OK – I realize that I am from North Dakota and I should expect to see some things that are a little different while walking the streets after dark in New York. Perhaps some rough looking characters, women of the evening, or even patrons of the theater. This sign I did not expect. I admit this is a tougher neighborhood than I normally experience. My students simply don’t show for class. Buy a sign? Some students must really not like their teacher.
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I select convention sessions to attend based on session titles (and how many blocks I must walk if the session is another hotel). Participatory media is a phrase that now attracts my attention.
I noted this label for a 12:30 session and found that I was unable to get close to the door let alone gain entrance to the 40 person room. Perhaps folks are attracted when the speakers are Howard Gardner, Henry Jenkins and Carrie James. Who schedules this collection in a 40 person room? Division G needs more members so their sessions can be scheduled in larger rooms.
I tried the label again at 2:15 and had no difficulty finding a seat. There are probably several lessons here, but let me save comments on what such lessons might be until later. This session ended up considering adolescent media production in what I would regard as specialized and dedicated environments. The session featured presentations by “media literacy” types. I use the the word “types” from the amused perspective of sometimes being “typed” myself. At a generic level, it is true that I am a “psychologist” and hanging with my high school friends in rural Iowa it is interesting the reaction that this label generates. No, we are not all Freudians! In fact, potentially the most common application of Freudian interpretation is probably practiced by “media types”. Anyway, it is important to allow professionals their strange language and customs. “Poemness” was a new term for me, but hey, it is probably a couple of papers or presentations or possibly even a book for you. Such is the academic game.
This second session examined adolescent media production and used as a focus several impressive programs (Youth Radio, Reel Works, In Progress, Poetry For The People). The “subtext” for these programs is visible (note the effort to share the language of this culture) from terminology used to describe benefits and experiences – empowerment, social justice, identity development, marginalized youth.
What strikes me about the ideas you encounter at a conference like AERA is how broadly folks see concepts such as technology integration and participatory media. Our own writing about such topics assumes applications in core content areas and typical schools. Others view learning much more broadly both in terms of content and location.
So, I did not read the fine print and I did not look for “names” I recognized, but I did encounter some examples I could appreciate and some applications I endorse. An observation Cindy made in returning from Russia occurred to me. I think we think other educational systems focus on fact learning and neglect the development of creativity and other forms of higher order thinking. This is our explanation for international comparisons on NAEP exams (or similar international comparisons). To the contrary, creative projects are common in the student experiences we have observed in China, Japan, and now Russia. The opportunity for creative projects is somehow accommodated despite less impressive budgets. The participatory examples I have noted here were generated outside of traditional educational environments. Why is that?
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We are in New York for the American Educational Research Association convention. I can’t say that I have anything new to report on the research front at this time.
At the end of the day, we walked to the Apple store on 5th avenue. We visit Apple stores on a regular basis, but the appearance of this New York store is unique and familiar to the Apple faithful. This had to be the busiest Apple store I have visited. Before I am accused of being a fan-boy, I should say I made no purchase.
Today, the Grand Forks Herald has an article on Cindy’s podcasting grant. The core idea is to offer customized content for English Language Learners new to Grand Forks and often the United States. The iPods allow students to experience digital audio and video content appropriate to their classroom and language needs. The mobility of the ipods allow them to work with the content anytime AND to share the content with family members. The story does a nice job of explaining core ideas from the grant
Excitedly, happily? “The journalist who wrote the story used these terms to characterize the narrative,” Grabe said, excitedly!
Not that I have given a lot of interviews, but I can’t imagine any journalist describing my style of interaction in this fashion. Cindy on the other hand generates this reaction. 😉
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Knowledge@Wharton offers an interesting analysis of what appears to be a competition between experts and amateurs as information providers. The piece notes many of the sources I have cited in previous posts (e.g. Revenge of the Experts, Cult of the Amateur).
The analysis notes that despite recent criticism of user generated content money is still moving toward sites that cultivate the generation of user content (e.g., News Corp purchase of MySpace). The Wharton analysis offers comments from business professionals reaching a variety of conclusions. Among the comments, the recognition that the desired for vetted information is one motivation and the desire to express one’s opinion is another (my interpretation).
Some conclusions:
Ultimately, the tug of war between professional and user-generated content will be resolved by their business models.
…
The problem: It’s unclear whether consumers will pay for content — no matter how good it is.
“The big challenge is the economic problem. What funded the traditional content model is falling apart,” says Whitehouse. “Ideally, I see Internet content being a blend of professional and amateur content, but how do we develop an economic model that supports both?” (Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of IT at Wharton)
After listening to an interview with Dave Winer on a TWiT (this week in tech #134) podcast, I became interested in a “service” Winer was hacking together called FlickrFan. You may not recognize the name, but Winer was involved in the development of RSS. Anyway, Winer was describing FlickrFan and it was my impression he was describing a method for acquiring high quality images from “services” for display on HDTVs using a device such as Apple TV. The description of the quality of the images caught my attention.
I don’t own an AppleTV or have a HDTV, but it turns out you can use this service on a Mac and if you want use the images it downloads as your screen server. I have found the ever changing display of great images quite captivating. Default image feeds include AP wire photos and Agence France-Presse wire photos. You can add whatever additional feeds you want.
I took this picture of my office workspace to give you a feel for what appears on the screen(s).
A one or two sentence description of each image is also provided.
I am a news channel (mostly CNN) junkie. This feed of images adds a new dimension to this hobby. You can use this software in other ways, but just using it as a way to access news images has been worth the effort.
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My students tell me I say some pretty funny things. The problem, they say, is they cannot tell when being funny is my intent.
I will save you the trouble of thinking too hard. I will now try to be funny. The comments that follow are absolutely factually accurate. I swear. It is my interpretation that is supposed to be funny.
Anyway, there I was at the end of a long week, at the club, working out. I was listening to Al Gore – Assault on Reason – on the ipod. After I was able to ramp the stairmaster up to a burn rate of a couple of calories a minute, I began to pay attention to my surroundings. Within my field of vision are three television sets each with a different show and all running closed captioning. On my left (told you this would be hard to make up) was CNN. On the right was Fox. I will get to the middle display at the end.
The individuals appearing on both televisions are the same. I know from experience that the spin must be going in opposite directions. What I can figure out from the closed captioning is that the word of the day is – Repudiate. There is a black minister and an older white woman and evidently both are racists. Some weird club they must belong to. The repudiate thing has something to do with these racists.
Then there was the image of Colin Powell. Not sure what he was there for and I don’t think anyone was trying to repudiate him.
You know, humor is a funny thing. Sometimes we try to be funny when life makes us nervous.
I hope the candidates get past this repudiate thing. I want to know if anyone besides me is worried about the stock market. I do repudiate falling stock prices and rising gas costs. Sorry.
Anyway – the television in the middle was playing a Bob Newhart rerun. Just what I needed – a pretend psychologist to help me deal with the schizophrenic situation I was in.
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