Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

#IranElections: Why We All Need to be Editors Now

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If you’ve been following the news out of Iran the last few days, odds are you’re following it very differently from even a few years ago. Ten years ago, most of what I would have learned would have come from the TV news or the New York Times the day after. Five years ago, it was the New York Times or other traditonal media websites that I probably would have turned to. Today, however, for me at least, it’s Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia and then the New York Times website. It’s a bit of a different process, I’d say.

While we’ll wait to see how social tools affect the outcome in Iran, we can’t wait to begin to teach ourselves and our kids how to make sense of media that we ourselves have to edit. The complexities here are huge, in both an information and technological context. We’re reading and viewing content created by people whose identities and agendas are unkown to us.  While much of it is raw, we can’t know how much of it is made to look raw, how much of it has been edited, how much of it is true. I can read the Tweet above and believe it, or I can wait for confirmation. I can do what all good journalists have done throughout time which is verify and reverify before believing and reporting.

The difference is, obviously, is that I have to do this for myself. I now have access to the raw information, the stuff that I used to pay for someone else to find and sift and synthesize and share. I can choose to continue to take that route, certainly, to only check the reputable media outlets for updates and “news”. But if I do that these days I deny myself a greater understanding of not just how to consume all of this but how to participate in it. I’m not in Iran (thankfully) but I can still share the best of what I find about Iran for others in my network. I don’t take that task lightly, because I want to be a trusted contributor. I want others to share with me so that we can sift and filter and synthesize and contribute the best of our resources and thinking. As Donald Leu writes, these days “we read online as authors, and we write online as readers.” And, I would add, we need to read and write as editors as well.

I know that we should have been teaching these skills and processes all along with every piece of information we read or shared. But the reality is that we as an educational system haven’t been doing a very good job of it. Right now, however, we and our kids simply can’t get away with not having these skills any longer. I know the school year is over for many, but for those that are still in session, welcome to a teachable moment about the world, democracy, technology, media, and most of all, participation.

"So Why Do You Only Give Your Kids 45-Minutes a Day on the Computer?"

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I’ve blogged before about how Wendy and I limit the amount of media time that Tess and Tucker get, that we struggle with knowing how much time is too much or too little to be on the computer, watch television, play the Wii or poke around on the iTouch. Most people think that since both of us spend so much time of the computer that we’d naturally let them play all they want. But we don’t. In fact, I get the feeling we’re more restrictive than many parents, ironically. (Tess swears there’s only one other kid in her grade at school that doesn’t have a phone yet.)

When I mentioned in passing our 45-minutes-a-day on the computer policy during a recent presentation, I was seriously amazed at how many people came up afterwards (and even e-mailed me later) and asked about that. There was like a whole ‘lotta angst going on in terms of people wondering if their kids were getting too much screen time and how we came to the decision to limit our own kids. I had no answer for the first part, and I felt like I stumbled through the second part because to be honest, it’s a really complex equation that is going to be different for every kid, every set of parents. For us, I think it’s a combination of having two very energetic kids who love to physically play, a reaction to the struggle for balance in my own life, and an expectation that when we’re together as a family, we’re together as a family that interacts more often than not without media. Frankly, I don’t even like it when Tess plays the apps or listens to her iTouch for long periods in the car. But she (and Tucker) can read as much as they want, and they do. We always bring their books with them and we encourage that at every turn. (For some reason, my kids don’t get car sick when reading.) Is there a huge distinction? I don’t know. Books give us something to talk about. Mario on the iTouch? Notsomuch. And there are exceptions. Tess happens to really like Google SketchUp, and she can almost always get more time if she’s making something or exhibiting some creativity. All I know is that we, and I mean we, tend to push back against technology for our kids as much as we embrace it for ourselves. And that is ironic, I know, but that’s what we’re comfortable with right now when they are 9 and 11. As they get older, they’ll get more time, but I know that we’ll monitor what their doing and have lots of conversations about it. When they get ready to start creating and publishing in earnest, we’ll certainly help them if that’s what they want to do.

Now does that mean that isn’t perfectly ok for some other parents to make other, perhaps more liberal choices about their own kids media time? Absolutely not. To each his own, and I’m not suggesting to anyone how they parent their kids. I’m also not holding myself up as the poster child for fantastic parenting. (I could tell you stories.) All I know is that’s what we’re comfortable with right now, that the real cuts and scrapes they get in their physical worlds are more important than the virtual ones at this point, that we are always struggling with it, and that for today at least, I really like who my kids are shaping up to be. They’re creative, social, articulate, thoughtful and fun to be around. Most of the time. And I hope some of that, at least, comes from our parenting around technology and media in their lives.

New MacArthur Study: Must Read for Educators

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So here is the money quote from the just released study from the MacArthur Foundation titled “Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project” (pdf):

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in  classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and  the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.

I would take a few thousand words to unpack just that paragraph in terms of what the implications are for schools, and if we read that without some sense of both fear and excitement, I just don’t think we’re paying attention.

And please, send your administrators and IT folks this message in 42-point bold type:

Social and recreational new media use as a site of learning. Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technological skills they   need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access “serious” online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions. (Emphasis mine.)

Finally, sit down, and mull this concept over:

Youth using new media often learn from their peers, not teachers or adults, and notions of expertise and authority have been turned on their heads. Such learning differs fundamentally from traditional instruction and is often framed negatively by adults as a means of “peer pressure.” Yet adults can still have tremendous influence in setting “learning goals,” particularly on the interest-driven side, where adult hobbyists function as role models and more experienced peers.

Let me try to make a few points that come quickly to mind.

  • Kids respect other’s knowledge online because their knowledge and expertise is transparent in ways they haven’t been in the past. The study says that kids “geek out” by finding those who share their interests both inside and outside of their face to face groups. What a surprise.
  • They are more motivated to learn from their peers because they can connect around their shared passions, most of which the adults in the room don’t share.
  • They are self-directed because they can be. They can get what they need when they need it.
  • Their learning is “knowmadic”, as is most learning in the real world outside of school. We’re not linear, test assessed learners once we leave the system, are we?
  • We have to be more willing to support this type of learning rather than prevent it, but, as always, we have to understand it for ourselves as well.

So stop reading this and go read the report, and let these questions hang:

New role for education? Youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education. What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions?

What do you think?

Mourning Old Media, Mourning Old Media Teachers

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I remember when I first starting teaching journalism way back in the day actually using one of those stinky, buzz-inducing ditto machines to publish my students’ work “widely” up and down the hallways. I remember copy-editing by hand with green Flair pen, the same color my dreaded college journalism professors used, teaching my kids the fine art of marking up each other’s stories and adding suggestions for improvement. And I remember buying about 15 copies of various newspapers every Friday just so we could all spend some time getting our fingers black with ink as we searched for interesting and/or well written stories.

When I think of those days, I feel really old, for sure, but I also feel amazed at how much has changed in terms of media. And now, when it seems that “old” media is finally tipping full force into a “new” digital media model, I have to say I’m somewhat wistful.

Ok. I’m over it.

Yesterday’s New York Times piece by David Carr “Mourning Old Media’s Decline” got me really thinking again, however, about how much more important journalism has become in these days when newsrooms are being cut and reporters laid off. The Christian Science Monitor is closing its print edition. The Los Angeles Times, Newark Star-Ledger and others are making deeper cuts. All of which is going to increase our reliance on not only online media but participatory online media, the form of media that is largely unedited, essay-driven and agenda-ridden. All of which, by the way, should be driving our conversations about how to fundamentally rewrite our curriculum and our delivery system to prepare students to be, um, participants both as readers and as writers.

I loved this graph from the article:

Stop and think about where you are reading this column. If you are one of the million or so people who are reading it in a newspaper that landed on your doorstop or that you picked up at the corner, you are in the minority. This same information is available to many more millions on this paper’s Web site, in RSS feeds, on hand-held devices, linked and summarized all over the Web.

The problem for us is that we’re still teaching like our kids are going to be reading those edited, linear, well-written newspapers when the reality is they’re not. And the bigger problem is that, by and large, we still don’t know enough about the “new” media world in our personal practice to push those conversations about change in any meaningful way.

We better figure it out pretty quickly, or we’ll be mourning much more than old media…

(Photo: News by Kazze.)

Preparing for Participatory Politics

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My head is swimming with all sorts of impressions from the opening day of the PDF conference. Really smart people talking about really amazing shifts, trying to figure out if they are really transformative or just a better, larger, more immediate way to communicate with people and move them to action. I think the jury is still out (though I’m leaning toward the former) but it gets pretty heady when you think about what we have to prepare our students for in terms of the potentials for participating in the political process (both good and ill) and the extent to which we encourage that participation.

Zephyr Teachout (who has by any measure one of the coolest names ever) opened the day with a compelling question:

How many people have within them the knowledge of how to form a local group and to use that group to change the structure of their society?

And it wasn’t asked in the context of these connective technologies, but the implication was obvious. If we’re not preparing them to do it in their own physical spaces, how can they be expected to do it effectively in virtual space?

There was lots of talk as well about being able to use these tools, especially mobile tools, to capture and document important events and share them with the world. The example of Mayhill Flower, who happened to catch the Obama comment on average Americans being bitter and clinging to their guns came up on a couple of occasions, as did the Hillary Clinton comment about Bobby Kennedy which was captured on a Mogulus stream. Left a lot of people wondering if all of this is a good thing or just a recipe for chaos.

During the session I Tweeted to Andy Carvin who was also in attendance, asking whether all of this meant we should be preparing our kids to be, in effect, journalists. He Tweeted back, yeah, we should prep them to “conduct random acts of journalism when moments arise that demand coverage, debate.” I think I agree.

And then there was a panel titled “Building and Using the World Live Web” which featured Robert Scoble and the creators of Qik, Mogulus and Cover it Live. It was a fascinating discussion and model of just how live things are getting, including live streaming from your phone right to the Web where people can interact, ask questions, leave comments which are then sent back to the phone where you can integrate the suggestions into the broadcast. Stories of politicians who are using the feature to interact with their constituents, me wondering what the potentials are for local board of ed meetings, town councils, graduations, etc. (And, all the not so wonderful content as well.)

Zephyr cited a statistic that said that historically only about 5% of people have actively participated in the political process on a local or national level. I’m heading home tonight wondering if that percentage is going to change because of these tools, and if so, if that will be a good thing or not.

More tomorrow…

Lessig on Media and Government Reform

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It’s no secret that Lawrence Lessig has been one of my heroes in this conversation for a long, long time, and I just wanted to share his most recent presentation from this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. Would have loved to have been there.

I’ve always been a student of Lessig as a presenter; when I first started I ripped off his minimalist PowerPoint approach without apology and got away with it because very few of the people I presented to had ever seen him present. I’ve gone down a different path these days in terms of the technology, but I just don’t think there is anyone better in terms of making a clear point by building a contextual narrative that really gives perspective to that point and builds on it and challenges an audience to think about it in serious, meaningful, and new ways. Listen to the way he weaves the story, with just enough humor and cynicism, and how he brings it all together in the end, in this case, by getting back to the “core problem.” Very few intellectual moments in my life come close to the first time that I saw Lessig five years ago at Harvard, when I literally had goosebumps, and I am really looking forward to seeing him again in NYC in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, in case you haven’t heard his newest message, take 30 mins to watch. My bet is he’ll make you think.

A Broader Use for "Fair Use"

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Important post from Joyce Valenza that should start some interesting thinking about Fair Use:

I learned on Friday night that the critical test for fairness in terms of educational use of media is transformative use. When a user of copyrighted materials adds value to, or repurposes materials for a use different from that for which it was originally intended, it will likely be considered transformative use; it will also likely be considered fair use. Fair use embraces the modifying of existing media content, placing it in new context. Examples of transformativeness might include: using campaign video in a lesson exploring media strategies or rhetoric, using music videos to explore such themes as urban violence, using commercial advertisements to explore messages relating to body image or the various different ways beer makers sell beer, remixing a popular song to create a new artistic expression.

Basically, Joyce writes about how the scope of what we can and cannot do with our students regarding reuse and remix of copyrighted materials may be much broader than we think. Read the whole thing.

"Social Filters"

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Great article in the New York Times that asserts the Clay Shirky idea I noted here earlier of a publish then filter world.

According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.

I like the phrase “social filter” that the article puts forth as a way to capture what I think is a big shift in emphasis on many of the basic reading literacies that we should have been teaching but by and large haven’t been doing a very good job with. We have to be editors, not only in the sense of identifying those pieces of information that should be “passed on” but in assessing those that have been passed on to us. It is a bit more complex, and potentially problematic, when the filter who is suggesting something for you to read may not be very well trained in the skill of filtering either.

While, as the article points out, much of this trend is a technological version of “word of mouth,” I think the difference is the scope of the potential personal audience, the ease with which we can copy and forward what we find, and the speed with which it all happens. Think Twitter for all of that.

And this is a younger vs. older thing. While two-thirds of those under 30 use social networking tools to disseminate and consume information, only 20% of those over 30 do. I’m guessing those percentages are about right for education as well.

Finally, I find this really encouraging, especially in an age where talking heads hold so much sway:

Young people also identify online discussions with friends and videos as important sources of election information. The habits suggest that younger readers find themselves going straight to the source, bypassing the context and analysis that seasoned journalists provide.

Obviously, that can be good or bad, depending on who those “seasoned” journalists are and who your friends are. But I’m just thinking that if we can teach kids to go to the source and do their own cogent, reasoned analysis, that’s a good thing. Again, establishing these skills and habits in our students has to be something that we model and include in every part of the K-12 curriculum.