Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

12.10.11 | Teachers’ comments on Facebook create controversy; Nichole Pinkard links digital literacy to traditional literacy; empowering students with storytelling; technology and the state of college teaching; and Lady Gaga visits the White House—all in this week’s Playback.

Teachers Need Digital Media Literacy, Too: All Things Considered this week looked at free speech issues involving teachers’ Facebook comments. A Union, N.J., teacher sparked controversy when she posted negative comments about a gay history exhibit at her high school and called homosexuality a perverted sin. The school district is investigating.

Meanwhile, in Paterson, N.J., a judge ruled that that a first-grade teacher in a largely black and Latino school could be fired for commenting on Facebook that she feels like a “warden for future criminals.” The teacher’s attorney said she doesn’t really think that—she was just having a bad day. The New Jersey teachers union and the ACLU have gotten involved.

We all have the right to our opinions (even if they are misguided); but when those opinions become public, there can be consequences—which makes a good case for teaching teachers digital literacy to understand the difference.

“There’s a really simple concept here, which is [that] the nature of a conversation is changing in a digital age and the consequences of saying something that’s dumb are much greater,” John Palfrey, a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, tells All Things Considered.

Here are the New Jersey teacher union’s social media guidelines, which conclude with this advice: “As educators, we are held to higher standards than the rest of the working world. [...] Be safe online and never post anything you wouldn’t want read out loud at a school board meeting.”

Connecting Digital Literacy to Literacy: How do you get teachers lacking technical skills excited about podcasts, video and digital sound production, and computer graphic design? Send in Nichole Pinkard.

Joyce Walker, a professor and youth development coordinator at University of Minnesota Extension, experienced an “Ah-ha” moment listening to Pinkard, founder of Digital Youth Network, discuss mastering digital literacies for the 21st century.

It was the attention to literacy—the ability to understand and communicate effectively in multiple ways—that made me say “Yes, I get it!” It’s about being able to take in, produce and transmit written, verbal, visual, auditory and digital knowledge. Today literacy requires more than a pen, paper and print text. Truly an educated person today must be able to critically embrace both the traditional and the explosion of new digital forms of literacy.

Walker was particularly inspired by the DYN project in which teens read Toni Morrison’s book “Mercy” and then created digitally designed book covers based on the book’s key messages. Check out Pinkard’s presentation, and send it along with Walker’s column to skeptics who question what digital media has to do with literacy.

The Story of Education is Pass/Fail: Writing at DMLcentral, Antero Garcia, an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles, wants to reframe failure—specifically the role of failure in schools.

The key, he writes, is stories and ownership of narrative: “When we shift the context of learning in a way that engages youth in storytelling, there is no longer need to frame things in terms of failure. Failure ceases to be a concern when children are emboldened as storytellers. Instead of failing, storytelling allows narrative to help guide proficiency.”

While badges are often cited as a way of improving learning outcomes (or at least demonstrating different types of out-of-school learning competencies) Garcia acknowledges some hesitancy: “... I am concerned that badges will continue to signify achievement in the pass/fail binary of current schooling. My interest in badges is in how young people and teachers define and narrate badging as journeys through the process of schooling.”

Look for an in-depth Spotlight story on badges next week.

Plus: DMLcentral also has excerpts of a video interview with Katie Davis, project manager at Harvard Project Zero, on “the ways in which young people’s use of digital media influences how they come to see themselves in society and among parents, teachers, and peers.”

The Future of College Teaching: The Chronicle of Higher Education is exploring the state of college teaching and its shift alongside new technologies in the classroom.

“While some enthusiasts see the high-tech changes as a much-needed upgrade to an education model that is more than a thousand years old, others see dangers ahead. Is all that gear a distraction?” writes Jeffrey Young, “Is academic freedom threatened when Web tools and video make public the once-sacred space of the classroom?”

A multimedia feature is in the works. The Chronicle should soon post info on how to participate, or you could send your thoughts to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The White House Blog Needs Images: Senior presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett blogged about her White House meeting with Lady Gaga, held to discuss the launch of the Born This Way Foundation and efforts to combat school bullying (read about MacArthur’s involvement [pdf]).

Jarrett wrote that she was “deeply moved” by how Lady Gaga has used her personal story of being bullied as a child and her rise as a mega superstar to inspire young people. But the White House does have some work to do on message promotion—the blog does not reveal what Lady Gaga was wearing.