I watched 20-something Dan Brown's compelling 6.5-min. "Open letter to educators" on YouTube this morning after an educator I admire and follow on Twitter, Tom Whitby, tweeted about it. In it, Dan, aka pogobat, very engagingly asks what it means to receive an education now, in these discontinuous times, and explains how the institutional education we've long revered is beginning to fail many … [Read more...] about Smart young YouTube vlogger on education’s fail
New Media Literacies
Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
Those are media professor Henry Jenkins's words in a talk he gave to USC students' parents this fall about "raising the digital generation." It's good to be reminded that Facebook, MySpace, (or Hyves, studiVZ, or Tuenti in Europe, for example) are not the all of social media for youth – that today's highly interactive, global digital media lower the barrier of participation in all sorts of … [Read more...] about Today’s ‘low barrier to participation”
Facebook fundamental (& what it says of media literacy)
Longtime technology journalist David Kirkpatrick – author of the recently published book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World – caught an interview that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave CNBC last spring. What Zuckerberg said in that interview, Kirkpatrick wrote, was "among the most revealing things he has ever said about how he views his enterprise … [Read more...] about Facebook fundamental (& what it says of media literacy)
The new media monsters we’ve created for our kids
In adjusting to a media environment very different from the mass-media one we grew up in, we adults have created some monsters. They're large, intimidating "creatures" that threaten the mutually respectful parent-child and educator-student communication that young people want and deserve in this highly participatory, sometimes overwhelming new media environment.One of the monsters is the "digital … [Read more...] about The new media monsters we’ve created for our kids
A great teen-adult conversation to join
I've just joined the Focus on Digital Media community and hope you will too. This three-week-long online conversation starts April 13 (but you can register now here) and is the "first-ever among parents, educators, and teens about ethical questions in digital life ... questions like, "Should parents and teacher ‘friend’ their kids on Facebook?" It's a joint project of New York-based Global Kids, a … [Read more...] about A great teen-adult conversation to join