user in a world of Connected Learning? What social and technical infrastructures provide the best support for young people as they learn to tinker with materials, remix one another’s work, and iteratively refine their creations?

Re-imagining Media for Learning. What does it mean to think of media and games in the service of diverse educational goals and within a broad ecology of learning? In particular, how can we balance the needs of multi-stakeholder alliances against the challenges of designing engaging, playful and truly innovative media experiences? Especially those that go beyond implementations of technologies and platforms to create real communities of playful learning and rich opportunities for individual discovery and growth.

Democratizing Learning Innovation. Looking to the groundswell for massively collaborative innovation and change, what does it take to pull from a participatory and networked ecology to push innovation from the bottom up and from the outside in versus top down and inside out?

Innovations for Public Education. Too often cutting edge technology innovations serve the interests of the already privileged “creative class.” What can we do to ensure that the most innovative forms of learning are accessible to all educators and young people relying on public education infrastructures? How can digital innovation directly impact disparities in achievement of students based on race and class?

Digital Media and Learning: We also welcome submissions that address innovative research and practice in the field of digital media and learning.

Presentation Formats

This year we will be accepting proposals in three formats: panels, workshops and short talks.

Panels bring together in discussion four participants or presentations representing a range of ideas and projects. Panels are scheduled for 90 minutes and should include a mix of individuals working in areas of research, theory, and practice. We also encourage the use of discussants.

Workshops provide an opportunity for hands-on exploration and/or problem solving. They can be organized around a core challenge that participants come together to work on or around a tool, platform, or concept. Workshops are scheduled for 90 minutes and should be highly participatory.

Finally, we welcome short, ten minute talks where presenters speak for ten minutes on their work, research or a subject relevant to the conference theme and/or subthemes.

Note: Proposals for ignite sessions will be announced in January 2012.

Submitting Your Proposal

The DML2012 Conference proposal system is now open and full proposals will be due on October 19, 2011 (11:59 pm PST). To propose a panel, participants will be required to register with Fastapps http:// fastapps.dmlcentral.org, our submission system at the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub. Participants will be able to edit their proposals up until the final deadline.

Panel and Workshop proposal abstracts should cover the theme, format (e.g. discussion, interactive, presentations), how the session addresses the theme of the conference and/or subtheme in up to 500 words. Short talk abstracts should cover the theme, format (e.g. discussion, interactive, presentations), how the talk addresses the theme of the conference and/or subtheme in up to 250 words. List of participants, affiliations, emails and titles of talks/presentations (if applicable) should also be included. We will not be soliciting full papers or publishing conference proceedings.

Please note that each participant will be limited to participation on no more than two panels at the conference. Participants will be expected to fund their own travel and accommodation.

Talkin’ Digital Is on DMLcentral

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My recent DMLcentral post focuses on the National Writing Project’s Digital Is site. I’ve been excited about the increased engagement with this community of educators recently and I am encouraging teachers of all disciplines and ages to consider participating within the Digital Is community.

Cliff, my colleague at UCLA, and I are currently working on several collections for Digital Is (as pictured above). I’m looking forward to sharing some of the ideas we’ve been developing in the near future.

Call for Papers: City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media

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I’m pleased to announce that I am co-editing a special issue of Learning Media and Technology with Ernest Morrell. The theme for our issue is “City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media.” You can read the full CFP here and I will also paste it below. If you are a researcher, teacher, or student involved in work that relates to the theme described, please consider submitting an abstract for consideration by September 30th.

Learning, Media and Technology

Call for papers – special issue

Issue theme: City Youth and the  Pedagogy of Participatory Media

 

Learning, Media and Technology is acknowledged as one of the learning academic journals in the fields of educational technology and educational media.

Proposals are invited for papers for a special issue of the journal on the theme“City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media”.   The special issue will be edited by Antero Garcia and Ernest Morrell.

We are currently soliciting abstracts for proposed papers for the special issue. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and be accompanied by up to six keywords.

  • Deadline for submission of abstract: 30th September 2011
  • Successful authors informed: 10th October 2011
  • Deadline for submission of full papers: 31st January 2012

Full papers are expected to be between 4,000 and 6,000 words (please refer to the journal website for full ‘instructions for authors’). All papers will be subject to the usual blind reviewing and refereeing processes.

Please send abstracts and keywords to the guest editors by 30th September 2011:

  • anterobot@gmail.com
  • ernestmorrell@gmail.com

FURTHER DETAILS OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE

In 1950, approximately 29% of the world’s population was classified as urban. According to the 2007 revision of the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects, 70% of the world’s population will be classified as urban by 2050 and most of the people who will inhabit urban centres globally will be economically disadvantaged. We also know that school systems in cities around the world are challenged to provide socially and culturally meaningful education to increasingly diverse populations and, because of their inability to meet these challenges, many city youth do not receive the formal education they need to participate meaningfully in the world of work or civil society in the 21st century.

At the same time, we see that city youth have increasing access to technology and many scholars have shown that youth are engaging technology outside of school in increasingly sophisticated ways. Because of this, technology is being called upon as an antidote to education inequity globally. These tools are used not only to engage students in meaningful learning experiences, but also to shape ways people participate and interact with the world. However, while there is burgeoning research around the role that participatory media play in improving learning, educators are identifying challenges toward implementation. Specifically,  “research on teaching in urban schools suggests that teachers’ limited skills and limiting beliefs about their students lead to a steady diet of low-level material coupled with unstimulating, roteoriented teaching”.

When applied to historically marginalized communities, participatory media acts as a powerful tool for amplification of voice and as a means to personalize content and assessments for the specific needs of marginalized youth. Part of the challenge that educators face is in looking at the ways youth come together and communicate to refine/establish new technologies. As we better understand how culture happens among young people, an understanding of how to develop new technologies emerges.

This special issue explores ways that technology-based opportunities present strategies for closing a global literacy gap based on race and class. Specifically, this issue focuses on pedagogy and participatory media:

  • How are city youth demonstrating the potential of participatory media to intentionally develop a public pedagogy?
  • How are participatory media reshaping social thought and action?
  • How do educators leverage media in critical literacy development? What are examples of successful attempts of this form of pedagogy?
  • Are there ministries and departments of education or government agencies that are getting it right with respect to policies that promote the pedagogy of participatory media?
  • What are the risks of adopting participatory media tools developed for capitalism and consumerism? How are educators engaging youth in these topics?

The guest editors of this issue have extensive experience as teachers, teacher educators, and researchers working with youth in the U.S. This issue requests submissions from a wide range of agents from around the world within the field of education: in addition to researchers, teachers, students, and combinations of collaborators across these audiences are encouraged to share their work.

“Chinese Communist bliss,” Alienating 11th grade Urban Youth, and the Danger of a Single Story Revisited

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I’m both intrigued and troubled by the prevalence of stories like this one. At once I am fascinated by the voyeuristic look into the rigorous lives of “the other” while also concerned about what the prevalence of these narratives say in maintaining the competitiveness from a capitalistic perspective in the United States. We’re still #12, after all, right?

I also think there is a danger in presenting this article in a way that ends up feeling like it’s a universal proclamation of the lived experience of an entire nation – not just a handful of individuals.

I’m reminded of this news article I read with my 11th graders last year. From the Wall Street Journal, the article discusses how – for many Americans – junior year is such an intense year (with AP classes, volunteer service, afterschool clubs, SAT prep, and whatever else will pad a college application) that many students aren’t even interested in going to college by the time they get to the point. Like the above article about the crazily intense “other” studying harder, better, faster, stronger than everyone else, the article was an exciting peak into the lives of youth. The only problem was that it reflected absolutely none of the experiences of my students here in South Central. They read the article with a mixture of confusion and with concern: wait … were they, too, supposed to be doing all this stuff to be getting into schools? Was someone going to tell the black and brown kids down at Manual Arts about the way the other half lived and operated?

When we peak into the lives of the hardworking student, the secret sect of an alternative music scene, or even the inner-workings of gold farming, there is a danger in making broad generalizations and reporting them. While I don’t doubt the factual accuracy of the articles described here, I’m concerned by the way these articles function to further dominant, hegemonic narratives that inevitably distance communities, pressure communities, and fuel narratives of capitalism.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

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I finished this book today. The book is so immersive, and funny, and poignant and somehow not read by anyone I know. I called the Hobo Hotline from within the book. I went to the crazily interactive website (once you pull the lever). And as excited as I am to jump into The Magician King, this one was a bummer to be through with.

Last week, I bought three other copies of this book on whim because I’m intending to just hand it out to people and make them read it. It’s that good. And it’s somehow ridiculously cheap on Amazon. It makes me want to donate money to the author (a la Helen DeWitt’s Secondhand Sales). It makes me want to draw a map with T.S. Spivet in the middle and directions for you to go and read and examine and search for Layton on every page of the book. So awesome.

“Panic on the Streets of London”: The Urgency for Participatory Media Pedagogy

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Like many of you, I am experiencing an interpretation of the riots taking place in London through a mediated lens of retweeted photographs [see image above], blog posts, +1d news articles, and forums sharing freshly sparked memes. Nested commenting across online sources-like this video/blog post/tweet-are rich and inherently different from how information is shared and absorbed than ever before.

The experiences of the urban youth that are engaged in political dissonance, in resistance, in bringing social issues to the foray are, in many ways, retelling a narrative that I’m already uncomfortably familiar with. The prominence of looting and of reprehensible behavior in the dominant narrative here echoes the social discourse of looters during Katrina and Rodney King (events so engrained in America’s consciousness I can signal them through proper nouns only somewhat associated with the events themselves).

As I continue to follow along with what is happening–now geographically distanced from the culturally familiar–I am struck by the fact that this is precisely the urgency for a widespread induction of critical engagement with participatory media and its resulting media literacies in formal schools. Right now,  it is the livelihood and well-being of entire communities at stake. Technology’s role in mediating resistance efforts across global channels means that a media literacy today extends directly into illuminating these repeating narratives and in equipping a generation of youth with the tools to successfully interpret, contribute to, and reflect upon the myriad thread of information about physical world activism and protest. A pedagogy of participatory media begins with what is happening in the streets of England right now and empowers educators and students alike in transforming & challenging dominant narratives.

Peter and His Amazing RIFs

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As teacher layoffs have become a frustrating norm for several of my friends, I wanted to find a way to personalize for the public the mass layoffs that affect the teaching force. Peter and I sat down for an afternoon trying to figure out a way to clearly explain the mess that has been his employment status over the past few years. The conversation took nearly four hours and spilled over dozens of post-it notes. The result is the above children’s book. Though it glosses over details and even more infuriating bureaucratic mistakes and lack of communication, the general difficulty with determining seniority (and thus ensuring a job) is pretty clear. The messy scrawl is all mine – Peter made all of the images using a program we used in our journalism intersession class. (The slideshow can be slowed down by clicking on the options once it’s launched.)

 

There’s a Patent For That

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Last week’s episode of This American Life described the troubling problem with innovation and ownership of patents*. Specifically, the show questioned, how we protect our intellectual work and our ideas. In listening to this, I realized how closely the challenges of patents are to the current struggles of ownership of textual products in an age of remix.

As educators need to reevaluate concepts like plagiarism for a generation that is being apprenticed into practices of remixing and appropriating old media for new purposes, so too do we need to think of the relationship between textual production and productive innovation. Pragmatically, I can imagine students–in ELA classrooms no less–will be required to produce mobile apps or participatory media platforms to demonstrate their skills as writers and producers. In this sense, where does the line between writing and building start and end? When we write in response to literature and yield a mobile app that integrates into our everyday use, at what point does our work become patentable? At what point need it be copywritten in an old paradigm?

Last month, I spent a significant chunk of time enveloped in an intellectual tussle with M.M. Bakhtin. I still have not fully wrested my thoughts from his Discourse of the Novel and see directly how language practices are constantly in negotiation with the reader/viewer/user/customer/programmer and how these negotiations spin out into larger areas of exploration. For now, as content and its method of delivery become intwined in even more complex relationships, educators need to prepare for work that defies metrics like paragraphs, double-spaced 12-point font and pesky one-ince margins.

 

*As I don’t spend a whole lot of time here discussing the actual show, I suggest listening to the whole thing. I should also mention that this response from Intellectual Ventures is interesting.

The Perennial Outsider and the Problem with Bashing White Kids

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As critical as I get about depictions of race, class, and gender in media, I have a real problem with the thrust of this article.  While I think the author is trying to be inclusive in his vision of the need for non-White heroes (and I agree with him on this point), I think bashing Holden is the wrong approach. Let’s look at two specific passages from the article’s beginning and ending:

Teachers and writers who venerate Catcher have to ask themselves: How relevant is Holden in a world where he is an actual minority?

And

As for the coming minority represented by dying Holden, whose popularity among teens has waned in recent years, the prize is out there. The first writer who accurately describes what it is like to be the only white boy in the room in 21st-Century America can redefine the White Outsider and make him relevant again.

So, to make a long story short, as a teacher, I did ask myself if Holden was relevant for my class of all black and Latino youth. I did this seven years ago during my first year as a teacher. At that time, I specifically felt that the whiny voice of a rich, white east-coast male would be completely alien to my students. It would be patronizing to force them to spend their time with such a literary character. I said this to several of my teaching colleagues.

But what I forgot was that Holden is the apotheosis of being a teenager and growing up. I’ve had few texts that have quite the near-universal positive response as Catcher gets in my 11th grade classroom.

While I ask students to think about the critical nature of the text and its politics of representation, I also recognize that students need to look at the world from myriad viewpoints – especially when those of privileged folks like Holden end up looking a whole lot like their own. Each time I teach this book (and it’s been taught to every 11th grade class I’ve taught at this point), I have students ask to buy a copy when they are finished. I have students each year admit it’s the first book they’ve finished reading. Ever. I have impassioned and emotional reflections from students that discuss their fears, uncertainties, and desires about growing up. The fact that Holden is white or male doesn’t get in the way of this pathos or this ability of students to engage meaningfully with an aging text.

Ultimately, I think there is a danger in taking an effective and proven piece of literature like The Catcher In The Rye and allowing it to function as an effigy to burn in tribute to large and significant questions about racial diversity, representation, and media. These are important questions, but the approach is misguided and uninformed. And isn’t this kind of writing specifically what would lead to popularity waning? Is a text’s popularity tied to its relevance?

Teacher Facebook Groups & Civic Lessons: Learning from “The Truth About L.A.’s Promise”

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[As should be obvious, the images and quoted text in this post were not made by me.]*

As schools are being cleaned, painted, prepared for the new year and as many of my friends collect unemployment and search for teaching jobs in charters and small non-LAUSD schools, I want to spend some time on this blog describing some of the individual challenges I’m seeing my school community face. I plan to dedicate several posts over the summer looking at what budget cuts and educational reform look like through the lens of my school. Starting right now.

The problem, of course, is that there isn’t even a pretense of objectivity in what I’m trying to do here. Pertaining specifically to the words and images here, I’m trying my best to simply offer you, the reader, a snapshot of what is happening. What I want to show now is how teachers are voicing, organizing, and enacting civic action within a public & open digital sphere.

“The Truth About L.A.’s Promise” Facebook group has only been up for about a day. I don’t know what kind of response the members can anticipate. As a bit of background, L.A.’s Promise is the “Network Partner” for Manual Arts; the company manages and oversees the organizational and academic operation of the school in conjunction with LAUSD. As I’ve written about before, the climate at the school over the past year has been less than harmonious. [If it sounds like I’m downplaying any conflict or tension, you would be absolutely correct; the focus here is on the Facebook group.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though I will weigh in at some point down the road, I want to simply show one way the current circumstances of public education are engaging teachers in responsive ways. The fact that many of the people, my friends & colleagues, who are voicing opinions in this digital space are no longer working at Manual Arts is not lost on me. Being liberated from this work environment allows for dissenting voice. However, for the teachers like myself that are still working at the school next year, I am interested in how this open Facebook group will protect and share support for teachers still teaching at Manual Arts and those that will not be teaching there in September.

 

 

 

Ultimately (and from the “safe” view of researcher), I am fascinated by the ways these teachers advocate and continue to “teach” within this space; former students speak up and participate in this group and the lessons of activism are seen by students – through what kind of interpretive lens is not up for me to decide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, taking the traditionally text-heavy interface of groups, the participants of this open group are weaving images into a clearly digestible campaign.

 

Again, I have yet to see a response to this group. It’s membership and organization is still nascent. I am intrigued about the way Facebook’s process of recruitment – a current member simply “adds” me – signals to outsiders how I am to be read. Though I did not choose to join this group, I am automatically affiliated with them (and, conversely, I haven’t yet chosen to “leave” the group either).

 

 

 

Pragmatically, L.A.’s Promise could quickly scan the membership of this group, see that I am included, and see me as an individual that opposes them without engaging me in dialogue one way or another. I am essentially placed in an oppositional position simply through sharing digital space at the behest of a friend. Intrigued, I’m encouraging (but not “adding”) you to follow along.

 

 

 

*If you were to think that I was worried about retaliation or being seen as libelous, you would be correct.

[UPDATE: 7/29/11 12:21 a.m] This was posted by a member on the Facebook group:

Hey Everyone. Looks like I got REPORTED by someone on Facebook. Problem is I removed myself from “Admin” status when I started this group because I believed that it should be open to all.

I guess that’s how this group will be engaged for progressive dialogue.