I had to share this message from NML researcher Kelly Leahy, who
manages to make hilarious insights even in her sleep. It seems to sum
up the feeling we
sometimes have on this project, because it is a project that is constantly evolving.
After the New Media Literacies theoretical framework was laid out in
the white paper, the team moved forward to create related materials.
The initial idea was to create a library of documentary videos that
profiled various media makers. These videos would be shared online in
an Exemplar Library - a collection of stories about people using the
new media literacies in the real world. Another goal was to create
learning activities related to these exemplars.
As
we moved
forward, we went through many shifts - these resulted from new
realizations, ongoing research, new people on our team, or just from
our own process. Some shifts felt subtle, and others felt more
dramatic, but often our priorities and ways of working had to change.
Such course adjustments are a necessary part of our research process,
and I think it might be valuable to record some of the changes we've
made along the way...
Fall 2006Let's get a broader, more social sense of each medium (comic books, djing, etc)
- interview more than one media maker for each exemplar
- profile the medium instead of the maker
- find out and represent how makers collaborate and communicate
Let's make the videos better
- Hire video producer
- Focus more on teaching documentary video production strategies
- Encourage RAs to pre-interview subjects
- Encourage RAs to design "treatments", "use an angle" for each exemplar video
Let's integrate the design of the lesson plan into the production of the video.
- Encourage RAs to consider the NML skills up front, before any production
- Encourage RAs to define the learning objectives up front, before any production
- Create a semester schedule so that RAs work on videos and lesson plans at the same time
Spring 2007Let's use our team better
- assess & identify strengths, interests of individual RAs
- create team meetings (RAs feel they're working in isolation)
Summer 2007- RAs no longer responsible for individually creating exemplar videos
- create individual job descriptions for each RA based on strengths and interests.
Fall 2008Let's use a multimedia approach to create NML materials
- Don't assume video is the best/only way to profile media makers
- Use
video only for what video does best (video can share the feeling of
gameplay, but a network diagram could communicate complex overlapping
histories of game genres of gaming more clearly than a videotaped
interview)
- Research online tools and incorporate them ("don't re-invent the wheel")
Let's make sure we're aiming toward UGC, make sure library of materials can expand
- Reassess how we engage youth
- Reassess how we ask youth to contribute
- Reassess our framework (this went from exemplars to seasons, from seasons to 4 forms of participatory culture...)
I think that as we move forward, we will be able to use this blog to share these kinds of realizations and shifts as they happen.
