November 2008 Archives

Building Villages in the Primal Depths

The following is a copy of a letter I wrote to the editors of the newspapers on our press mailing list after Mixed Magic Theatre's trip to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to do our production of Moby Dick: Then and Now.

 

Last weekend Mixed Magic Theatre loaded up three vans with a troupe of actors and a set and went to Washington, DC. We went there to perform our production of Moby Dick: Then and Now at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As the author and director of the play and the Artistic Director of the company, I had a lot to be proud of. But greater than my contribution to this effort is the pride I felt about the energy and commitment of actors and technicians that made the journey special. Not only were they a blast to be with and around, they all had a sense of this time in history and how they were not just performers, but a part of the Mixed Magic Theatre mission to "build more literate and arts active communities." Most of the company started with the project more than two years ago and I have witnessed their growth and willingness to claim ownership of the work.

 

Continue reading Building Villages in the Primal Depths.

Networking Credibility

At Project New Media Literacies, we're collaborating with Harvard's GoodPlay Project on an ethics casebook to address the special ethical issues that arise in the online world. GoodPlay has identified five different ethical areas, but at the moment, we are working on activities that explore credibility and how it is assessed and developed online.

Drawing by Marc Ngui

So, the first thing we have to think about is what makes the online world different from the offline world? More specifically, what differences are there that change the way credibility works? One possible answer: the online world is hyper-networked.

Youth and the Election

Happy Election Day! Don't forget to VOTE!

Keeping with the theme, I would like to highlight a few videos that have been floating around the internet that show young people engaging in the election and using Project NML skills to boot! (shout out to Nick for showing me two of the links!)

Appropriation - the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.

Students at Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, GA were recently highlighted on CNN for their remix of the hip-hop star TI's song "Whatever You Like." The students' song, "You Can Vote However You Like," appropriates the background track and melody from the original, but changes the lyrics into a debate between the McCain and Obama camps.

Here's the original performance on CNN:



You can watch an interview with the students here.

To Censor or Not To Censor

One of the big questions we're dealing with right now in the Learning Library is how much we want to, and are able to, censor cussing and so forth within our Challenges. The Learning Library is essentially a tool which people can use to create their own Challenges, so we're really just concerned with the Challenges we're creating to populate the Library when it first goes live at this stage. Of course, it's important to protect children from inappropriate content. But the world is full of inappropriate content, and we don't want the Learning Library to feel toothless and out-of-touch.

Why should OLPC and NML team up?

One Laptop per child (http://laptop.org/) is developed to provide children around the world with new affordable opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.

Mulosayoo Kids

Photo by Daniel Drake