Recently in media literacy Category

Greening a Digital Media Course

I've been a media literacy educator for a dozen years, although as a consequence of participating in the punk movement during the early '80s, I've been a lifelong proponent of do-it-yourself media. Since entering the field of education I've worked in numerous arts programs with youths, spending considerable time with disadvantaged groups. Working with Native Americans, Latinos and Afro-Caribbean youth has helped me to formulate a multicultural, multi-perspective approach to media literacy that has pushed me to reconceptualize cultural assumptions embedded in traditional media education.* Learners in those communities are under greater stress than mainstream Americans, and their particular needs call for attention to social justice, environmental issues and cultural citizenship, things that many privileged Americans take for granted.

At one point when I was working on the rez, a Native American elder opined on the information highway by remarking, "any road can get you somewhere." Unfortunately, many programs that embrace digital media tools are too enamored with the technology to think more critically about the "somewhere" we are moving towards. It was during this period that I realized the importance of appropriate applications of technology and also understood the ethnocentrism embedded in the idea of "progress." More importantly, I was forced to think more carefully about who or what I was ultimately serving in my work as an educator.

As a fellow media geek it might surprise you, then, to suggest that my approach since then has been to serve the planet: humans and nonhuman alike. In particular I feel a strong calling to speak to the best of my abilities on behalf of our silent partner: nature. These days in my current role as a professor of media studies at an American University in Rome, I have taken to heart the task of incorporating lessons I learned beyond the walled garden of academia to green the field of media studies. What follows, then, is a field report from my most recent effort, which was to green a digital media culture course.

The Characteristics of Participatory Learning

Last month, Project New Media Literacies attended the second annual Digital Media and Learning Conference in Long Beach, CA. The conference is an inclusive, international gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog, as well as linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice.

On the first day of the conference, Project NML presented a workshop called "Exploring the Characteristics of Participatory Learning". This workshop explored five "characteristics" that NML has recognized as central to creating successful participatory learning environments. The list emerged as a result of our experience running a pilot professional development program with a group of early adopters from New Hampshire last year. The PD asked these k-8  public school educators, "What would the integration of the new media literacies across curricula look like?" "How could you integrate these skills to foster new practices into your own classrooms and schools?" Also, "How will you spread it, and sustain it?" Based on the varied ways the PD succeeded and failed, the final question we were left with was probably the first one we should have asked: "What are the ingredients of a participatory culture of learning,  and what are the practices that help build and sustain it?" Since then, this is the question our research group has set out to answer.

A little more about the perils and promises of participatory PD that we encountered during our experience with New Hampshire... The year-long program was a blended model of learning (part in-person, part online). Due to a 3,000 mile separation between the instructor (me) and the participants (NH) the course required about 80% online participation, and only 20% face-to-face time. The idea was to offer the educators opportunities to practice the skill set of the new media literacies themselves as learners before integrating them in their practice as educators. Our goal by engaging educators in digitally-connected, asynchronous forms of collaborative learning was that they would gain an organic, authentic understanding of what we (NML) mean by "participatory culture" - and thereby adopt the value of its practices and bring them to their students and districts. 

Introducing New Media Literacy to a Public Waldorf School

Teaching new media literacy at a Waldorf-inspired public charter school presents some unique challenges. While few are familiar with Waldorf pedagogy (a teaching method gaining popularity in the public charter school movement; there are 44 Waldorf-inspired public schools in the U.S., with 22 initiatives pending) there are a couple things that people might know. First of all, Waldorf teaching methods are terrific for developing creative and critical thinking skills. Secondly, technology is not used at all in the early grades, in fact it is often withheld until 8^th grade. Additionally, families are usually asked to restrict their children's media usage at home during the school week too.

Did I hear a collective gasp?

As a parent with two children at Journey School, a Waldorf-inspired public charter school in Aliso Viejo, CA (well, actually, one just completed K-8), and (full disclosure), I'm also a filmmaker and a recent recipient of an M.A. in Media Psychology and Social Change, I was interested in exploring how "technology" might be introduced into this type of educational model.