Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

7.7.10 | Doug Sery sees the future of education cross his desk as senior acquisitions editor for the new media, game studies and design group at MIT Press.

When asked what innovation he’d like to see in the classroom, he said more remixing—the kind of creative experimentation young people do on their own by sampling music, splicing it into their own photos, or clipping excerpts from historical footage and adding it to a rap or spoken word.

Not exactly something you’d expect a traditional publisher to condone. But could it be a learning tool that engages kids where they’re at?

This Behind the Research looks more closely at remixing as a tool for learning and discovers some interesting experiments going on, in and out of the classroom:

• Darrell Johnson, a Chicago public school teacher, discusses how remixing engages students in ways that prepare them for the future and why remixing is not plagiarism.
• Watch examples of remix projects from Chicago students at Carter G. Woodson Middle School and the YOUMedia after school program.
• Since remixing inevitably raises the issue of copyright, intellectual property attorney Jaime Wolf discusses the intractability of current copyright law, and Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, forges a “third way” for future copyright.