hopeful news??

Intel and $100 laptop join forces

then what??

can literacies be digital?

"digital literacy" is a phrase that has been cropping up everywhere i read and look recently. the use of literacy, to indicate the ability to navigate a particular discursive realm - in this case, the "digital" realm(s) - has always left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. particularly for those of us who conceptualize and actively engage a concept of literacy as social practice. i "get" literacy in a digital age. i can wrap my head around our evolving digital communicative landscape. but what are we really saying when we talk about literacy that is inherently digital - as implied by the phrase "digital literacy"? when we talk about the digital literacies of adolescents, are we really referring to the literacies that we observe in the daily lives of young people who are living and interacting with an increasingly digitized world? and if so, is that the same thing as "digital literacies"?

perhaps i'm getting bogged down with semantics and possibly missing the entire point...

perhaps...

or perhaps we dilute or oversimplify the phenomenon when we gloss over a complicated and diverse emerging landscape of literacy and communicative practices when we simply say digital.

and perhaps it's just a code for like minded "digital literacy" folks to give a silent nod to one another. if the literacy research world were configured like a series of gangs - instead of camps, as we politely note in mixed company - might "DL" be our insignia, our secret handshake, a way of weeding out and letting in...

couldn't the same be said for other adjectives we use to mark and demarcate areas of literacy studies? absolutely. for some reason, this has stuck with me recently b/c i, myself, use the phrase and went off on quite a tangent while writing an explanatory section on this notion for a paper i'm writing. naturally, i wanted to share my confused musings and solicit any and all guidance. we seem to be on a precipice... but, of what??

hope for the middle?

headlines from july 5th:

Baby survives being buried alive

Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die

despite having a history of strong female leaders, indian institutions and customs continue to devalue the lives of female children and women. given these historical and institutional frames, and regardless of a burgeoning middle class and new opportunities for young women, what hope is there for adolescent girls and young women in the middle of the life cycle? having read my sister's recent posts from her time in india - she's interviewing women in rural india about their lives and about their views and interest in education, job training, etc. - it's difficult to the gap between (historical/cultural) conventions and (contemporary/human) agency narrowing.

summer sights and sounds

a couple of weeks ago, we officially entered the summer season. if the heat doesn't give it away, the throngs of kids out and about in the middle of the day surely should. i have to curb my impulse to ask them why they aren't in school - not that i do that during the traditional school year, but the impulse is there. so what are kids in my neighborhood up to whilst i sit and type, type, type away?
- they walk in groups and eat pizza
- share music by splitting headphone feeds from one ipod
- flirt
- ride bikes
- shop, purchase, preen
- laugh, giggle, and more laughing

kids laugh. teens laugh. scream with laughter. giggle, chuckle, hoot, holler, chortle...

several years ago, while on a train from paris to visit the chartres cathedral, i had a thought that was brought on by the sounds being made by teenagers at the other end of the train car: what do youth sound like?
more recently, as i've been working hard to conceptualize, operationalize, and put down on paper and image the notion of engaging youths' voices, i find myself thinking a lot about that train ride and asking myself the following related questions:

• what does youth voice look like?
• what does it mean to listen to young people? to see them, and not just look at them?
• what does youth engagement in research look like? feel like? what does it compromise? what does it engender?
• how do researchers and educators create spaces for youth to voice themselves? pay attention to the spaces they are already voicing? engage in collective voicing with youth?
• which voices - words, pitches, timbres, accents - are sought? heard? included?
  

summer provides ample opportunity to see youth voices in action, if only we pay attention and adjust our sensory filters to see and hear, and refrain from giving into the impulse to map young people onto the institutions with which we regularly associate them (e.g., schools)...

lines

this week, there's been a lot of hype about people, lines, and the iphone and all manner of news has been peppered with images that look like this one - an AP wire photo had the following caption on cnn.com:

Martin Perez, left, and Erika Puquirre, right, are at the head of a line in front of an Apple Store in Santa Monica, Calif.

here are some other human lines...

to the right is a photograph of people waiting to vote in Sierra Leone








to the left is one that depicts people waiting in line for coal in Amsterdam in 1956









the soup kitchen line during the great depression







waiting for a wiggles concert at disney land, in california









malawians waiting in line for food rations

hot dog fingers and learning to question

when adults today are skeptical of adolescents' ability to "learn from tv," i can't help but think back to my own experiences as a gawky adolescent who learned with and from the characters, plots, dilemmas, and dialogue on tv. perhaps that's exactly what the fear is about. of course i relished the evenings spent watching hunter and murder she wrote with my grandmother, and was confounded by my immigrant parents' disdain for the precociousness of the cosby kids and the offspring of elyse and steve keaton on family ties. but i most remember the lessons i learned while watching afternoon tv programming, lying on the carpet in the front of the glowing box. i was reminded of one particular lesson this past week when i read the numerous eulogizing accounts of don herbert, the mr. wizard of mr. wizard's world.

picture this: mr. wizard wearing goggles the overtook the top half of his nearly-completely-bald head, dressed in trademark collared shirt under a v-neck sweater, and wearing thick rubber gloves. in front of him a large bucket with smoke emerging from the top.

the lesson: direct contact with liquid nitrogen can cause frostbite and potential amputation of affected body part.

the demonstration: mr. wizard holds up a hot dog and asks us, his viewers, to imagine that the hot dog is a human finger. (we do) mr. wizard gingerly picks up the naked frank with long metal tongs and drops it into the bucket of liquid nitrogen. after several seconds (maybe 10? 15? 30? the details are a bit fuzzy - it was over twenty years ago...) mr. wizard retrieves the hot dog with the tongs. he reminds us that the hot dog is meant to simulate a human finger. (we remember) with his goggles still on he taps the dog on the edge of the counter top (or with a hammer or some other tool - again, time has passed...) and the hot dog shatters in two. (not sure if something can shatter in two, but that's what i see in my mind's eye).

the impact: i have never gone near liquid nitrogen without taking the proper precautionary measures.

but beyond that, thanks to the optimistic hokeyness of this show (and other shows that i watched in secret), i can't go very long without asking why or how. that's tv worth watching.

sometimes, moving pictures and sound just do a better job of saying what i'm thinking... (minus the commercial endorsement at the end)

it's baaack....

that's right - the 7th annual media that matters film festival is now online. they put it best:
"An image captures a feeling, a story shares a message, a movie becomes a movement. Media That Matters brings you 16 inspiring shorts by filmmakers committed to changing the world."

check it out!

unity (through) hope (might equal) peace

i took these photos outside of truce, a youth development and media organization located in harlem and part of the harlem children's zone. they have an excellent public arts project going on right now and are developing a garden and several more of these fence messages. the others read:
build love
build power
build hope
[build unity]
build peace

the message is hopeful, thoughtful, and curious. which comes first? i've listed the phrases as they appeared from left to right on the fences on either side of the truce building. i'm eager to see the project and the messages unfold, particularly as they are youth directed and youth produced. more pics to follow.

(note: my camera and the sunlight were not too sympatico on this particular afternoon, so i'm aiming to shoot the fences again.)

it's a bird, it's a plane...

it's another piece of digital technology banned from schools!

what?

the ipod (and other digital media players)

why?

b/c it has the potential to be an instrument of cheating.

seriously?

seriously.

at least seriously according to the principal at mountain view high school in idaho. the article also notes:
"The practice is not limited to the United States: St. Mary's College, a high school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, banned cell phones and digital medial players this year, while the University of Tasmania in Australia prohibits iPods, electronic dictionaries, CD players and spell-checking devices."

wouldn't it be lovely if we could be ahead of the curve on this one and think creatively about what assessment means in an age of instantaneous information acquisition and dissemination? at a dissertation hearing this morning, a committee member posed the question of assessment this way:
how can we assess what kids are doing (and learning) in this digital age?

to that i would add the following:
what are we assessing? and what does it mean to assess?
who is assessing what?
what do tests and other measures actually test and measure?
who is being evaluated when a student's performance on an instrument is measured?

codes are published for quicker advancement through levels of video games. we learn shortcuts for making simple things simpler. you can buy precut, pre-marinated, pre-cooked vegetables at the super market and live a completely heat-n-eat lifestyle. we live in an age of the spanx revolution, SAT tutoring franchises, and professional editors. where do we draw the cheating line? and who draws it? i'm not wholly anti-test or timed assessments. they're clearly helpful for olympic training and i was certainly the beneficiary of numerous 1st place "wins" on timed multiplication tables (the external motivation that always worked on me was the promise of leaving the classroom with a library pass or a resource room getaway - that made cramming for fierce competition with my fellow 3rd graders seem like a small price to pay). still, i wonder whether we sacrifice real meaning making and engagement with texts for the sake of time and curriculum coverage. at the dissertation hearing today, the issue of "real deadlines" in the "real world" came up, and naturally we all agreed that sometimes all of us must negotiate multiple timelines - and timescales - in our everyday lives. but are multiple choice tests or other "easily cheatable" tests the answer? the *only* answer?

and is it just coincidence that if we switch the 't' and the 'ch' teaching becomes cheating, and vice versa?

tech culture and cultural techs

an article in cnn.com's technology section caught my eye this morning:
Social-networking sites link Hispanic youth (posted 4.27.07)

in brief, the article explores the growth of social networking sites aimed at a spanish speaking, self-identified as latin and/or hispanic audience such as elhood.com and vostu. according to the article, "ElHood is sort of a bilingual MySpace promoting the latest in Latin music, and for Miami-based [Indie rocker Eric] Monterrosa, it has become a personal and professional lifeline. It is also the latest in a wave of Hispanic social-networking sites building links across the U.S., Latin America and Spain, all hoping to capture coveted advertising dollars."

other excerpts from the article that have me thinking and wondering about the intersections (and working definitions) of technology, culture, and youth:

• "About 56 percent of Hispanics in the United States use the Internet, compared with 71 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 60 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But the number of Hispanics online jumps to 67 percent among 18- to 27-year-olds -- the group most likely to visit social-networking sites and one coveted by advertisers."

• Another site, Vostu.com, presents itself as an alternative to Facebook.com, where students post profiles of themselves visible to a mini-network of their college or high school classmates. ... Dan Kafie, the 24-year-old Honduran native who co-founded Vostu, believes his site can compete with the larger ones because it's specially tailored to the needs of a relatively small but affluent group. ... "There's similar types of sites, but they don't capture the cultural subtleties," Kafie said. "We thought there's an opportunity."

• But are technology, culture and language enough to draw people away from MySpace, Facebook or Google Inc.'s YouTube?

• "More young people come to this country and don't have a family," Monterrosa said. "They are here to strive or to study and they need contacts. They don't have money to go to shows or clubs, but they can reach out to people who also like the same things," he said. As for those in Latin America, they can connect with music and youth scenes that are difficult to find outside the big cities.

• "The youth, they want it to be fast. They want it to be hip, and they want to see themselves in it -- but not just themselves,"

fictive kinship

when the identity of the shooter in the virginia tech killings was revealed, a couple of the young men who are enrolled in a digital media class i co-teach made the following statements:
"i'm glad he wasn't black."
"the new york times probably wouldn't have printed it if he had been, anyway."
both young men are african american and had just made claims about the ny times being a newspaper for white people, unlike the daily news, which, in their opinion, had stories that mattered to them: "to black people."

elaine richardson, during a colloquium delivered at teacher's college this week, spoke of fictive kinship when responding to a question about her talk, in which she explored african american young women's engagement with hip hop lyrics and video imagery. she noted that despite diverse opinions that may exist within a minority or marginalized group of people, there tends to be, in some of those communities, a sense of wanting to protect someone who looks like you from those who don't look like you; similarly, when someone who looks like you does something you wish they didn't, you feel the pain on behalf of everyone who looks like you. thus, the young women that richardson talked about expressed critique in response to the images represented nelly's "tip drill" song and video, while at the same time finding messages of empowerment and accommodating this text.

the limits of my own fictive kinship were tested this past week when the country in which i was born and where many of my relatives still live made me cringe with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. should people be displaying awkward public affection in the manner that richard gere performed on stage at a fundraiser last week? probably not - i say this not for reasons of "morality," but rather because the whole mess looked more like a poorly choreographed sequence from dancing with the stars than a playful "star"-to-"star" kiss on the order of brody-on-berry at the '03 oscars.

these are moments of self-definition borne out of public performances in which ethnicity and race take center stage. as an adolescent, i don't recall feeling excluded from the literature i was reading or the television i was watching - a claim i sometimes i take up in my classes in response to how young people engage with such texts. however, i was keenly aware of when "people who looked like me" did something that mortified and disappointed me:
- watching the funeral of indira gandhi and knowing that she was gunned down by her own bodyguards
- watching earth, a film by deepa mehta
- reading the karma of brown folk, by vijay prashad

...

recently in class we listened to a youth radio podcast by ayesha walker, a young woman reflecting on the v-tech shootings. the last lines of her piece are as follows:
"Here, our tragedy is so embedded in the city that it doesn't make the headlines. It's just what we're known for."

is there room to change what "we" are known for? and what informs the ways in which young people make sense of themselves? what leaves lasting impressions? and which are the moments, words, images, and interactions that last a lifetime?

online findings and sitings

check out this series of very excellent interactive multimedia stories: inanimate alice
(thanks for the link, angela!)



the birth of wiki-man - see also other words-to-music by verytasteful.com



also, my favorite wiki hosting service, pbwiki, is now ad-free for educational wikis!!

arresting developments

a few weeks ago, a 7 year old boy was arrested for being in possession of a banned dirt bike - it was motorized and that's not allowed in baltimore, where the boy lives.

it's bad enough (horrific, actually) that we're suspending kids as young as 4 for "improper touching" - remember the hug-gone-bad story? - but can't we (and by we, i mean law enforcement, lawmakers, adults in positions of power) find ways other than physical and verbal intimidation to communicate with elementary school age children?

in the spirit of multiple perspectives and sources, i leave you to read the following re: the bike story and ask you to think about what is being educated to the young boy at the center of it all:

Arrest of 7-Year-Old Draws Condemnation

HANDCUFFS, TOO: Baltimore police arrest 7-year-old bike rider

Groups clash over child’s arrest

with words like this, who can sleep?

Where the FUCK did you learn to drive? Jerkoff!
Words spoken by a baseball cap wearing, ruddy complexioned, Bluetooth headsetted driver of a navy blue SUV to my turbaned cab driver in response to the bopping and weaving the cabbie was guilty of as he tried to jot down a phone number of a car for sale while driving at high speeds down the West Side Highway, all the while as I clutched the Mac I was transporting for use in our digital media class.

You’ll never have to lift anything heavy with all these men around in here.
Words spoken by a female staff member at the alternative to incarceration program where I conduct fieldwork and occasionally teach classes as I walked in with my arms full of the cardboard box containing the Mac I had risked my life for just a few minutes earlier.

It’s not me, but it’s me, you know? You'll see...
Words spoken by a graduate of the above noted program after giving me his Myspace url.

JESUS is my boss
Words embroidered into the navy blue cap worn by a man who looked at me strangely as I was recording field notes into my digital voice recorder as I headed home from fieldwork on the subway.

adding to my list of favorite blogs...

drop that knowledge - authored by youth radio's education director and senior producer lissa soep. if you haven't already done so, check out the youth radio website, subscribe to their podcasts, and visit dtk frequently to engage in conversation with an emerging leader in youth media discourse and dialogue.

more numbers and sense

Experts: Testing companies "buckling" under weight of NCLB

a few choice passages:

"A handful of companies create, print and score most of the tests in the U.S. and they're struggling with a workload that has exploded since President Bush signed the education reform package in 2002."

"The number of students tested has risen sharply since the No Child Left Behind Act took effect. Illinois, for example, used to test only third, fifth and eighth graders but now tests students in third through eighth grades."

"To meet NCLB requirements, states administered 45 million reading and math exams during spring 2006. At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, they will give about 56 million tests because they must add a science exam at the elementary, middle and high school levels."

"From 2002 to 2008, states will spend between $1.9 billion and $5.3 billion to develop, score and report NCLB-required tests, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office."

after reading these numbers, 1 second of funding doesn't sound so bad, hmm???

school = tests

How/When did standardized tests become synonymous with public schooling? Why aren’t we doing more than critiquing and questioning them? What would that “more” look like? I am reminded of an exchange that occurred following Jay Lemke’s presentation during one of the plenary sessions at this year’s NCTEAR conference. Someone requested/challenged him to write an op-ed to the New York Times saying (in 500 words or less) the essence contained in the talk he had just given about transmedia franchises and transmedia semiotics found in adolescent’s worlds that are turning our understandings of literacy/ies inside out. Lemke talked about the complexity of meaning making in an age when story is not found in printed text alone; ““eating candy such as bertie botts (from Harry Potter),” he claimed, “is literacy if it is integrated into transmedia meaning effect.” Mimi Ito, in an earlier talk, shared several examples of amateur anime music videos (AMVs) that reflected the nuance and range of multimedia composition and storytelling that anime fans are engaged in, all the while challenging notions of literacy, composing, communication, plagiarism, homage, imagination, narrative, and learning. This post isn’t about lemke’s or ito’s talks, but rather about the role that they and others in the field of language and literacies studies might play in changing the tide of schooled literacy practices and policies, which have largely taken the form of rote learning, scripted and formulaic templates, and an unending sequence of tests and measures.

Today I came across the DiversityData Project currently ongoing at Harvard’s School of Public Health. From the website:
“The DiversityData project identifies metropolitan area indicators of diversity, opportunity, quality of life and health for various racial and ethnic population groups. This Website is now available to a wide variety of potential users interested in describing, profiling and ranking U.S. metros in terms of quality of life. The indicators provide a scorecard on diversity and opportunity, and allow researchers, policymakers and community advocates to compare metro areas and to help them advocate for policy action and social change.”

Among the indicators are education, crime, housing opportunities, and economic opportunities. The project has also issued its first report based on these data that focuses on the impact of urban schooling on children: Children Left Behind: How Metropolitan Areas Are Failing America's Children. The report includes findings about the best and worst metropolitan areas for children, broken down by race, and bases these assessments on a combination of factors. What struck me were a few lines near the very end of the report, in a section that offers suggestions for improvement based on “models that work” in the areas of 1) early childhood development; 2) housing choice, mobility, and neighborhood improvement; and 3) education. Of the latter, on page 37 of the report, they wrote the following:

“In order to reduce racial/ethnic educational achievement gaps, some innovative schools have adopted new approaches. One of the most influential school models is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) for inner-city public schools, shown by independent evaluations to boost performance on standardized tests in multiple schools throughout the country. While observers warn that there is no single answer to the gulf dividing race and class, these programs appear to help by emphasizing strong principals with the power to remove unproductive teachers, extensive teacher training, team building, evaluation and retraining, and frequent testing.” (my emphasis)

...

how's that editorial coming along, jay??

fun with photoshop

oh the fun to be had with a little image, a little software, and just the right amount of imagination:
picture of the day

another online film festival

just recently discovered the Independent Lens online film festival, full of all kinds of shorts and longer shorts.

i landed on that site while exploring this one - Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.

the umbrella site for Independent Lens, a weekly series that airs on PBS. From the website: "Each episode introduces new documentaries and dramas made by independent thinkers: filmmakers who are taking creative risks, calling their own shots and finding untold stories in unexpected places."

untold stories
unexpected places

...