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The Future of Online Learning

19 Jun

I went to Israel to learn about the future of online learning as part of the Center for Educational Technology’s conference, Shaping the Future 2: Innovation, Education and Entrepreneurship. Shaping the Future 2

As a member of the CET Advisory Board, I appreciate the opportunity to interact and share ideas with educational leaders including Gila Ben-Har, Avi Warshavsky, and Guy Levi. One of the most exciting initiatives we learned about was the CET Virtual High School, which builds upon the 40-year tradition of excellence in educational technology of this distinguished organization.

This new pilot program, supported by the Trump Foundation, enabled CET to develop a special program for offering advanced courses in mathematics and physics for Israeli high school students whose schools cannot offer these subjects. The program offers a robust combination of elements:

  • Virtual learning that occurs synchronously, in school, for a group of no more than 20 students, during a regular classroom period, taught by a teacher for 3 hours per week
  • Virtual tutoring where university student mentors provide small-group coaching and additional support for student learning, using a collection of more than 1,200 online lessons that support dialogue and discussion, for 2 hours weekly
  • Self-paced, self-directed drill-and-practice homework  activities

This form of online learning is no MOOC, which is characterized by simply watching videos, reading, interacting with peers, and taking automatically-scored tests. The CET model uses a form of high-quality distance education that preserves many of the important features of face-to-face interaction, as students develop a relationship with their small group of class members and the teacher, and receive personalized coaching using a near-peer mentor. For these reasons, I would bet the farm that this project will be a success!

Right now, more than 1/3 of Israeli students don’t have access to advanced courses in physics, and fewer than 10,000 students matriculate with courses in advanced math. In 2009, only 45 university graduates became Mathematics teachers in high schools across Israel, whereas 300 veteran teachers retired. The CET Virtual High School may be able to increase the number of students who develop the confidence to take university-level math and physics courses. I would bet the farm on the success of this program.

In developing this program, the CET has learned that teacher professional development must occur online so that educators experience what their students do when working in an online environment. They’ve also learned that the professional development needs to be content-specific, using the resources and materials tailored to the subject matter. These are important insights.

I am especially intrigued by the research opportunities embedded in their decision to record every mentoring session. CET is discovering that these dialogues can be a powerful support for student learning.  After all, sometimes it is through a process of questioning that new explanations and new insights occur in ways that create the “aha!” effect.  But it’s also the case that such documentation can help us create new forms of professional development that help current and future educators become more strategic and metacognitive in their thinking about the teaching and learning process.

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When Literacy Goes Digital

24 Mar

The anticipation is killing me, as David Cooper Moore and myself are moving into last-minute countdown mode for the release of our new book, Discovering Media Literacy: Teaching Digital Media and Popular Culture in Elementary School (Corwin/Sage, 2013) and the companion website, Powerful Voices for Kids. We are scheduled to release it at the National Association for Media Literacy Education conference, July 12 – 13, 2013.

I hope you’ll watch my recent speech which I offered to the Youth 2.0 conference at the University of Antwerp, I got a chance to preview some of the ideas in the book and show some of the videos that will be featured on the PVK website. So many talented media literacy educators were part of this process! At the conference, I really enjoyed the chance to share what we learned, respond to questions, and hear people’s responses to the ideas we’re developing in the book.

Our new book helps educators and scholars understand both the amazing opportunities and the complex challenges of implementing media literacy with children ages 5 – 11, and the online community we’re creating will enable elementary educators, scholars and practitioners to share resources, including lesson plans, video documentation of practice, student work samples and more. I created a screencast with embedded videos to capture my keynote address. I welcome your feedback, questions and responses to the ideas developed in this talk.

Project-Based Learning: Eight Essential Elements

4 Mar

Screen shot 2013-03-04 at 2.59.35 PM

It’s Day 1 at South by Southwest Education (SXSWEdu), and already I’m feeling the buzz. There’s a great conference room in the Austin Convention Center, complete with a super-size front projection data screen, stage set lighting, with a great music mix setting the mood. Producton values are so important for a conference. Don’t I just want to love this event? Yes!

First up is Alfred Solis, Director of New Media at the Buck Institute for Education. In the minutes before the program begins, I go online (free, no password needed – thank you!) to discover that this organization pioneered staff development in project-based learning since the 1990s. John Thomas wrote a review of the research evidence, which is also useful. What’s their secret?

It’s the Eight Essential Elements of Project-Based Learning:

SIGNIFICANT CONTENT. The project is focused on important knowledge, concepts and skills derived from standards.

21st CENTURY SKILLS. Students build critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication and other skills needed for success in today’s world.

IN-DEPTH INQUIRY. Students engage in a rigorous extended process of asking questions, gathering information, and developing original answers

DRIVING QUESTION. Project work is guided by an intriguing, open-ended question.

NEED TO KNOW. The project creates an authentic purpose for learning, beginning with an Entry Event.

VOICE & CHOICE. Students make some decisions about the project, including how they work and what they create.

REVISION & REFLECTION. Students give, get, and use feedback to improve their work, and reflect on their learning.

PUBLIC AUDIENCE. Students create products for or present work to people beyond their classroom.

After introducing these concepts, participants were invited to watch a video, “Media Saves the Beach,” from High Tech High School in San Diego. After viewing, we reviewed how the eight elements were embodied in the video, with a partner.

He then shows another video and asks participants to select from a multiple-choice list: What’s the driving question? I’m reminded of Ted Sizer and Grant Wiggins and the vibrant ongoing dialogue on the art of creating Essential Questions (EQ).

Alfred Solis concludes by noting that public audience and public exhibition are a game-changer for schools. Culminating events require persuasive communication and marketing skills. What a nice crisp introduction to project-based learning!

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Introducing the Media Literacy Smartphone

12 Feb

Media Literacy Remote ControlBy Jonathan Friesem

GUEST BLOGGER

Ever since the Media Education Lab moved from Temple University to the University of Rhode Island, I was looking for a chance to update the classic media literacy “remote control,” first developed by Renee Hobbs in 1993.

While the remote control presents a metaphor for the active and structured approach to the analysis of media and popular culture, the remote control is gradually being replaced by the smartphone. So when I was preparing to present our work at conferences and meetings in China and Israel, I re-designed the remote control design, changing it to a smartphone look while keeping the key questions and core concepts the same. Now the new media literacy smartphone is available for purchase in inexpensive classroom sets for educators


 Jonathan Friesem demonstrates the new MEL app for media literacyIn early January, I was invited to present the core concepts of media literacy in front of a leading group of communication researchers, media practitioners, and journalists in Israel. The Media Regulation Forum at the Israel Democracy Institute meets twice a month to talk about the role and limitations of the Israeli media regulator, the Israeli authority for television and radio. As the manager of the Media Education Lab, I was asked to present the argument that media literacy education can be more effective than regulation.

Introducing the MEL App

Introducing the Media Literacy AppI decided to introduce the new Media Education Lab App at the forum. Using the MEL App engages people in dialogue and information-sharing, showcasing to already-media literate people how media literacy can be learned through exploration of critical questions. My idea: to consider the relationship between media literacy education and media regulation, my audience needs to directly experience the pedagogical foundations of media literacy education in practice.

I chose a media text from a North Carolina television news station that featured a report about a controversial PSA against texting while driving. The two-minute news report featured a young reporter describing the graphic PSA and then interviewing three students outside their school talking about the positive effects of this PSA. Knowing that a media text with local issues could lead the conversation away from the actual activity of deconstructing a media message, I intentionally chose to use a media text which would be not so familiar to my audience.

We watched the video and then started to go through each one of the features of the MEL App. We started with the Reality Check: Does this news report represent reality? On one hand, it is a report about a real PSA. On the other hand, this report was so manipulative that it was clear to participants how much of the footage of the report was staged.

The next topic was Private Gain or Public Gain. We got into a discussion about whether the gain from the report against texting is beneficial for the viewers or for the TV network itself. This discussion led to the next feature of the App: What’s Left Out. Participants identified the calculated framing, the selection of white teens as interviewees and the reporter’s decision to talk about the problematic visuals of the PSA without showing these images to the news viewers. The latter point addressed participants’ concern that the report was not really about the effects of the PSA but rather a dramatic promotional opportunity for the network, as the anchor commented: “It is incredibly graphic so we choose not to run all the images, but you can see the entire video if you’d like to at WXII12.com.”

Then we continued to explore the topic of Values Check. Besides the obvious fact that texting is dangerous while driving, we identified two values: first, the the concept of materialism in relation to technologies like the smartphone, and the second, the decreasing value of parenting. The students who were interviewed were saying how this PSA was much more effective than their parents’ guidelines. Then we tackled the topic: Read Between the Lines. What was the actual message of this report? Is it a commercial hidden as their top local news story? Was it a message about the failure of the educational system to educate about safety? Or was it a message about white privileged teens who do not listen to their parents and get into accidents?

Structured Critical Analysis

As the discussion around the table got steamed up, we moved to the next app: Stereotype Alert. We asked ourselves why the reporter chose the three white teenagers who were filmed from high angle. Analyzing their clothing, gestures and accessories (such as the smartphones they used to watch the PSA) made it clear that there is a subtext about the culture of privileged teens. How could those three adolescents (who for some reason were not in class at that moment) be persuaded in four minutes to stop texting?

The answer for that question is the next app: Solutions too Easy. The two and a half minute report explains the problem of texting while driving and offers the quick solution: parent should go to the network’s website and show their teens the four-minute-long PSA. Using the last app – Record/Save for Later – I asked the participants if this report is important to them and if there is any value to store and show it later. There were mixed reviews and feelings about this report.

To conclude the activity we went to the bottom part of the MEL App to see the different media genres content that can be analyzed. It is important to understand that this activity can be done not only with TV messages but also with newspapers, movies, tablets, radio, comics, books, music, video games, and even social networks. On the other side of the MEL App we reviewed quickly the five critical questions that reframe critical analysis using the concepts of authorship, purpose, contructedness, point of view, interpretation and omission.

Of course, the distinguished group of scholars, the executives, and the journalists knew full well how to analyze this report without the instructional scaffolding that the remote control provides. However, this activity showcased to them that media literacy education can be done in a fun and engaging way using a structured learning process.

I was asked to come and talk about media literacy as part of the debate on whether the legislators should protect the viewers by regulating the media industry or investing in media literacy education to empower viewers’ critical thinking. It seemed that the activity and the presentation of the MEL App gave participants an experience that demonstrated the efficiency of media literacy education over media legislation, which in the digital age, cannot be entirely regulated.

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Waking Up to New Approaches to Community Media and Librarianship

28 Jan

Two amazing professionals have been literally keeping me awake at night: Maureen Sullivan and Tom Stites.

Waking Up to Innovation

Waking Up to Innovation

For days now, I find myself conscious, alert, in the middle of the night, pondering a bit of conversation, or an echo of a phrase, or an idea I seem to have heard recently from one or both of them. I pick up my dream notebook and scribble something furiously before hitting the pillow again.

Both of these remarkable individuals are aiming for nothing short of reinventing their chosen professional fields of librarianship and journalism. And I can’t think of anything more timely, more inspiring, and more important than the work they’re doing.

Tom Stites has had a distinguished career in journalism, working at the Kansas City Star, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times. Now he is the founder and president of the Banyan Project, which aims to strengthen democracy by pioneering a sustainable and scalable business model for Web journalism that serves the broad public of everyday citizens and engages their civic energy. I got to meet Tom at the Convergence and Community invitational conference we hosted here at the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media on January 16 – 17, 2013, where a diverse group of librarians, information professionals, technology experts and journalists gathered to explore how to prepare future workers in journalism and librarianship for careers and community service.

Spending time with Maureen Sullivan, the President of the American Library Association and the brand-new Interim Dean of the GSLIS program at Simmons College, is profoundly mood-altering experience. She’s an inspiring leader! Maureen is an organizational development consultant whose practice focuses on the professional development of librarians. She understands the process people use to create strategic change in their institutions. She has managed the human resources departments for academic libraries at the University of Maryland and Yale University. I saw Maureen only days ago at the recent National Forum on Teens and Libraries in Seattle, Washington, in an event sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Maureen Sullivan has been at the forefront of a movement to enable librarians to “face outward” towards the communities they serve. She’s been encouraging librarians to reinvent their social role by building a sustainable, scalable national plan for library-led community engagement. And in the world of journalism, Tom Stites has been doing the same thing, in a way, encouraging journalists to engage directly with people in their local communities using a new funding model for community journalism based on the co-op model, a business structure developed by credit unions when credit dried up during the bank failures of the Great Depression.

What Universities Can Do

To meet the information needs of people in our local communities, we need creative and inspiring new ideas like this. And I can’t help but think that the University of Rhode Island can be a small part of the solution, right here, using the power of partnerships to help people across the region get the knowledge, skills, job training and services that will enable them to thrive.

This is the reason why I’m delighted that Harrington School journalism and library faculty will be exploring opportunities for interdisciplinary connections that use the power of convergence and community to help students develop the new competencies they need for 21st century careers as information professionals. This fits with our mission to use the power of information and communication to make a difference in the world.

What’s Possible?

How can universities support the needs of people in our local communities? Imagine the possibilities:

  • How about designing and implementing project-based learning experiences that put our students –future journalists, public relations and information professionals, filmmakers, librarians — into partnerships and collaborative projects that serve the community, like the Rhode Island Library Report?
  • Or perhaps it will be a new core multidisciplinary course organized around a deep-dive exploration of concepts like SEARCH, which is itself a core practice of inquiry with deep resonance for journalists, educators and librarians.

We’ll see what the faculty cooks up this spring, with help from Visiting Research Fellow Bill Densmore, a consultant and researcher on the future and sustainability of journalism who is an expert on Internet information technologies and business models. Bill is a consulting fellow to the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) at the Missouri School of Journalism and director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He helped create the New England News Forum and is a founding member and director of Journalism That Matters. Thanks to Bill, we’ve made new friends with a number of innovative thinkers and leaders who care deeply about both journalism and libraries, including Mike Fancher, Amy Garmer, Leigh Montgomery, Colin Rhinesmith, Kara Andrade, Peter Phipps, Brian Jones, Josh Macht, and Graf Moen. Thanks to all of you for keeping me up at night imagining the future!

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A “Ripping” Fine New Year

1 Jan
I'll be ripping clips from Gnomeo and Juliet

I’ll be ripping clips from Gnomeo and Juliet to help K-12 teachers teach media literacy.

My New Year’s Resolution: In 2013, I’ll be “ripping” DVDs to make clip compilations for media literacy. And I’ll be encouraging K-12 teachers, school librarians, and technology educators to do the same.

Why? Because finally, as of October 26, 2012, the U.S. Copyright Office, as part of the DMCA 1201 rulemaking process, has declared that K-12 teachers can legally bypass copy-protected software on DVDs and online streaming media to make short clips.

How did this happen? As a copyright education activist, I participated in two rounds of rulemaking proceedings in 2009 and 2012 concerning the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is the law that exempts YouTube and other ISPs from liability from copyright claims and criminalizes the circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) software that protects DVDs from being copied. I was in good company among other copyright education activists including Peter DeCherney, Martine Rife, Spiro Bolos, and the ALA’s Jonathan Band. Professors Victoria Phillips and Peter Jaszi supported my work through the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic at Washington College of Law at American University.

Every three years, citizens can protest if they believe their fair use rights have been compromised by the current law; the Copyright Office pores over the petitions, weighs the pros and cons, and then offers recommendations to the Librarian of Congress, who ultimately grants or denies the exemptions.

In 2009, we were successful in expanding the law so that college professors and film/media students can legally “rip” DVDs for fair use purposes. In 2012, we were successful in expanding the law to include the right of teachers in kindergarten through twelfth grade!

Here’s the fine print: “The person engaging in the circumvention must believe and have reasonable grounds for believing that the circumvention is necessary to achieve the desired criticism or comment, and where the circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures for the purpose of criticism or comment in the following instances: (i) In noncommercial videos; (ii) in documentary films; (iii) in nonfiction multimedia ebooks offering film analysis; and (iv) for educational purposes by college and university faculty, college and university students, and kindergarten through twelfth grade educators.” You can read the text of the Copyright Office decision here.

Why it matters. By asserting that K-12 educators have the right to circumvent encryption to make fair use of copy-protected DVDs and online digital media for teaching and learning, the law begins to move beyond the needs of large-scale content owners to include the rights of educators and students.

But if K-12 educators don’t take advantage of their new legal rights, has the law really changed? This new provision of the law is definitely a “use it or lose it” situation – if we can’t demonstrate the need for the special exemption in 2015, we may lose it. So, my friends, get “ripping.” Unleash your creativity to create new kinds of educational materials with film DVDs. To help you learn how, here’s a “how to” lesson on using the free software Handbrake to rip on a MAC and here’s how to do it on a PC. And please, inspire your colleagues by posting your own plans for “ripping” in the comment space below.

First things first. You might wonder why I’ve set my sights on “ripping” clips from Gnomeo and Juliet (2011, dir: Kelly Asbury). Of course, there’s the wonderful opportunity to hear my favorite classic Elton John songs (like “Your Song,” for example). But the film has so many possibilities for exploring literary concepts like adaptation and intertextuality and for discussing the concept of nostalgia as it shapes the production of films for child audiences.

Among the gems in this film is the infomercial for the Terrafirminator, the “un-neccesarily powerful” lawnmower that’s “a weapon of grass destruction,” so intimidating that “your lawn will be afraid to grow!”

After viewing the commercial, the gnomes use a laptop to order this high-tech lawnmower.

After viewing the commercial, the gnomes use a laptop to order this high-tech lawnmower.

It’s a classic example of those Saturday-morning high-pressure sales pitches we see on TV.  And even very young children will recognize the now-familiar trope of slow-motion ninja fighting when it occurs in the timeless conflict between the red gnomes and the blue gnomes. I can imagine playing the “Spot the Reference Humor” game, where students clap their hands when they recognize an example, using this activity to discuss the complex interpretations viewers make as part of the film viewing experience. Of course, older students will enjoy the chance to discuss how and why the Shakespeare tragedy is bizarrely altered to create the happy ending required for a children’s film.

Now that the U.S. Copyright Office has permitted K-12 educators to “rip” videos for media literacy education, we can celebrate! Happy New Year 2013!

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The Promise of Libraries Tranforming Communities

12 May

Sometimes I wish that information specialists ruled the world. After all, people who know how to find and access information, understand it and analyze it are smart, right? Because they tolerate complexity and acknowledge the limitations of data, they are likely to make good decisions based on evidence and reasoning. I respect and trust information specialists.

But, in fact, today, communication specialists rule the world. In almost every field, the power of storytelling is undeniable in our culture. People who express ideas with the head, the heart and the emotions in good alignment are using the power of communication to make a difference in the world. Through effective rhetorical strategies, they inform, entertain and persuade, mobilizing people to action.  Effective communicators who create and sustain high-functioning collaborative teams are successful in the community and the world of business as well as in non-profit and government sectors. I respect and trust effective communicators.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to bring these two sets of competencies together. As a 2012 Technology Fellow for the ALA’s Office of Information Technology Policy (OITP), I’ve had a chance to work with academic librarians, school librarians and public librarians on an emerging definition of digital literacy. Although digital literacy may take different forms depending on the individual, it’s a constellation of life skills that include basic foundational literacies, like reading comprehension and computer skills, as well as transformational literacies, that include the ability to access and evaluate information, create and critique messages, and use reflective thinking and civic action to make a difference in the world.

To address our most pressing social, environmental, economic and political issues at the local, national and global levels, we need people who can be both information specialists and communication specialists, working with integrity to tell stories, access and share high-quality information by using effective social skills and instructional strategies that enable people to make good decisions as self-governing members of society.

I recently attended an invitational conference hosted by the American Library Association (ALA), the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Entitled The Promise of Libraries Transforming Communities, the event brought together librarians, foundation leaders, and government agency heads with the goal of generating new strategies for expanding and deepening the impact of libraries on the communities they serve.

The host of remarkable leaders included Molly Raphael, ALA President, Jim Leach, NEH President, and Susan Hildreth, IMLS head. Also participating in the program were Maureen Sullivan, Deborah Jacobs, Karen Archer Perry, Norman Jacobs, Ron Carlee, Keith Fels, Chris Gates, Rich Harwood and Loretta Parkham, among the many impressive leaders in attendance.

The program was perhaps the most exhilarating event I have ever attended in the library community. We discussed what’s not working, what is working, and what we could be doing more effectively with collaboration. The dialogue was energizing and forward-looking.

There was an important consensus: librarians must be robust and effective community leaders. Of course, in many academic, school and public libraries, librarians already play this role. We all know amazing librarians, like my friend Joyce Valenza or Carrie Russell, who are perfect manifestations of this ideal. But it’s exciting when young people also embrace this identity, as with Anna, one of my own young graduate students, a librarian-in-training, who helped create the “A-Z (Audre Lord to Howard Zinn)” library tent, full of books and resources for protesters and their supporters, which was established at Occupy Boston last year.

Successful librarians are community-connected, comfortable with stepping beyond their expertise, and able to use digital and social media tools for information access, content creation and sharing, and advocacy.

Of course, if we want librarians to support content creation with digital media and learn to lead and collaborate with diverse community stakeholders, we’ll have to build different types of library schools where people can learn these things:

  • Librarians will need training to support the development of people’s creative and digital literacy competencies.
  • Librarians will need to be youth media and public media specialists.
  • They will need public relations and public speaking skills.
  • Librarians will have to get good at using dynamic strategies of community engagement through both traditional face-to-face methods and with online and social media tools.
  • And they’ll need to identify and respond to the information needs of communities in the many ways recommended by the Knight Commission’s report on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

Given that librarians are embedded in more than 17,000 communities and institutions large and small in every corner of this country, it’s a thrilling time to imagine how to awaken the public spirit and nurture librarians as community leaders and civic activists.

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