Education week as a good article about this. It’s a really interesting question that has a long history—going all the way back to the creation of compulsory schooling: who and what ideologies are behind the curriculum? For me, what I find interesting is in what contexts are these debates taking place? Is this a concern for all students, teachers and schools? What about the ’skills’ aspect? What exactly are the ’skills’ and how are they taught? I could go on but the comments section of this article are full of great discussions as well.

Trying to look at these discussions from a variety of contexts is crucial. But as many have said before me, we can’t keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater every time a ‘new’ idea comes along. These are discussions that have to happen on the systemic level. And in the USA, that a real challenge for us in terms of how our public and private and alternative education systems are structured. We have to look at the ideologies that inform the systemic structures. We have open up this discussion to look at all of this on a continuum–while also taking thoughtful action for the present realities many students, teachers and school find themselves in.Where is balance in all of this?

While it’s very important to research new literacies and video games and MUVEs…it must be asked…and-as has been asked many times-what’s our goal?

What are we educating students-people for? I’ve read conflicting accounts. On the one had, many have argued that we’re educating students for jobs that don’t even exist ( school=prep for job). On the other hand, several have argued that the jobs of tomorrow are looking for people with basic numeracy and literacy skills (again, school= prep for job). On the other other hand ( yes,  I went there) several have argued that the over-focus on the school = prep for job equation is seriously jeopardizing future civic engagement and that education should focus on that so that there is a place for jobs (overly simple but that’s the main idea).

History reminds me about how we as a nation react during moments of economic crisis. It reminds me to look to how the school curriculums were discussed and changed as a response to these times. Science, literature, math, art, music, sociology–all of these fields tell us so much about how we historically  responded to crisis. Importantly, they tell us so much about how schools were ideologically situated in the crisis moments.

I’m not loosing focus here. My point in bring this up in this post is that increasingly, I’m wary of discussions of new literacies and video gaming and learning and the important of technology (among other new media and technology discussions)  in education that don’t situate these discussions in multiple contexts. Because, I argue that very very often the lack of inter-disciplinary contextualization creates a space for the further marginalization of historically underrepresented and/or marginalized groups, which can effectively obscure or make it very difficult for certain people to participate in these important and timely conversations. How, you may ask? [That's what I'm working on in one of my analysis chapters.]

And, some of my thoughts are of course not revolutionary. Aspects of this has been said many times before (and in much better detail)  but I think it’s especially important to re-examine these discussions in light of our current moment. Who is left of of new literacies and new technology discussions? Who is/is not getting the ’21st century skill instruction’? At what cost? What is enabled and what is constrained by these discussions? Whose interests are served? How and where are they being served?

Great website/resource for keep up with current events in social media. I use this as a way to start discussions in some of the classes I teach.

My great-uncle Broomsy Salter of Freeport, Illinois passed around recently. He and my great-aunt Chris are together again. They were always full of life and could tell you stories that kept you glued to your chair in rapt attention for hours. Here is a link to a podcast that was done as a part of Abbie Reece’s fantastic work entitled Untold Stories: Freeport’s African-American History. Among many other things he did in his life, my great-uncle was the first African-American to move across Freeport’s color line in 1956 (another article).

I’m glad I got to know you, Unlce Broomsy. We miss you. Please tell Aunt Chis we said hello.

I’m back after a short holiday break. Spent time with family and caught a cold-a true holiday. It was great just being for a little while. Now, it’s back to writing, researching, thinking and moving forward.

About a year ago I came across the writing of Dr. Lalitha Vasudevan at Teachers College-Columbia, University. She as a great blog and her twitter, which she updates regularly, is full of interesting information. Her focus is on adolescents and their literacy practices. Most interesting for me her work with “at-risk” youth (see Review of Research in Education, 2009). Here is a link to a NPR article that she tweeted today about moving beyond “digital divide” discussions.

Great post by Henry Jenkins on his blog Confessions of an Aca/Fan about PBS’s Digital Nation from their series Frontline. This post talks about the many resources available for exploring, teaching about, teaching with, researching, using digital media. Here’s a quote from the blog:

These short segments are provocative; they ask hard questions and offer contradictory advice, and that’s why they represent such a valuable resource for the classroom. I am using them to start discussion; you may use them as probes for writing; but the topics they raise are ones we need to be discussing with our students.

Spent some time this evening writing, thinking, revisiting blogs and websites I had bookmarked. NCTE is happening now and I couldn’t make it this year but decided to go down the program list and check out the blogs of people who are presenting. Found this great blog by Tom Liam Lynch. Solid research based conversations and exciting musings.

Not much to say today. Reworking dissertation. But I have been thinking…

it’s so so complex and downright frightening to try to represent what people have told you during the course of your research. It’s an awe inspiring responsibility. As I listen to my data (interviews, podcasts, etc) over and over, I’m struck by the faith my participants have in me to tell a story; I cannot tell the story for only they can do that. It’s easy to get caught up in conference proposals, article writing, book chapter writing and loose sight of a story that people trust me to tell and interrogate.

So, I’m deep into writing and am only doing a little on the blog today. Please check on the new stuff I added to the left of this front page (links) and to the “Media Remix” page.

I’ll just add this: I have always been in love with a good story. Narrative and the elements and structures of narrative fascinate me. Anytime we recall an event or idea, we often put it into a narrative form so that the person listening can follow. It’s so much more complex than that but for me, examining how narrative composition, multiple media and modalities, new litreacies and digital literacies, and emotion all come together are so exciting. I have been following machinima for years and have tried making a couple of them on my own. Here is one that someone sent to me today and I have to admit-I stopped and watched the whole thing. That ability to make me stop and pay full attention is what I love…and what people who are just learning about machinima are most fascinated by when it happens to them. They never expect that to happen while “watching some video game movie” (you’re the best Mike!). Machinima is so much richer than I’m describing here…I just wanted to add this video (thanks Sarah!).

Interesting article about higher education while in prison in the NY Times. I keep circling back to this topic. Digging into more programs like this…

For a couple of years now I have followed the goings on of the Digital Ethnography team at Kansas State University. Their “The Machine is Us/ing Us” (see below) has had millions of views on youtube and their blog about their research is full of interesting, fresh, deliciously remixed new ideas. Recently, I have been getting back into teaching mode and I’m teaching myself new techniques to approach my teaching and curriculum design and pedagogy. The area of my teaching that I’m focusing on now is informed non-bells-and-whistle use of technology to teach traditionally expected components of my course-e.g. reading vast amounts of research on a specific. I came across this page on the Digital Ethnography blog and I think I’m going to give it a try on my own first, and then with some friends and eventually with my next class.

I’ll fill you in on what happens. I first need to learn the software: Zoho Creator

Exhausted after finishing and submitting a conference proposal. But I think it turned out well–we’ll see what the committee thinks. Too tired to write a lot but want to maintain my writing and thinking on this site.

Came across this video. It provokes a lot of complex conversations…that I will detail later.