December+2008+Meeting+Notes

Articles**
 * media type="custom" key="2912085"
 * Mediated Cultures (Michael Wesch)- http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch and http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/
 * Digital Youth Project (MacArthur Foundation) - http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report
 * Conculsions
 * "We believe that one key to productive adult involvement is in taking advantage of this current moment in interpretive flexibility about the nature of public participation. We have an opportunity to define, in partnership with youth, the shape of online participation and expression and new networked, institutional structures of peer-based learning."
 * "The problem lies not in the volume of access but the quality of participation and learning, and kids and adults need to first be on the same page on the normative questions of learning and literacy."
 * "The focus of policy and educational agendas needs to be not on the specific content or skills that kids are engaged in when they pursue interest-driven participation but rather on the genre of participation. We have identified a series of peer-based learning dynamics that operate in these contexts, with basic social principles that drive engagement, learning, and the development of expertise. We have also described how youth can transition between different genres of participation, by shifting from hanging out forms of media engagement, to messing around, to geeking out."
 * "In contrast to what they experience under the guidance of parents and teachers, with peer-based learning we see youth taking on more “grown-up” roles and ownership of their own self-presentation, learning, and evaluation of others."

Resources
 * Podcasts**
 * [|listen to this great podcast] about how writing teachers are having students post writings on a social network site where many kids from other schools comment on them. They then also discuss their writing via the Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast
 * Elgg - http://elgg.org/. The School at Columbia uses for grades 6-8.
 * http://youthvoices.net/
 * Moodle - [|http://moodle.org]
 * Drupal -
 * [|http://scratch.mit.edu]

Meeting Notes
 * Interschool Elgg?
 * Interschool Wiki?
 * Tweek Moodle to give many roles (students can create quizzes)
 * Test faculty on Media Literacy
 * Negotiating time with teachers (example of negotiations with Doctors to implement new tech)
 * negotiate time with teachers to learn new tech
 * teachers take 1 class per year in exchange for 1 less class.
 * Selling The technology to be easier the second year.
 * Student generated curriculum using new technology
 * Setting expectations for year 1, year 2, year 3, etc.
 * Summer workshops with stipends.
 * Having successful tech teachers hold workshops at a Spring Conference (NYSAIS tech committee is working on this)
 * "you don't have to use moodle, you don't have to use blogs, but you have to use something" Alan November via Al Doyle
 * NYCIST can create position papers on:
 * AUP
 * Professional Develpment
 * Laptop Programs
 * etc....
 * Getting teachers involved in communities like NYCIST
 * Having teachers take a course online

A couple weeks ago, Karen Blumberg and Don Buckley sent out [|a great article on teenagers social networking behavior]. Instead of an article warning parents and teachers about online safety which has been the focus of discussion for many years regarding social networking, it referred to the [|MacArthur][| Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning]. The report finds that youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. Below are some notable quotes:
 * NYCIST Meeting Email**

"Teens share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By it's immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning." "New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting," the study said. "Youth respect one another's authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults." "Implications: New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn, and raise a new set of issues that educators, parents, and policymakers should consider."

You can also find more information about the research at the link below: [|http://digitalyouth.ischool. berkeley.edu/report]