Hi, I'm Lieke, an NML intern from the Netherlands for two weeks. Erin asked me if I'd write a blog about my experiences so I'm doing that right now.
The week started with meeting everyone who was at NML and GAMBIT on Monday. I stayed at GAMBIT so I could play with the Learning Library to find out what everyone would be talking about on the conference on Saturday. The rest of the week I helped with putting papers into the folders, making signs to show where the workshops and restrooms would be, and listening to the presentations of the NML-team.
On Friday I was supposed to meet the other teens who would be at the conference - the Global Kids - but their bus got delayed. Instead we went to dinner with a couple of researchers from Indiana who work with NML to a little African restaurant where we had some good conversations. Most people left early because Saturday was going to be a long day.
On Saturday I first had to put the signs on the walls and meet with the Global Kids. Because some people who were listed didn't arrive yet, I had to sign the people in when they came during the intro session. During the coffee-breaks and lunch I had to interview the people who came to the conference. Here are some questions I asked:
1. What aspects of participatory culture and our work at New Media Literacies have you found relevant to your teaching practices? Do you have any examples or stories to share?

2. What do you do to make your classroom more participatory?

3. What are some examples of skills and tolls we need to equip students with to be able to succeed in a participatory culture? 

4. What are some challenges you find when using social media and other new media tools in the classroom? How have you overcome them? 

5. What type of teaching strategies or educational tools have you used to encourage participation and sharing in your classroom?

6. Do you have your students publish their work beyond the classroom or outside of the school (for example on blogs, Youtube, etc?) If not, why? If so, how do you help prepare them for publishing to a wider audience? 

7. Have you heard anything new about assessing your students' learning today? If so, what do you think about them? How do you think we should assess students work in the future? 

8. Have you used the web to develop collaborations with other classrooms or programs outside the school? And if yes, what was it and how did you do it? 

9. After hearing the discussion on digital media and learning this morning, what are some ways that digital media have made an impact in your teaching? 

10. What are you expecting to get from this conference?
Hopefully these interviews will be on the website soon for you to see. Everyone, mostly teachers, were willing to answer the questions and I heard a lot of different answers. There were some people who already used new media, but also people who didn't but were interested in it. The day ended with a wonderful workshop of Henry Jenkins, who got a lot of applause - what he deserved to get.
I think that it would be good for schools to be more participatory and use more new media because it's fun to do that. And when something is fun you are more engaged and more likely to learn.
I enjoyed my first week a lot, and I'm looking forward to another week of working with the NML people.
