In a previous post, I mentioned a course that I was designing for the fall. At that point, the emphasis for the Directed Study included an examination of how the mission of University relates to Fair Use of digital media in education. Since then, my adviser, Eric Gordon and I decided to shift focus a bit to consider the question “What does it mean to be fair?” in this context.
I’ve updated the course wiki. The wiki is still closed, but I moved the Proposal to the front page so it is accessible to the public. The course will include a podcast series and blog that will archive research for the project. I’m looking forward to this course and to launching my thesis in the fall. It’s going to be a busy semester!
Photo by Gene Koo available under a Creative Commons license.
Gene Koo announced yesterday that Hub2 will be launched this fall at Emerson College in collaboration with the City of Boston. Here’s a bit from the post:
I’m excited to announce that my colleague Eric Gordon and I will be teaching a new, experimental class at Emerson College on exploring, imagining, and building civic places in real and virtual spaces. The class was born of an idea hatched by the City of Boston to develop vibrant, virtual civic spaces. And what better way to foster civic life than to invite members of the community to build it for themselves?”
I am particularly excited about this announcement not only because I am registered for the course but because I hope to be assisting Gene and Eric in some capacity during the semester. Gene writes
Much like CyberOne, there will be a “traditional” class, taught by Eric, and an “open” class, taught by myself. The two classes will run in tandem, with the two groups collaborating on a continuous basis. Here is the description of my class. The flyer explains what the class is about; here is what it is not.
He also adds that the course is currently available at a reduced rate in order “to make the class accessible to as many Boston organizations and individuals as possible.”
As with CyberOne, I look forward to seeing how it develops and to participate in the course, and with the project, as a whole.
Dan Gillmor wrote an important post for the Center for Citizen Media, titled “Citizen Media: A Progress Report.” It’s an interesting update on the current state of citizen journalism. Dan looks back over the past year and comments on some of the projects, tools, methods, failures, challenges and opportunities found within the citizen media world.
As a Board member for the Action Coalition for Media Education (with a new website-in-progress), I was pleased to see Dan writing about Media Literacy within this context of participatory media. Here’s a bit from the post:
What becomes increasingly clear is the need to update media literacy for a media-saturated age. When people are creators of media, not just consumers, the task is more complex — but more important than ever.
Think of media literacy in terms of principles, not a bunch of specific must-do kinds of instructions. They differ somewhat depending on the role one is playing in the media ecosystem.
But even those of us who are producers of media are much more often consumers. When we’re in that role, we should consider these principles:”
In a recent email exchange with a colleague, the following question was put forth to me, “How is broadband access going to increase literacy?”
Not claiming to be an expert on the issue, I decided to dig a bit deeper in order to try to have a more informed response. Here’s my reply:
“Thanks for the question. It pushed me to dig deeper into issues of literacy within the context of media education, universal access to broadband and the digital divide. Here are a few observations:
A central goal of this report is to shift the focus of the conversation about the digital divide from questions of technological access to those of opportunities to participate and to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed for full involvement. Schools as institutions have been slow to react to the emergence of this new participatory culture; the greatest opportunity for change is currently found in afterschool programs and informal learning communities. Schools and afterschool programs must devote more attention to fostering what we call the new media literacies: a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the new media landscape. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom.”
Nolan Bowie (Harvard) and Mark Warschauer (UC Irvine) have both addressed the participation gap within the context of reading and writing proficiency, alongside a growing list of other literacy skills (including media) needed to compete not only in today’s global economy, but in ways that include empowering workers with the ability to ask for wage increases, read bus schedules in order to get to work, etc. (See “UNIVERSITY and the Digital Divide” ).
Content and language, literacy and education, and community and institutional structures must all be taken into account if meaningful access to new technologies is to be provided.”
I look forward to more time researching these topics, but my overall impression is this: people who advocate for bridging the participation gap in a participatory culture recognize that basic reading and writing proficiency is a necessary starting point. It is this foundation upon which other literacy skills can be built and used by people to become more educated, informed and empowered participants in our society.
This is a piece I wrote back in 2003. I recorded it yesterday. It’s part of a longer project I am working on titled “The Last Ten Years.”
(Update 4/12) I should add this composition is about a time in my life when playing music, making records and going on tour was everything. A time before I was “reformed” by higher ed and participatory culture (well, sort of . . .).
The critical question is not just an issue of technology, but raises the underlying issue, What kind of society do we want? When the question is phrased in this manner, it becomes clear that long-term public policy about information technology inherently involves society’s core values concerning power and politics, philosophy, sociology, economics and justice. Therefore, the answer ought to come from ‘we the people’ ourselves, after necessary public discussions, debates, teach-ins, arguments, and democratic conversations in open, public arenas and forums.”
Community Media in Transition was down for a while this afternoon. When trying to visit the home page I received a “500 Internal Server Error”. The error logs told me that FastCGI was encountering an error when trying to connect to the server.
So, I got on Bluehost’s live chat and received speedy service from their tech help. After letting them know about the error logs, they told me to turn off FastCGI for a few days until they worked out the bugs. I did and now the site’s back up.
