Julia's slideshow

Traveller's Tales

view presentation (tags: streetart memes digital literacy)

References: (Relating to Julia’s presentation Travellers' Tales: Street-art into cyberspace and back again)

Black, R. (2008). Adolescents and Online Fan Fiction. New York: Peter Lang. Dawkins, R. (1976) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Danath, J. and Boyd, D. (2004) 'Public Displays of Connection'. In BT Journal of Technology Journal. Vol 22: 4 pp71 – 82. de Certeau,M. (1984)The practice of Everyday Life. London: University of California Press. Gee, J. P. (2003) What Videogames Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gell, Alfred (1998) Art and Agency: Towards an anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goffman E, 1959, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, reprint Penguin Books, 1990. Hirsch, Eric, Küchler, Susanne, and Pinney, Christopher (1997) 'Obituary of Alfred Gell', Anthropology Today, 13(2), pp. 21–24. Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2006). New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning. 2nd edn. Maidenhead & New York: Open University Press. Leander, K. & Sheehy, M. (Eds.) (2004). Spatializing literacy research and practice. New York: Peter Lang. Lefebvre, Henri (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. MacDougal, David (1997) 'Visual Anthropology and the Ways of Knowing', in Visual Anthropology at the Crossroads, Jay Ruby and Teul Stoller (eds.). Sante Fe: School of American Research. Mitchell, W.J.T. (1994) Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rose, G. (2001) Visual Methodologies. London: SAGE. Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2001) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Unsworth, L. (2001) Describing Visual Literacies, in Unsworth, L. (2001) Teaching Multiliteracies across the Curriculum, Buckingham: Open University Press. van Leeuwen, T. and Jewitt, C. (2001) Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage. Walker, J. (2004) Distributed Narratives: Telling Stories Across networks'. Paper presented at AoIR 5.0, Brighton, September 21, 2004 . Available at: http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/txt/AoIR-distributednarrative.pdf. Accessed August 2006. Images with thanks to: celie's This is not a photo opportunity. http://www.flickr.com/photos/celie/1271907/ ctoverdrive's This is not a photo Op! http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctoverdrive/1418854755/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/markjarmyn/95400395/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/markjarmyn/95400395/ jan.martin. This is not a photo opportunity . http://www.flickr.com/photos/janmartin/236861251/ jilil's this is not photo opportunity. http://www.flickr.com/photos/markjarmyn/95400395/ mappamundi's Everything is a photo opportunity. Parkaboy 050's graffiti. http://www.flickr.com/photos/parkaboy/73227203/ RfullerD's Nick Walker http://www.flickr.com/photos/rfullerrd/2503143912/ sahst23's This is not a photo opportunity . http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevehall/517112221/ Other images taken from the photstreams of: DrJoolz: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjoolz/ Gammablog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gammablablog/ LunaPark: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunapark/ Ruminbatrix: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruminatrix/ TrosTetes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trois-tetes/ Also see: Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/

A couple of useful resources

To email files up to 100 mgs free of charge try http://www.mailbigfile.com/

Another useful video editing resource can be found at http://catchvideo.net/

Television Tunes (free downloads)

Here’s another site I’ve used and it is quite good for TV/Movie theme music … pretty extensive.  Listen, laugh, download, laugh some more!

 

http://www.televisiontunes.com/

RezEd The hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds

This may be old hat for you guys who are likely more "in the know" but I just joined RezEd - The Hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds.  To join you simply sign up at www.rezed.org
 RezEd has all kinds for cool information. 

Also I just got back from the Games Learing and Society conference - teachers who want to implement the great stuff we're learning about in this course can get a scholarship to the GLS conference.  The scholarship pays for two nights accommodation and full conference fees (that includes food). All we need to pay for is getting there. Next years conference is June 10-12 (google gls conference - you can access webcasts of many of the talks from this year's conference - Including Jim Gee's talk entitled "Beyond Games" ). 

I found the talk by Guy Merchant today really interesting. and the comments about changing the teacher student relationship to a collegial/collaborative type relationship and that to do this us teachers might take on virtual character roles in a virtual world.  I have been trying something like that and would love to continue this conversation with anyone interested.

Carol

Some quotations lying behind Colin's talk

From Chris Searle (1975), Classrooms of Resistance.   … Education is only valid if it plays its part in supporting the total liberation of mankind, and not the interests of the ruling few …. The priority was that these working class children should learn to read, write, spell, punctuate, to develop the world as a weapon and tool in the inevitable struggles for improvement and liberation for hem, and the rest of their class all over the world. This is what 'preparing them for their future' meant in real terms, not to educate them to work and play records in their chains but to develop the use of the word to break through them. (Searle 1975: 9)   From C. Wright Mills (1959), The Sociological Imagination Yet people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them. (C. Wright Mills 1959: Ch 1) The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of people to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, people often sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary people feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That - in defense of selfhood - they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private individuals? Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? (Mills: Ch 1) It is not only information that they need - in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need - although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination. (Mills: Ch 1) What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieux we are required to look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the institutions within which we live become more embracing and more intricately connected with one another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination. (Mills: Ch 1) Fromm on Human Needs Erich Fromm, like many others, believed that we have needs that go far beyond the basic, physiological ones that some people, like Freud and many behaviorists, think explain all of our behavior.  He calls these human needs, in contrast to the more basic animal needs.  And he suggests that the human needs can be expressed in one simple statement:  The human being needs to find an answer to his existence. Fromm says that helping us to answer this question is perhaps the major purpose of culture.  In a way, he says, all cultures are like religions, trying to explain the meaning of life.  Some, of course, do so better than others. A more negative way of expressing this need is to say that we need to avoid insanity, and he defines neurosis as an effort to satisfy the need for answers that doesn't work for us.  He says that every neurosis is a sort of private religion, one we turn to when our culture no longer satisfies. He lists five human needs: 1. Relatedness As human beings, we are aware of our separateness from each other, and seek to overcome it.  Fromm calls this our need for relatedness, and views it as love in the broadest sense.  Love, he says, "is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self." (p 37 of The Sane Society).  It allows us to transcend our separateness without denying us our uniqueness. The need is so powerful that sometimes we seek it in unhealthy ways.  For example, some seek to eliminate their isolation by submitting themselves to another person, to a group, or to their conception of a God.  Others look to eliminate their isolation by dominating others.  Either way, these are not satisfying:  Your separateness is not overcome. Another way some attempt to overcome this need is by denying it.  The opposite of relatedness is what Fromm calls narcissism.  Narcissism -- the love of self -- is natural in infants, in that they don't perceive themselves as separate from the world and others to begin with.  But in adults, it is a source of pathology.  Like the schizophrenic, the narcissist has only one reality:  the world of his own thoughts, feelings, and needs.  His world becomes what he wants it to be, and he loses contact with reality. 2. Creativity Fromm believes that we all desire to overcome, to transcend, another fact of our being:  Our sense of being passive creatures.  We want to be creators.  There are many ways to be creative: We give birth, we plant seeds, we make pots, we paint pictures, we write books, we love each other.  Creativity is, in fact, an expression of love Unfortunately, some don't find an avenue for creativity.  Frustrated, they attempt to transcend their passivity by becoming destroyers instead.  Destroying puts me "above" the things -- or people -- I destroy.  It makes me feel powerful.  We can hate as well as love.  But in the end, it fails to bring us that sense of transcendence we need. 3. Rootedness We also need roots.  We need to feel at home in the universe, even though, as human beings, we are somewhat alienated from the natural world. The simplest version is to maintain our ties to our mothers.  But to grow up means we have to leave the warmth of our mothers' love.  To stay would be what Fromm calls a kind of psychological incest.  In order to manage in the difficult world of adulthood, we need to find new, boader roots.  We need to discover our brotherhood (and sisterhood) with humanity. This, too has its pathological side:  For example, the schhizophrenic tries to retreat into a womb-like existence, one where, you might say, the umbilical cord has never been cut.  There is also the neurotic who is afraid to leave his home, even to get the mail.  And there's the fanatic who sees his tribe, his country, his church... as the only good one, the only real one.  Everyone else is a dangerous outsider, to be avoided or even destroyed. 4.  A sense of identity "Man may be defined as the animal that can say 'I.'" (p 62 of The Sane Society)  Fromm believes that we need to have a sense of identity, of individuality, in order to stay sane. This need is so powerful that we are sometimes driven to find it, for example by doing anything for signs of status, or by trying desperately to conform.  We sometimes will even give up our lives in order to remain a part of our group.  But this is only pretend identity, an identity we take from others, instead of one we develop ourselves, and it fails to satisfy our need. 5. A frame of orientation Finally, we need to understand the world and our place in it.  Again, our society -- and especially the religious aspects of our culture -- often attempts to provide us with this understanding.  Things like our myths, our philosophies, and our sciences provide us with structure. Fromm says this is really two needs:  First, we need a frame of orientation -- almost anything will do.  Even a bad one is better than none!  And so people are generally quite gullible.  We want to believe, sometimes even desperately.  If we don't have an explanation handy, we will make one up, via rationalization. The second aspect is that we want to have a good frame of orientation, one that is useful, accurate.  This is where reason comes in.  It is nice that our parents and others provide us with explanations for the world and our lives, but if they don't hold up, what good are they?  A frame of orientation needs to be rational. Fromm adds one more thing:  He says we don't just want a cold philosophy or material science.  We want a frame of orientation that provides us with meaning.  We want understanding, but we want a warm, human understanding.   (Excerpted from: Dr C. George Boeree http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/fromm.html)

Music downloads FREE

Colin here’s the website …

 

www.freeplaymusic.com

 

Regards,

John

Video editing workshop (with Michele)

The purpose of this workshop is first and foremost to have you spending time mucking around with video editing and remixing techniques. One key objective within this purpose is to have you identify and explore the possibilities (or otherwise) remixing videos might have for identity performance or exploration. To do so, the theme of your video is to be some aspect—or aspects—of your own identity. You can use the images you brought with you, or download meaningful images to use in your clip.

By the end of this session, you each should have a short video clip that opens with a title sequence and closes with a credits sequence. If time permits, muck around with including a soundtrack, too.

To begin:
In small groups, discuss the five video clips you found as part of your preparation for this workshop. Discuss what it is about these clips that appealed to you in terms of:

• Actual content (i.e., what the video says about the maker's identity or identity in general)
• Conceptual dimensions or "message" conveyed
• Emotional dimensions
• And how the technical elements of the video (e.g., transitions, effects)

What you'll need:

1. Video editing software such as iMovie (Mac) or Windows Movie Maker (PC). Each is highly likely to be already on your machine. Otherwise, you can download the software you need for free using a quick Google search.
2. Still images: These can be downloaded from Flickr.com (paying due attention to Flickr photographer's copyright instructions; look for Creative Commons licenced photos). Other picture sources include: Photobucket.com and Picasa.com.
3. Moving images: These can be downloaded from Youtube.com, Break.com. You may need to convert these files in order to be able to sue them in your video editing software. See below for more on this.

Questions to discuss:

1. Lawrence Lessig (2005) argues that many young people see alphabetic writing as just one way to write, and not even the most interesting way to right. Given that you've spent some time mucking around with video editing yourself, why might this be?
2. What are some of the affordances (and otherwise) offered by video editing for expressing some aspects of one's identity? (click here for four definitions of "identity" that will help inform your discussion). What might these affordances mean for classroom practice? Should matters of identity even enter into classroom literacy practices?

Technical things to remember:

• Keep all of your media files that you plan to use in your movie in one (1) folder on your harddrive (i.e., don't grab an image file from your C drive and then a sound file from your external F drive), otherwise you'll run into issues when you come to convert your movie project into a portable movie.
• Keep file types consistent and limited (i.e., all *.wav, or all *.mov or all *.avi NOT *.MP4 ever)
• Your movie making will by default save as a "project"--this is simply a set of images and movies and effects and transitions etc. as you have ordered them. It is *not* yet a movie. In order to create a movie that can be posted to YouTube or burned to a CD, choose "file" and then "export," " Save movie file," or "burn movie to disk" etc.
  

Resources:

If you need free video editing software:

• iMovie (Mac), and search for download
  
• Windows Movie Maker (PC)

For downloading video clips from YouTube:

• http://www.keepvid.com
• http://www.videodownloader.net

Video (and other) file conversion service:

• http://www.zamzar.com

Content/media repositories:

• http://www.flickr.com (photos)
• http://www.picasa.com (photos)
• http://www.photobucket.com (photos)
• http://www.youtube.com (video)
• http://www.break.com (video)
• http://www.creativecommons.org (search engine for creative commons licenced videos and images)
• http://www.ccmixter.org (creative commons licenced music)

For those who like a challenge:

Online film locations:

• Second Life: http://www.secondlife.org (requires free registration and then downloading client software)
• Google Earth: http://earth.google.com (requires free registration and downloading client software)
• Multiverse: http://www.multiverse.net

Screen-based video recording software:

• Fraps for PC (free version films 30 seconds of action): http://www.fraps.com
• iShowU for Mac - http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/ishowu.html

Identity - questions

Hello,

 

In reflecting upon all of the various readings for the first week of the summer institute, I wanted to clarify the meaning of 'identity' as it is used across the articles. Are we to assume that identity formation/construction through the use of digital (new) literacies represents one's exploration of self, projection of self and further exploration of what it means to be human in the larger sense of the notion of identity?  In other words - who am I and what is my purpose here - what does the world mean to me and what is my place in the world? Or - is identity merely constructing/reconstructing ourselves through our actions and interactions - self as project?

 

The other common notion of identity seems to also be the notion that we are projecting multiple identities through our communication in virtual spaces/social networks - or have the potential to do this.  Again, does this speak to the notion that these interactions are also explorations of the self and our place in the world (virtual and 'real')? 

 

Any insights, enlightenments or further explanations would be very helpful...thanks.

Two chapters from "New Literacies" linked to the Syllabus website

Not all members of the cohort have the :New Literacies" book that was usedon previous courses. We have posted links to Chapters 2 and 3 (which are included in our readings) on the Syllabus website.

Opencast Blogging

This is an opencast blog for the 2008 Summer Institute cohort on Literacy, Identity and Place. You can post to this blog simply by sending an email message to the email address you have been given. Use the email subject line for the title of your post, and use the body of the email message for writing your post. Just send the email and the blog post will be made automatically. At least, that's the legend.