[phd studentships: multidisciplinary new media learning]

KTH – The Royal Institute of Technology – in Stockholm, Sweden
School of Computer Science and Communication (CSC) seeks
3-6 PhD students in Human Computer Interaction and
1 PhD student in Media Technology

The department of HCI conducts research within Human Computer Interaction, which is the study of the interaction between humans and computerized technical systems. The subject is multi-disciplinary and embraces computer science methods and tools to design system functionality adapted to the user, human science theories and methods to understand, evaluate and improve computerized technical systems for human use. It also includes methodologies for design of interactive computer systems.

Anticipated specializations
1. Perceptualization
2. Processes of change
3. Mobile digital services
4. Visualization
5. Computer supported cooperation
6. E-learning


The Department of Media Technology and Graphic Arts is a multidisciplinary group focused on technology and methods for supporting human communication over distances in time and space. This includes a wide area of media, from printing and publishing to digital interactive media, from broadcast media to mobile social media. Our education and research also cover the implications and effects of using media technologies from human, social and design perspectives.

Anticipated specialization
7. E-learning

Application deadline: May 17, 2010


For more information, please visit:
http://www.kth.se/om/work-at-kth/vacancies/phd-students-in-human-computer-interaction-and-media-technology-1.58530?l=en_UK

[digital literacy across the curriculum]

A superb find, sure to be of use to any educator. The pdf version is available as a free download from Futurelab.

By Cassie Hague and Sarah Payton, Futurelab

This handbook is aimed at educational practitioners and school leaders in both primary and secondary schools who are interested in creative and critical uses of technology in the classroom.

Although there is increasing policy and research attention paid to issues related to digital literacy, there is still relatively little information about how to put this into practice in the classroom. There is even less guidance on how teachers might combine a commitment to digital literacy with the needs of their own subject teaching. How can digital literacy be fostered, for example, in a maths or science lesson?

This handbook aims to introduce educational practitioners to the concepts and contexts of digital literacy and to support them in developing their own practice aimed at fostering the components of digital literacy in classroom subject teaching and in real school settings.
 
The handbook is not a comprehensive ‘how to’ guide; it provides instead a rationale, some possible strategies and some practical examples for schools to draw on. The first section details the reasons teachers should be interested in digital literacy and how it is relevant to their subject teaching. It looks at the increasing role of technology in young people’s cultures, the support they may need to benefit from their engagement with technology and the way in which digital literacy can contribute to the development of subject knowledge. The second section discusses digital literacy in practice and moves through a number of components of digital literacy discussing how these might be fostered in the classroom.

The handbook ends by looking at issues related to continuing professional development for teachers and the ways in which digital literacy can support whole-school initiatives.

It is teachers that are expert in their own school context, in the needs of their students and in the pedagogical techniques required to support learning. This handbook has been informed by the work of fourteen teachers who are interested in how technology is used in classroom teaching and who took part in Futurelab’s digital participation project. Rather than being prescriptive, it aims to provide information which will help teachers to make the best use of their own expertise to support students’ emerging digital literacy.

An interesting presentation on how to "restore" awe and fascination in learning using new media (there are some great ideas with augmented reality and geotagging). This definitely fits into the them of transliterate learning & pedagogy:

Digital Literacy: Rethinking Education

[technology and teachers]

I just glimpsed this ad. while waiting for an educational site to load. I love the tag line: "no teacher left behind." Precisely. If the educators don't know how to use new media technology, how can they help the students? Educators, in general, require more support from heads of institutions (and probably governments for funding assistance too).

Although, of course, I don't think we should be scared of technology as intimated in the above image.

[new media & innovative curriculum]

Via New Media Literacies Blog:

New Media Literacies Newsletter NML Announces its Monthly Webinar Series

Webinar Series NML has recently partnered with New Hampshire's Department of Education to facilitate a year-long professional development initiative using the new media literacies as a springboard for developing innovative curriculum. Our goal is to help foster a broader perspective of what it means to be media literate in the digital age, and offer tools for translating the social skills and cultural competencies outlined in the white paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Jenkins et al., 2006) into meaningful and engaging learning experiences in the classroom and beyond. These NH educators are exploring the urgent challenges that 21st Century learners face by expanding their own learning experiences using a participatory, digital model of professional develmopment. In this context, educators are able to practice their own skills as teachers by creating, collaborating, connecting, and circulating with one another in an interactive, multi-media environment. Not only are they developing new materials for their own schools and districts, but also an 8-part webinar series focused on a comprehensive, practical understanding of the NML skills for the larger educational community. The 8-part series will begin on February 11th and share the framework of social skills and cultural competencies which shapes the work of New Media Literacies, and illustrate the skills by looking more closely at learning through such cultural phenomenon as computer game guilds, youtube video production, Wikipedia, fan fiction, Second Life and other virtual worlds, music remixing, social network sites, and cosplay. Each webinar will examine closely new curricular materials which have emerged from New Media Literacies, Global Kids, Harvard's GoodPlay Project, Common Sense Media, the George Lucas Foundation, and other projects which are seeking to introduce these skills into contemporary educational practices and leave participants with plenty of opportunities to take the material, information and methods back into their classroom. We will host the first webinar on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 7pm EST and focus on the new media literacies, judgment and appropriation as well as copyright, fair use, and creative commons. Our special guests will be Flourish Klink, a graduate student at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, and Erin Reilly, NML Research Director. See the full listing of upcoming webinars and get information on how to join the sessions at http://projectnml.ning.com/page/nmls-monthly-webinar-series.

[open education]

Anna Batchelder, Founder of Bon Education, has an interesting post on open education at Literacy is Priceless:

"'The advent of the Web brings the ability to disseminate high-quality materials at almost no cost, leveling the playing field…We’re changing the culture of how we think about knowledge and how it should be shared and who are the owners of knowledge.' - Cathy Casserly, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
With an increasing number of educators putting their lessons, curricula and learning objects online for others to use, customize and share, the open education movement is at a tipping point. That said, with so many educational resources available on the Internet, how does one go about finding the “perfect resource for class tomorrow” without losing too much time, money or sleep?
Before we get to the answer of this question, it is important to take a quick step back and understand “the anatomy of open education”…
What is Open Education?
Open education is a term that refers to education in which knowledge, best practices and learning objects (lessons, units, etc.) are shared freely via the Internet for others to use and under many licenses to modify and re-share.
Why Open Education?
The benefits of open education are many (customization, cost-savings, freedom to innovate, etc.), but one of the primary advantages of the open education movement is that of access. Anyone who has an Internet connection via computer or mobile phone can access millions of readings, videos, simulations, lesson plans, interactive courses and more… all for free!
Open Education and Teacher Effectiveness…
Research shows time and time again that teachers have the greatest potential to influence student achievement (North Central Regional Education LaboratoryMcKinsey 2007, Darling-Hammond 1997). Furthermore, the literature indicates that effective teachers tend to exhibit—commitment (to help every child succeed), information-seeking (intellectual curiosity), flexibilitypassion for learning (drive to support student learning) amongst several other traits (UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning 2004, Kemp & Hall, 1992). 2009, (willingness to differentiate), and
Luckily, the ethos of open education goes hand-in-hand with these findings, enabling educators endless opportunities to improve their craft. Thanks to the millions of people actively engaged in sharing their ideas and content online, teachers today have 24-7 access to continued learning opportunities, professional development, lesson planning guides and resources for differentiation. Take one look at sites like Edutopia, Discover Ed, and Connexions and you will be blown away by the number of free resources available to help educators continuously improve the content area knowledge, skills and expertise they bring to the classroom.

Where to Start—Finding the Perfect Open Education Resources for your Classroom

The following is a curated list of open education resources targeted at helping K-12 teachers find classroom and professional development resources quickly, easily and for free:

• Curriki.org—“Curriki is a social entrepreneurship organization that supports the development and free distribution of open source educational materials to improve education worldwide.  The online community gives teachers, students and parents universal access to a wealth of peer-reviewed K-12 curricula, and powerful online collaboration tools”.
• FreeReading.net—“FreeReading is a high-quality, open-source, free reading intervention program addressing literacy development for grades K-3. Schools and teachers everywhere can use the complete, research-based 40-week program for K-1 students, or use the library of lessons to supplement existing curricula in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. The site is also filled with free, downloadable supplemental materials including flashcards, graphical organizers, illustrated readers, decodable texts, audio files, videos and more”.
• OERCommons.org—“OER Commons has forged alliances with over 120 major content partners to provide a single point of access through which educators and learners can search across collections to access over 24,000 items, find and provide descriptive information about each resource, and retrieve the ones they need. By being ‘open,’ these resources are publicly available for all to use, and principally through Creative Commons licensing, many thousands are legally available for repurposing, modifying and improving”.

To find additional open education resources of note, visit Bon Education.

The Future Cost of Education
A recent post on Mashable, titled, “In the Future, the Cost of Education will be Zero,” author Josh Catone shares a recent statement by VC and “Hacking Education” organizer Brad Burnham. He writes:
Knowledge is, as the economists say, a non-rival good… If I eat an apple, you cannot also eat that same apple; but if I learn something, there is no reason you cannot also learn that thing. Information goods lend themselves to being created, distributed and consumed on the web. It is not so different from music, or classified advertising, or news.

A nice notion indeed!
To the sharing of knowledge!"

[social media and pedagogy online seminar]

I'm signing up for this online seminar! Social media AND education?! Perfect.


And yes, those are my professional writing students; on computers, with our class blog on the main screen.


Social Media Seminar Series: Trends and Implications for Learning (Online & No Fee)

http://AACE.org/GlobalU/seminars/socialmedia/

Friday, October 30, 2009: 9:00 PM Eastern USA


(World Clock Calculator: http://url.aace.org/ft/200910302100)

Faculty: George Siemens - Learning Technologies Centre, Univ. of Manitoba, Canada
David Cormier - Univ. of Prince Edward Island, Canada

Organised by: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

(http://AACE.org )
Co-sponsored by: Education & Information Technology Library (http://EdITLib.org)
___________________________________________________________

The seminar series, led by George Siemens and David Cormier, is without fee and will include live interactive sessions, in addition to discussions with guest speakers and participants. All sessions are co-sponsored by and will be archived in the Education & Information Technology Library (EdITLib).

Social media and emerging technologies are gaining increased attention for use in education. The list of tools grows daily.

Examples: blogs, wikis, Ning, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, cloud computing, surface computing, mobile learning, and so on.

"Social Media: Trends and Implications for Learning" will explore the impact of new technologies, research, and related projects.

What does it all mean? Do long term trends and change cycles exist in the constant change? What patterns are emerging?

And, perhaps most importantly, should academics and education leaders respond?


"Social Media" will explore emerging technological and related research trends from a perspective of social and networked learning theory.

Finding coherence in the midst of rapid changes is increasingly difficult. This monthly session will create a forum for educators to gather, present, and discuss the future impact of today's trends.



Links for items discussed during the seminars can be found here on Delicious.

_______________________________________________

To receive event updates, signup at: http://AACE.org/GlobalU/seminars/socialmedia/
Seminar Recordings: http://EdITLib.org/GlobalU/
Seminar Community: http://www.AACEConnect.org/group/socialmedia
________________________________________________

[kids online: new publication]

"Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks for Children", edited by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol: Policy Press). 

The book provides an up to date account of how children use the internet in Europe, including such topical issues as social networking, risky contacts, parental mediation, media literacy and many more.


Ordering information is available here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EUKidsOnline/KidsOnlineflyer.pdf

As Professor Tanya Byron, author of the influential Byron Review into Safer Children in a Digital World says, "Professor Livingstone and colleagues provide extensive evidence-based findings which enable academics, educationalists, policy makers, parents and young people to think beyond anxieties generated by new technologies and make informed decisions about maximizing digital opportunities while managing risks. An impressive and essential book, central to the child digital safety debate."


Expected Results:

• Core findings regarding children’s and parents’ experiences of online technologies, focused on comparisons of children’s and parents’ perceptions of and practices regarding online risk and safety.
  
• Patterns of risk and safety online to be identified following top-down hypothesis testing and bottom-up exploration of relationships among different variables, conducted on a cross-national basis.
  
• Evidence-based policy and research recommendations.
  

Read more here.






Note: top image from Kids Online book site and second image from Teenagers Today site.

[digital participation: report]

"This review aims to provide a critical introduction to the policies and research on the subjects of digital literacy and digital participation, seeking to show what they mean for classroom practice. Aimed at teachers and practitioners, especially those involved in continuing professional development programmes, and providers of teacher training or practice-based Masters courses, it reviews the major research and evidence on developing digital literacy and digital participation in the classroom.


It highlights the fact that there is extensive theory, conceptual development and policy on digital literacy and digital participation, yet little evidence about how this can be translated into practice. The review aims to support and enable practitioners to start developing informed strategies to promote digital participation in real school settings by introducing them to a range of debates and key concepts and by relating these concepts to practice. It should be used as the basis for supporting the development of teachers’ professional knowledge and skills in the critical use of digital media and technology for learning and for the enhancement of the curriculum. Throughout, examples of existing and emerging practices are included as breakout boxes to illustrate the conceptual content.


The document supports Futurelab’s Digital Participation project, a programme of research and development in collaboration with teachers in primary and secondary schools which seeks to model, trial and evaluate practical strategies for enhancing young people’s digital literacy in the classroom and their development of digital participation for life.


For more details and related documents see:
www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/digital-participation."

Read the entire report here: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/lit_reviews/DigitalParticipation.pdf

[Transliteracy in my Classrooms]

Ok, so I'm halfway through the second week of lecturing.  Classes seem to be going well (students are coming to class and participating! yay!) and essays, stories and grammar theory are being studied.


As I flip through the syllabus and note my "blog comment" assignments and "blog post" reflections the word transliteracy flits back and forth in my mind.  Transliteracy of course isn't on the curriculum but neither are blogging or media literacy per se.  Though transliteracy is always under development, I'm feeling a strong pull to encourage students to see their movements from writing essays in class, group presentations, blogging, reading online narratives like Inanimate Alice, and designing posters (tweeting comes later on) as examples of being transliterate. I wonder if they can name their behaviour, their learning might have even more resonance? 


I remind my students that we're participating in the online environment and honing our new/social media (and transliterate) skills because when they enter the workforce, they'll need to be prepared.  Librarian by Day gives some good life examples on the necessity to be transliterate:

"Government agencies are no longer issuing print forms, you have to access them online.  Your health insurance plan was a website and you have an account, when you call they will tell you to go there to get information. Banks are sending alerts and account balance information via text messages. Facebook privacy settings are complex and change frequently. The price of computers is dropping allowing more people to own one. Free WiFi access points are increasing, allowing more people internet access."

If our students don't experience these kinds of movement, from offline to online, how will they learn to be literate (not just trial and error or basic proficiencies)? I feel more and more strongly that helping to develop these transliterate skills needs a place in a classroom (though some, of course, are better equipped than others).  


There are lots of ways to begin. Students can use blog posts as reading or reflective learning journals. They can add comments on to the teacher-managed class blog as a way of interacting in class discussion, sharing ideas and even doing pre or post-reading activities.  The Future of Ed. site suggests venturing into transliteracy by:

• Viewing or posting a video around your lesson plan or around an educational component on TeacherTube
• Trying e-learning for your own professional development
• Learning how The Transliteracies Project is designing technology to improve the experience of reading for people of all backgrounds
• Exploring how archaeology and media can be used in your next class at MetaMedia
• Downloading courses from Stanford University on iTunes, MIT OpenCourseWare, or another open access sites for use in your classrorom

Also from the Future of Ed. site, this video with director of Media X's (at Stanford) Chuck House on the 21st century workforce:

[new media literacies: employment]

Project Manager:
Project NML seeks a detail-oriented, highly organized, and people-person Project Manager to handle the administration of NML's The Educator's House. This international project joins the NML team with Rio de Janiero's Department of Education to implement a new paradigm for teaching that fully integrates the new media literacies across curricula. The overarching mandate for the position is to provide direction for day-to-day project operations and leadership to staff and students involved. In addition to administrative responsibilities, the Project Manager will be part of a collaborative, distributed applied research program and will be required to demonstrate leadership responsibilities across all projects undertaken by the NML program. This position is housed at USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, California.

Curriculum Specialist:

Project NML seeks a creative, media-savvy, bi-lingual in Brazilian Portuguese and English Curriculum Specialist to collaborate in the design of the strategies, content and structure of NML's The Educator's House. This international project joins the NML team with Rio de Janiero's Department of Education to implement a new paradigm for teaching that fully integrates the new media literacies across curricula. The overarching mandate for the position is to design and produce activities and class learning experiences; and to monitor, analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the resources to achieve the goals and objectives of the project. In addition to these content development responsibilities, the Curriculum Specialist will be part of a collaborative, distributed applied research program and will be required to contribute to writing study results across all projects undertaken by NML.  This position has the potential to be a work-from-home position with regular scheduled meetings with the team both in-person and online.


Programmer:
Project NML seeks a creative and innovative web Applications Programmer to be responsible for the technical analysis and development of applications used in conducting research and providing education strategies. The overarching mandate for the position is to work collaboratively with NML's partner, Platform Shoes Forum, and contribute to design, development and refinement of the Learning Library (http://newmedialiteracies.org/library/).  This position has the potential to be a work-from-home position with regular scheduled meetings with the team both in-person and online. 

[new academic year]

It's already a week into September.  Although it's light at 7:30pm the breeze tells me autumn is just around the corner.  My newly planted maple tree is swaying in the wind, a few of it's leaves already burnt with red and orange. This nip in the air adds chutzpah to tomorrow's first day of school/college/uni.  I know there are a few things that I still look forward to about my first day of *school*:

• a new outfit including
• new shoes!
• crisp notebooks, pages immaculate and ready to be filled
• buying pens! lots of pens! all sorts of different colours and sizes (though black fine point is my favourite)
• meeting up with friends after the summer break and finding out what everyone did with their two months break from classroom teaching (unless there was summer school...)
• clean and tidy classrooms
• clean and tidy students!
• the office supply closet is full (of pens! and paper and notebooks and paperclips and staples and folders and and and)

What are some of your favourite things about new starts?










Note: that amazing image of a Japanese Maple isn't mine (I have the usual Canadian kind). It's by one man's perspective on flickr.  


The photo of the books is from OmarC on flickr.

[2 English lessons in 1: parody and bad grammar]

So when students ask us why grammar is important, another reason to add to the list includes maturity.  As the singer says:  "I never changed my verbal habits since I was three."

The video url is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj6QqCH7g0Q&feature=player_embedded

This video might be useful with younger classes or maybe ESL or EFL learners?

[getting students to read]

Here is a great video I think I'll be showing all my first year undergrads. Author Jim Trelease (author of The Read-Aloud Handbook) compares reading to the process of cutting down a tree; both need to be done slowly and carefully.

Take a look:

I found this super article via Gerry McKiernan at Reference Notes. Have a read:

New York Times / August 19, 2009, 1:08 pm / Updated: 1:29 pm / Steve Lohr

A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion:

“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.

Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile.

That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.

This hardly means that we’ll be saying good-bye to classrooms. But the report does suggest that online education could be set to expand sharply over the next few years, as evidence mounts of its value.

Until fairly recently, online education amounted to little more than electronic versions of the old-line correspondence courses. That has really changed with arrival of Web-based video, instant messaging and collaboration tools. The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.

[snip]

“We are at an inflection point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program. Mr. Regier sees things evolving fairly rapidly, accelerated by the increasing use of social networking technology. More and more, students will help and teach each other, he said. [snip]

“The technology will be used to create learning communities among students in new ways,” Mr. Regier said. “People are correct when they say online education will take things out the classroom. But they are wrong, I think, when they assume it will make learning an independent, personal activity. Learning has to occur in a community.”

Source

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/]

Full Text Available At

[http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf]

[university 2.0 approaches]

The future of the university is set to change, we all know that. But how rapidly and in what ways? Peer 2 Peer University is an example of how to "hack education" and upgrade teaching and learning especially for those who cannot afford the more traditional books, laptops and professor time. Note: the future is just beginning, there is a long way to go.

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.

For more information:

Introduction

• About P2PU
• Course list
• Team
• Advisory Group
• Frequently Asked Questions

Courses

• Behavioral Economics and Decision Making
• Copyright for Educators
• Introduction to Cyberpunk Literature
• Land Restoration and Afforestation
• Open Creative Nonfiction Writing
• Poker and strategic thinking

Unless otherwise noted, all content on the P2PU site is licensed under:

[new teaching resource: online learning communities]

Of interest to educators: a new release from IGI Global (they published a paper, "Transliteracy as a Unifying Perspective," written by The Transliteracy Research Group - of which I am a part).

Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery
ISBN: 978-1-60566-780-5; 354 pp; August 2009
Published under Information Science Reference an imprint of IGI Global

http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?id=34727

Edited by: J. Ola Lindberg, Mid Sweden University, Sweden and Anders D. Olofsson, Umea University, Sweden


DESCRIPTION

In today's society, the professional development of teachers is urgent due to the constant change in working conditions and the impact that information and communication technologies have in teaching practices.

Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery features innovative applications and solutions useful for teachers in developing knowledge and skills for the integration of technology into everyday teaching practices. This defining collection of field research discusses how technology itself can serve as an important resource in terms of providing arenas for professional development.

****************************************

TOPICS COVERED

• Collaborative online professional development
• Computer-supported collaborative learning
• Education delivery
• Knowledge management in education
• Models of online communities
• Online learning communities
• Online pedagogy design and development
• Pedagogies afforded by technology
• Teacher professional development
• Virtual environments

For more information about Online Learning Communities and Teacher Professional Development: Methods for Improved Education Delivery, you can view the title information sheet at http://www.igi-global.com/downloads/pdf/34727.pdf

To view the Table of Contents and a complete list of contributors online go
to http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=34727&v=tableOfContents.

You can also view the first chapter of the publication at http://www.igi-global.com/downloads/excerpts/34727.pdf


Some other texts also on pedagogy and online learning communities that may be of interest (but note, some might require institutional access):

• Barriers to online teaching in post-secondary institutions: can policy changes fix it?
• Shift happens: Online education as a new paradigm in learning
• Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: designing and delivering e-learning
• Online learning as information delivery: Digital myopia

[new media digest]

Want to do some thinking? Follow these links:

• Neuroplasticity: we can rewire the brain with the power of thinking and technology. Read Norman Doidge's The Brain that Changes Itself. A documentary will be aired on the 30th of July on CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/brainchangesitself/
  
• Some suitable trending twitter topics today (nice alliteration eh?):
  

Apollo 11

Moon

Neil Armstrong

• Exercise, community participation and higher literacy skills mean less chance of cognitive decline with age. Read about the study here.
• Time people are spending on Facebook is up 700%
• Businesses going *online* and having a FB profile or tweeting isn't necessarily (the right kind of) participating...but putting thought into why the business is online and actually connecting with the audience/client is key. Read more about social business design.

[towards information literacy]

This Unesco report (from 2008) has a succinct definition of information literacy that has to do with people's capacity rather than specific rules:

"Recognise their information needs;
Locate and evaluate the quality of information;
Store and retrieve information;
Make effective and ethical use of information, and
Apply information to create and communicate knowledge."

Information literacy (as noted here and in the digital cultures master's module) doesn't just apply to one context, when using a computer for example, it's applicable throughout contexts and I think that's what defines capacity as literacy - readers/users can move through a variety of contexts (much like transliteracy). "IL skills are necessary for people to be effective lifelong learners and to contribute in knowledge societies."

These elements of information literacy say it all - they cross contexts:

"a. Recognise information needs
b. Locate and evaluate the quality of information
c. Store and Retrieve information
d. Make effective and ethical use of information, and
e. Apply information to create and communicate knowledge."

Citation info:

Catts, R. & Lau, J. (2008). Towards Information Literacy Indicators. Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved May 07, 2008 from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001587/158723e.pdf

via ICTlogy.

Read more of the report here.

[*becoming* technologically iterate]

On ‘Becoming’ Technologically Literate: A Multiple Literacies Theory Perspective/p>

FRANCIS BANGOU & MONICA WATERHOUSE University of Ottawa, Canada

doi:10.2304/ciec.2008.5.4.445

VIEW FULL TEXT | BACK TO CONTENTS LIST

This article uses a multiple literacies theory framework to explore the processes of ‘becoming’ technologically literate through a year-long ethnographic study of two Master of Education pre-service second language teachers, a Latina woman and an African American woman, who learned how to use computer technology to teach Spanish at a large Midwestern university. The case studies of these two women are analyzed to gain insights into how teacher education programs can support racial minority pre-service teachers in ‘becoming’ technologically literate. First, the authors provide an overview of the multiple literacies theory developed by Masny. Second, the stories of the two pre-service teachers are presented. Finally, curricular and pedagogical recommendations for second language education Master of Education programs are provided.

[digital media & learning]

Re-reading a report on the "digital youth" and how they use/interact with digital media. (Note this is US-based but over 800 "youths and young adults"). Some interesting take-aways:

• Most youth use online networks to extend the friendships that they navigate in the familiar contexts of school, religious organizations, sports, and other local activities
• The majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships
• Contrary to popular images, geeking out is highly social and engaged, although usually not driven primarily by local friendships
• Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status and authority
• New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting
• Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, they question what it would mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally.

[cfp: born digital]

Educational Insights (an online journal mostly focused on education) has a call for papers out. Due date for abstracts is 15 of June:

Teresa Dobson, Academic Editor | Michael Boyce, Managing Editor

Born Digital (Contemporary Art and Education)

"Over the last 20 years a new generation of art and literature born as electronic, or borne within distributive digital channels, has developed in tandem with new ways of defining, measuring and decoding them (i.e. reading), and along side new delivery mechanisms for pedagogical methods and practices. Born Digital wishes to explore these new artifacts and their new distributive form in the context of pedagogy and artistic practice.

A wide range of new forms wherein narrative is restructuring and redefining itself are of interest: Blog novels; E-literature; Narrative within locative applications such as google maps and geo-tagging with GPS; RSS poetics; Narrative in the context of mobile games and social media applications such as youtube, flickr and facebook. Likewise, consideration and analysis of the digital artifacts born out these mediums is a concern to us.

We are interested playing with the concept of being Born Digital, taking into account multiple meanings of Born, including: Existing as a result of birth; Having a natural or perfectly suited ability; Existing as a result of a particular situation or feeling; And keeping in mind its homonym Borne, to play with a notion of transport, of delivery, of support and endurance.

Generally, we support submissions using an original approach, which avoid excessive commentary on any canon, and we encourage efforts to express the matter within the structure of the medium itself. That being said, we expect rigorously critical investigation within the parameters of any play.

Please submit your précis by June 15, 2009 to educational.insights@ubc.ca

For more information : born digital"

[handy resource list: new media, cultural studies, web 2.0]

Have a look at this wiki for a useful list of resources covering topics such as:

• Cultural Geography
• Cultural History
• Hacker Culture
• Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications
• Open Source Information Technology
• Social Networking
• Virtual Communities
• Webnographies

There are also links to papers, videos, interviews, researchers, conferences, syllabi and more!

[phd training session: digital literacy & creativity]

A full-day for the AHRC funded CEDAR (Collaborative Digital Research in the Humanities), organised by the Universities of Bangor (Dr Astrid Ensslin) and Aberystwyth (Dr Will Slocombe).

As I've noted before, I'll be talking about academic blogging and the digital literacy (a favourite topic of mine).

For the students participating, feel free to add comments as directed in the presentation.



Please comment on the idea of reading and writing as “an invisible skill” (see Sue Thomas's video, 16:00) and whether you find the Stroop test challenging or not and why.


Literacy + Technology + Creativity = Digital Literacy in the 21st Century

Important that these elements are seen as interdependent


Read The Whale Hunt here: http://thewhalehunt.org


UPDATE: Keno Buss and Sascha Westendorf have joined us for a bit about their project and some hands-on experience with the De Montfort Creativity Assistant.

[digital citizenship: the internet, society & participation]

Today I attended a presentation given by Karen Mossberger (Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago) on Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation. Overall the presentation was interesting however I don't think the data told us anything really new...but it certainly backs up what we already surmise. Poor people and African-Americans and Latinas/Latinos has less access to computers and the internet and this filters through to less participation in public life (voting was one of the examples). The definition of citizenship put forth was that by T. H. Marshall, basically you need to participate to be a full member of a community. Citizenship is also a "developing institution" according to Marshall. So how to develop citizenship through digital means...well, Mossberger didn't really talk much about this. She concentrated on providing statistics which empirically show the digital divide. It was pretty apalling. In this day and age (here I am, using a computer, on the 'net, blogging) there are people who are too poor, or without sufficient education which in the States seems to mean you're not white...the statistics were incredible. Of course there are poor white people but apparently they are not on the 'net because they're not interested in it. From Mossberger's research, African-Americans connected internet/computer literacy with better jobs etc....and the statistics back this up. The issue of broadband access also came up. Sure people can use computers (for a bit) at a local library etc...but interestingly enough there are certain neighbourhoods where there is no DSL access (i.e. no affordable access) to the internet...only cable. That's another deterrent. I would have been interested to know what the statistics *really* meant in terms of "going online." Was it for checking bus times? What about banking online and using SNS? Mossberger at the end suggested it was more for *entertainment* purposes....but I guess what we're looking at here is not just issues of access (of course) but issues of literacy. *How* to properly navigate that content/information. Mossberger's latest project, results to be publishes as we speak, looks at Chicago neighbourhoods and notes the use of internet. I wonder what that will show. Two things aside from the presentation that I would like to share here.

1. There were 18 people at the presentation today. 16 in the audience (then the speaker and the introducer). Out of the 18 people 7 were women. All were white.
2. Mossberger made this comment at the end re: twitter: "I don't care what movie you saw lastnight. I don't have time for this." Actually, I think twitter (like mobile 'phones, especially if we're talking about financial cost) has it's uses. Just look at how the knowledge of swine flu is spreading/trending via twitter....

Of interest to those working with participation policies, internet access, excluded groups or web 2.0 in general, check out Mez's great article at Futherfield: The Sound of Reality Lag: Versionals are the New Black. See also Mark Pesce's post on Digital Citizenship (scroll down for a comment by Mez).

[e-books for e-ducation]

A British Columbia school is trading in books for e-books:

"It’s about as big as a day-planner and much, much lighter than 300 textbooks.

Flicking from virtual page to virtual page, teacher Devon Stokes-Bennett deftly navigates through her electronic book, highlighting passages of Marley and Me. She looks right at home in this brave new world of education.

WestShore Centre for Learning and Training, part of the Sooke School District, is introducing 50 e-books to its students in an attempt to give learning a push into the digital age.

“These kids were born in the digital era. They came out of the womb knowing how to use technology,” says Daphne Churchill, principal of WCLT. “(For students), going to a building and trying to access information out of books, to copy it down ... doesn’t make sense in their world anymore.”

WCLT is the first school in the province to adopt e-books as a vehicle to deliver part of its curriculum, mainly novels for English class. The pilot project — called Teaching for the 21st Century — has also caught the attention of the University of Victoria’s digital humanities department.

Before full rollout, a few WCLT students are “beta testing” the electronic book technology — the main roadblocks are SD 62 security features conflicting with online digital libraries. The educators admit they depend on students to flush out problems. Kids are driving how the technology is used in the classroom, not the other way around, Stokes-Bennett says.

“They play around, take intuitive guesses. They just poke away at it,” she says. “We’ve got to listen to the kids to find out what works. This can’t be imposed from the top-down.”

Stokes-Bennett and fellow teacher Dawn Anderson launched the e-book project after being awarded $75,000 from the Times-Colonist Raise-a-Reader fund. Part of the grant went toward 50 Sony Reader Digital Books.

E-books are part of the inevitable evolution of education, the teachers say.

Virtual books can’t be lost or damaged, allowing more money directed into student resources (although electronic readers are about $400 each). The most basic e-book can collapse dozens of heavy textbooks into a 200 gram computer. Buying the rights to digital copies is half the price as physical books, Stokes-Bennett says.

On the learning end, e-books allow students to integrate study with online social networking, blogging and almost instantaneous access to information that has become the norm. Ultimately, it’s supposed to help students become better readers and more creative thinkers.

UVic English professor Ray Siemens, the Canada Research Chair for Digital Humanities, said the WCLT project will allow his lab to better understand how electronic media influences learning.

For instance, if a high school student reads a Charles Dickens novel, they would normally tap into associated online social networks, dictionaries, wikis and information, which enhances and encourages the learning process, he says. Take that resource away and the students are less likely to succeed.

“Kids of this generation are very intuitive. They quickly realize the benefits of working this way,” Siemens says. “I’m interested in learning from those who are emerging readers, where all the computer skills reside. This is a generation who doesn’t know the world without computers, e-mail or networking.”

It’s still early days, but Siemens says e-book technology, book publishers and the reading public have finally found an equilibrium. “E-ink” technology is easier on the eyes and more people are reading with electronic media. He expects the next generation of kids to almost exclusively use electronic reading devices.

The e-books at WCLT are black and white and have rudimentary graphics, but the educators say they are the future of education. Stokes-Bennett described it as teaching kids skills for the future instead of obsolete methods of the past.

Churchill expects to iron out the kinks and see what sets of problems emerge using e-books, but ultimately they would like to see the project expand across the district.

“This will fundamentally change the way we do education,” she says."

[creative momentum]

Diversityworks in new Zealand have just launched Creative Momentum, a 'virtual movement around creative diversity'. Through an international website and local events they want to create more
awareness of creativity and diversity.

To begin with, they want to know what creative diversity means to you. Each month they will profile a featured creative and welcome you to comment, question and use this space to explore how creativity and diversity interact.

Visit Creative Momentum at http://www.creativemomentum.org

http://creativemomentum.wordpress.com

Join the virtual movement here: http://creativemomentum.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=060d69c34940f90bd7ae1fe0a&id=f59e1b6de5