The More Things Change: Taming the Tempest of Pop Media & Tech

Kym Buchanan ... KymBuchanan.org ... Handout

For there are only two worlds--your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. -Titania, in The Books of Magic (a graphic novel)

Tell Me a Story (Intro)

Two Cover Letters

Lee Shulman describes "narrative ways of knowing"

Parker Palmer describes "communities of truth"

Telling stories is how we relate and seek truth together

When artists and philosophers talk only amongst themselves, they ignore the potential of popular culture to become a variety of dialogues with and between everyday people. Its discourse may be productive of desire and pleasure, but popular culture is also a language in which people discuss politics, religion, ethics, and action. -Brenda Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur

Our students can tell stories. And we should listen.

Listen to the Weird Man

A Weird Man & His Scary Songs

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

-Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

In some ways, I'm a child of the 60s

A time when we argued about the soul of America

• Divisive political idealogy
• Prejudice and discrimination based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation
• Embrace and rejection of consumerism and corporate profiteering
• Problems more vast and complicated than we've ever faced
• War

And change, wow

• Rapid technology change
• Redefined authorship

Change Hates Me (A Haiku)

Here they come again:
New media, new gadgets.
I miss my notebook.

A Long, Strange Trip

When I first started teaching

• Needed every advantage to motivate & engage my students
• Integrated technology, of course

Technology is only technology if it was invented after you were born. -Alan Kay

• Outsiders view technology as things
• Insiders view technology as activities & experiences (often sociocultural)
• When everyone sees the activities & experiences...

Apathy: Who Cares?

Our whole policy of compulsory education rises or falls with our ability to make school life an interesting and absorbing experience to the child. -Henry Suzzallo (Introduction to Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education, 1913)

Video games, cell phones, iPods, wikipedia, texting, rip/mix/burn, blogging, digital cameras, mash-ups, FaceBook, smart phones...

Wouldn't it be great if kids were willing to put in this much time on task on such challenging material in school and enjoy it so much? -Jim Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003)

Try this...

9th & 10th Grade Students Tried

Recognition was comparable (no significant difference)

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. -Antoine de St. Exupery

Prophets Need Good Grammar

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

-Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

The Big Idea

• Our students should be the writers, the critics, the prophets
• Our job is to equip them with skills and tools, inspire them, and let them find wisdom and grace themselves

Sailing Into the Wind

• Identify an engaging technology or media, then re-purpose it for educational goals
• An irreverent, opportunistic perspective to complement other pedagogical foundations
• Playful Interest Bridging (PIB) urges educators to take a genuine interest in students' fascination & skills with new technologies & media
• Not a new idea (Sesame Street); not a stand-alone pedagogy / philosophy

The More Things Change... Today's Bob Dylan?

Looking for resonance

The Rising Water

A prophecy: Second Life & YouTube

Ohio University Second Life Campus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA

Not (just) a game

Why you should care: Creativity & writing

Example: Fan fiction Fan sims

If you can do Star Wars, you can do Pride & Prejudice

YouTube

Not about SL or YouTube themselves, but technology & culture

• Create
• Publish
• Vote

Game Over

Second Life is about immersion (similar to willing suspension of disbelief, but much deeper)

A Game Called...

Good: Reflect

Better: Respond, react

What problems do our students see? What stories do they want to tell? How can we help them?

Ready to Swim? (Closure)

The power of Playful Interest Bridging

• Web
• Bob Dylan
• Digital camera
• YouTube
• Second Life
• Storytelling
• Playfulness (e.g., playful headings) about serious stuff

I hope I've persuaded you to look closer

I hope I've persuaded you to take it to the next level

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

-Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

SL Backup Images: Editing, Jet, Campus, Art Gallery