Check out this new Arcade Fire online move that is “an interactive, data-driven Chrome Experiment using HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.” While I’m not completely a fan of how this movie plays out, the concept is, well, inspired. You put in your own hometown address then click search. And, voila, music starts, screens open and close, your childhood home appears–It’s all there. Give it a try for yourself, if you’d like at The Wilderness Downtown.
(thanks to the creator Chris Milk for this video).
“By visualizing this information we turned it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a kind of map, really, an information map.” David Mc Candless, The Beauty of Data Visualization
Just think about that for a minute……….
Ok, now, check out this fascinating TED Talk. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of space, place, time, visuals, and this video really struck a cord with me. It’s so interesting I won’t muddy it with lots of my own insights. Watch it, think about it, and let me know what you think.
Check out this fascinating online teen drama that is ostensibly about a girl gamer but is, in actuality, a keen exploration of what it’s like to be a teen girl a bit out of step with those around her.
What makes this drama especially fascinating, though, is how the teens’ use of social media is so central to their lives. Granted, it was sponsored by MySpace, but that’s not it. It actually gives quite a balanced account of how youth use social media in ways that help and in ways that bully others. Overall, the social media is how they are experimenting with selfhood, how they are communicating, how they are working things out together. It’s actually quite sweet this drama. I feel for this girl as she tries to fit in, and you will too.
This weekend I was lucky enough to run a media workshop for ESL/ELL teachers taking a course on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. In it, I began by sharing my work on Native youth who are trying to preserve their language and culture through making youth videos. The goal was to provide a different perspective on bilingualism for teachers beyond the focus on only certain kinds of bilingual youth.
The second goal of this workshop was to try out a new software tool: VoiceThread, which is a new online software tool I found recently (thanks JSC for pointing it out). I had tried out this tool for a friend’s Library Science course on a presentation about media literacy, so it was in the back of my mind when another friend asked me to do a workshop on media for her class. As we were discussing what she wanted the practicing teachers in her course to learn and to accomplish, we hatched a plan to try out VoiceThread to see if it would be useful for her teachers. After giving them the basics of the program, we used the rest of the time for the teachers to try it out for themselves. It turns out that they found the tool easy to use for their projects, and many of them were thinking about ways that they could use it for their schools and their classes. It was also great for me, too, to see how these technologies work (or sometimes don’t work) for teachers. I learned a lot from leading this workshop, and I hope that the teachers learned a thing or two as well.
Here are some links to some of the cool VoiceThreads created by teachers and students that I showed the teachers during the workshop.
Using political cartoons and having students respond: Voices of Darfur
Having students re-tell literature: Fourth Grade Art
Having students describe their writing process: 5 Step Writing Process
Using images to tell about identity: Four Images that More or Less Represent Kate
Yes, I am once again connected to the blogosphere with renewed determination to not suck. I do have some interesting post ideas coming up: some about cool videos, others about some new technology I’ve been loving lately that you will like too, and some odds-and-ends ideas. All these are floating around in my brain and will be out soon. But, as my friend Gloria will tell me, “Primero el uno, y entonces el segundo.” First one, then two.
A couple of cool things have happened recently. First, I am happy to share the recent issue of English Teaching Practice and Critique, of which I’m proud to be a part. My piece in this issue is a tracing of time and space through a layering of multimodal microanalyses about a series of videos from one of my youth participants. The other articles in this issue are super, super interesting scholarship, especially but not limited to John Potter’s piece on digital curatorship.
The second really cool news is that recently I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to present at the New Media Consortium’s Summer Conference with Jen Scott Curwood as part of a Digital Literacies strand with some wonderful people. This Digital Literacies strand was spearheaded by Angela Thomas and generously funded by The Nordic Journal. A big thanks goes out to them all. =)
In this presentation, I discussed multimodal microanalysis, an analytic methodology that I’ve been developing for awhile now, and in this presentation I focused on a bit about its development as well as a brief look at its application, in particular to a video produced by Téa Drift. Check out the slides here
In a third and related piece of news, check out the new article Jen and I published for IJLM where I spell out the nuts and bolts of this analysis as I apply to a really, really cool video produced by one of Jen’s students (see also this post).
What’s up for the summer? Well, I’m looking forward to a book chapter Téa and I wrote with her mother discussing these videos in International Perspectives on Youth Media, and my work with Erica Halverson and my fellow graduate student members of her research group continues (Erica has some really interesting work coming out soon). Also continuing is my renewed vow to put my money where my mouth is and to blog. Expect something soon–and not just this professional “bidness,” which I find a bit odd to post but do post because who knows which links you all might find useful for your own work.
Well, before I award myself the World’s Worst Blogger award, I have decided to get back on the wagon.
A quick recap. I’ve recently been in London studying at the University of London at the Institute of Education. I went there to find out more about social semiotics and media cultural studies, and I found out more than I could imagine. My primary supervisor was Andrew Burn who has been widely influential in youth media production, especially in understanding youth video production. But, he has also done extensive work in other media, e.g., media literacy in schools, playgrounds and games, video games and youth. I also spent many an enjoyable and informative hour as part of a reading group with Rebekah Willett and Chris Richards, two professors who taught me much about research and theory. Also, I learned much about media cultural studies from David Buckingham and John Potter (and I got a model for my own dissertation from John’s recent thesis–big thanks to him) and about multimodal analysis from Carey Jewitt. Those classes were invaluable.
Also, I was lucky enough to give seminars–one at the University of Sheffield (thanks to Kate Pahl) and at the London Knowledge Lab (thanks to Rebekah). Both have been podcasted: ‘Moving Beyond Video Analysis: Laminates, Perspectives, and Identities’ at U of Sheffield; ‘Identity as an Ethical Issue in Youth Media: Moving toward a New Theoretical Framework’ at the LKL.
I now have hope for completing my dissertation. Many, many thanks to you all.
I can’t tell you what I like most about these New York Times One in 8 Million pieces. From the striking black-and-white photos, all beautifully taken, to each person’s narration of his or her own life, each piece is rich in detail and provides a glimpse into each person’s unique contribution to New York. Each piece focuses on one aspect of a person’s life from Buster English who grows a garden in the projects in Brooklyn to David Vega who poignantly describes how boxing gives him a sense of self to Teresa Zakow who copes with the death of her husband by continuing the art restoration business that they had run together during their marriage. There’s something about the combination of image and narration that makes these pieces powerful representations of each person. Truly beautiful. This would also be an amazing lesson in a classroom for students as they learn to navigate their way in the world and as they learn to express themselves in it.
Over the last couple of days, I have been proud to participate in the Youth Media Summit, sponsored by the McCormick Foundation and coordinated by AED, specifically the Youth Media Reporter, at Lake Forest, IL. The goal of this Summit was to gather together youth media organization leaders, funders, and researchers to share their experiences, insights, and knowledge about youth media in an attempt at field-building.
Our convening began with a reception hosted by YouMedia, a part of the Chicago Public Library that is a space created for teens to interact with and use both print and digital media tools in an interactive and supportive learning environment. Funded by MacArthur Foundation and the Pearson Foundation, this space was created from the work of Drew Davidson and Jesse Schell from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Then, the work began as we met in small groups to discuss a range of key field building issues. This is probably no surprise, but I chose and was placed in the Research & Evaluation group, a group that was comprised of leading researchers and scholars in the field (Kathleen Tyner from University of Texas-Austin and JoEllen Fisherkeller from NYU) and prominent leaders of youth media organizations with longstanding, high quality work with youth (Sue Hayman from Wide Angle Youth Media, Steve Goodman from EVC, and Lynn Sygiel from Y-Press). What an amazing group of people with whom to work with toward determining the type of research and evaluation would be needed as a field of youth media! I learned so much from spending time with these great thinkers, thinkers who also have extensive practical experience researching and working with youth.
It really was amazing to be a room full of such passionate and knowledgable people. Plus, I got a chance to reconnect with some past connections (hey, Rebecca!), while forming new connections. It gives me hope for youth media and a renewed purpose as I continue on with my dissertation work.
Also, and surprisingly, I had a great conversation with a young youth media artist who wants to be a photo journalist. Although we only spoke for a short time, I was able to share a little bit of the resources I know with her, some of which I found out about from people there, e.g., One in 8 Million (thanks, Lynn), which will be next week’s blog post b/c it is remarkable, and some I had found out about along the way, e.g., vi.sualize.us and Flypmedia. What I realized, though, is just how much I miss teaching. Really, spend 5 minutes with a passionate youth, and you’ll see what I mean! And, that’s exactly what this Summit was all about fundamentally. Truly worthwhile.
This video called Haunted Playground was created a by a young girl named Maniechan Xiong. And, it is truly scary. Don’t watch it late at night, all alone, with the lights out. But, even more than Maniechan’s keen understanding of the horror genre, her video brings up intriguing issues about what is seen as possible for youth to produce and what they ought to produce. So often with media, there is this fear that children are overwhelmed by media’s influences, e.g., Barbies make girls anorexic, seeing smoking in movies makes kids smoke, etc. And, even with video production, the idea still pervades that if youth are to use something as powerful as video, then they must use if “for good,” e.g., for anti-gang PSA’s, light-hearted stories about their schools, etc. But, this is not the philosophy of In Progress, a youth-based arts organization that focuses on teaching youth to create a range of media. This video is just one of many examples of youth-produced work (more examples can be found here). What intrigues me about this video, however, is how it breaks the boundaries of what is expected from young girls when they create their pieces. This is not a fluff piece about hair and toys (Actually, I have seen very few youth-produced videos that are fluff pieces. To see a range of youth videos, check out Listen Up!). It is a piece that plays with the generic conventions in order to tell a deeper story, to put the viewer in a different place. It reminds me of Pippa Stein’s Multimodal Pedagogies which discusses how young South African girls write and draw stories using local traditional genres to tell stories in their own lives without having to face adult restrictions about what is seen as acceptable for the girls to tell. This video is another powerful example of how, if given the chance, young girls can and will tell stories that are meaningful for them.
I’ve been thinking a lot these days about what it means to have “voice,” to express “voice,” and to give “voice.” I find this especially complicated when I think about youth produced work made by youth of color or poverty. What does voice mean in the digital age? What does it mean with people who have been denied voice, especially given that youth are often doubly denied by marginalization and by age? What does it mean to give “voice”? And, then, through Kris Sorensen from In Progress posting a powerful video on Facebook, I am once again struck by how strong voices can be. This video from Red Hand Media is a striking way of showing how people can find their own voices and express them in ways that empower others. Using a poem from Ryan Red Corn, this video is a layering of genres, voices, images, languages, and identities. From the very beginning, it asserts a stereotype of “bad indians” (by its title and title sequence) then resists it by stating that the people in it are “bad indians,” a resistance that continues throughout the video. It resists filmic expectations as well by beginning with what is essentially an outtake of the filming of the video. But to say that it is simply resistance is to take away its power. This video captures the images and voices of many as they try to assert a common identity. It’s an odd juxtaposition. The words they say are Ryan Red Corn’s, and he himself is present in the film. The way that the video is edited is his vision as well. Take, for instance, the quick cuts as the people speaking are shown and taken way, the words repeated then abandoned for the next. But, that being said, the people also represent themselves. They are saying these words. They are expressing these ideas. They are the faces on the screen. They are the “bad Indians,” as much as the speaker in Red Corn’s poem, even when Red Corn is made visible and audible on the screen. He is one of many. These are the words of many. And of each.