New Media for Children & Young Adults, 2010-11

yeah yeah, class is over, but this still seemed highly relevant:

Apple facing class-action lawsuit over kids’ in-app purchases

*WARNING: Contains some questionable language

Whenever we talk about education everyone has something to say. All of us have been through school (with pleasant or traumatic experiences) and we can share what was well or terribly done inside the classroom.

In this occasion, I’d like to discuss how technology is taught in classroom. For that I have selected two little pieces of readings and two videos. I will briefly refer to the sources and give you some questions that will guide our conversation next Monday. (It’s not mandatory to answer the questions.)

Sweeny’s article describes how new literacies can be integrated into writing instruction.

• What do you think about the standards and skills proposed to be developed in this article?
• Language is always changing. In this sense, it is normal that writing is also changing. What do you think about the changes in writing and the resistance that exists towards it?
• What do you think about the new resources proposed to been integrated in the classroom? Can you think about other resources or ideas that would be useful in a pedagogical environment?

“The story” by Warlick is a short science fiction piece that represents school in 2015.

• How do you imagine classes in 5, 10, or 20 years?
• Do you remember your classes at school? Do you think that those classes would be still applicable with these Digital Natives Kids?

In the talk “How to learn? From mistakes” by Diana Laufenberg, the author shares three key points that she has learned in her experience as a teacher.

• What do you think about learning in an age where information is everywhere?
• “Experience the learning, empowering student voice and embracing the failure”. Why are these ideas key points for the future in education?

Regarding the last video: “Bring on the Learning Revolution” by Ken Robinson, I’d like us to think about the following questions:

• Does everyone learn in the same way?
• How can we democratize education through technology?

I just ran across a very well-written article defending Roger Ebert’s position on whether games can be art, written by a game developer, no less. I still take issue with the, to me, arbitrary distinction between art and Great Art, but it’s a great read, nonetheless.

This article struck me as fairly interesting and pertinent to our discussions in this class in terms of the convergence of online and “real” worlds..

“The vaguely intimidating twentysomethings who prowl the corridors of the Austin Convention Centre, juggling coffee cups, iPad 2s and the festival’s 330-page schedule of events, are no longer content with transforming that part of your life you spend at your computer, or even on your smartphone. This is not just grandiosity on their part. Rather – and this is a technological point, but also a philosophical one – they herald the final disappearance of the boundary between “life online” and “real life”, between the physical and the virtual. It thus requires only a small (and hopefully permissible) amount of journalistic hyperbole to suggest that the days of “the internet” as an identifiably separate thing may be behind us.”

SXSW 2011: The internet is over (via The Guardian)

In light of Eric’s ironic celebrating of Julia’s birthday with cake instead of pie on pi day, I feel that this is appropriate:

Cake vs. Pie: A Scientific Approach

(For the record, I am on Team Cake, and if my parents had given me pie on my birthday, I would’ve grown up wearing all black and spouting poetry about the deep anguish of my childhood and how my parents never really loved me. Also, I really like carrot cake.)

Despite their enormous popularity, video games tend to get a bad rap in mainstream media dialogues. If their shrill warnings are to be believed, these addictive and violent games are making our children into sociopathic loners; they ruin marriages and families and are to blame for obesity, ADD, poor eyesight, depression and are, above all, a colossal waste of time. Although a case might indeed be made to support some of these criticisms, video games are just a medium; one might as well accuse books or movies or “the web” of causing any number of social ills to the same effect.

That said, video games are a tremendously powerful medium that are distinct in many ways from traditional forms of media such as books, film, television and even most web-content. To illustrate this, I selected talks by David Perry and Jane McGonigal and the article “The Rhetoric of Video Games” by Ian Bogost for your consideration this week, and ask that you give the following questions some thought as you watch and read them.

What differentiates video games from other mediums?
How do these differences impact the way people are affected by video games?
Is “play” a waste of time?

I would recommend tackling these sources in the order listed, but it’s not strictly necessary.

1. David Perry: Are games better than life? (Video from TED.com). If you’re pressed for time, go ahead and skip to the 10-minute mark and focus on the student-video. Also, bear in mind, these examples are already five years old.

2. Ian Bogost, “The Rhetoric of Video Games” from The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning.

3. Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world. (Video from TED.com) She also outlines much the same ideas in this article if you’d prefer to read or want additional details; Be a Gamer, Save the World.

I look forward to reading and hearing your thoughts.

For those of us who like celebrating two unrelated things on March 14th

Vihart – Pi is (still) wrong

Hey Gang,

So this week we’ll be discussing copyright, DRM and other intellectual property issues, especially as they effect young people and creativity. Lawrence Lessig’s most recent book, Remix, deals specifically with how the current copyright regime is impacting the next generation’s to be creative without running afoul of the law.

Cory Doctorow, an author whom we have discussed because of his YA novels, also lectures about these issues, and a recent talk given at the Melbourne Writers Festival sums up his views nicely. He is speaking primarily to professional creators, but what he has to say impacts amateur creators–as most young people are–as well.

I’d like you to read the INTRODUCTION to Remix, and watch a video of Doctorow’s talk in Melbourne. The talk is in two 25-minute chunks, so if you’re pressed for time, you can skip the first 11 minutes as they deal more directly with DRM, though I encourage you to check out the whole thing. There are mp3s of the talk here and here, if you’d rather stick them on your iPod and listen on the go.

If you want to dig a bit deeper, check out the rest of Remix, and this recent episode of the Search Engine Podcast, which discusses the group Anonymous, and and some reasons for creativity that go beyond monetary compensation.

As you’re reading / watching / listening, here are a few questions to think about:

• Do people make art because the expect to get rich?
• What is the social impact when commonplace activities are illegal?
• DRM has been shown to be ineffective at preventing illegal copying. Why else would publishers want to use it on their products?