Growing the New Technopolis

I can’t believe I hadn’t come across his work until earlier this week, but Henry Jenkins is someone who is way out in front on the whole digital literacy advocacy front. He’s currently the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. Yeah, basically a super genius. Seriously, his work is well worth your time, and his very active blog is a fine place to start.

Since the blog you’re reading is based on WordPress, which I love, I feel a little guilty posting this. But it’s a great resource for educators and students looking for an easy solution to podcasting. Many people in K-16 education already use Blogger, and this article explains how to integrate podcasts seemlessly and easily. Worth bookmarking:

http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Make_Podcast_Blogger.html

Following on the heals of our presentation later this month at the North Carolina Campus Compact Conference, we’ll also be presenting at the UNC Teaching & Learning with Technology Conference on March 23, in Raleigh, NC. The UNC TLT conference is a wonderful forum for educators across the UNC system and beyond to share ideas, best practices, and strategies for incorporating technology into higher ed. This year’s conference theme seems especially appropriate for our New Technopolis vision: “Building Connections.”

Learn more about the conference here: http://conference.unctlt.org/

This is an example of the kind of initiative being driven by our vision of the New Technopolis. Kudos to my friend and colleague, Bob Bradley, for getting this going.

http://www.tnsandbox.com

(The following press release comes to us courtesy of the Corporation for Community and National Service.)
December 4, 2006
Washington, D.C. – ABC-TV’s Wednesday night “20/20″ broadcast turned the spotlight on a service-learning program at Abington High School in suburban Philadelphia as example of the way Americans give generously of their time and the benefits they receive in return.

The segment was part of an hour-long special edition of “20/20” that looked at charitable giving in America. The program used footage from Learn and Serve America’s “Bring Learning to Life” program video, which features Abington High students engaged in a variety of service-learning activities, including students helping reconstruct a historic building.

In the 20/20 segment, anchor John Stossel describes the positive impacts of service-learning. “Teachers say students who volunteer raise their grades, and get higher SAT scores,” Stossel says. The piece quotes Abington High School student Jeff Rohrbach, “After service-learning started, I got so involved into it, I started paying attention more, picked up my grades.’ Rohrbach now operates his own construction company in his Montgomery County, Penn., community. (more…)

We learned just last week that our proposal entitled, “Real Scholarship, Real Community: Effective Technology Integration for Improved Outcomes & Student Engagement,” has been accepted for next year’s 9th Annual Service-Learning Conference, sponsored by North Carolina Campus Compact. We’re excited to be able to share our vision with high-level service-learning advocates from around the southeast next February 21.

To learn more about the national higher ed service-learning organization, Campus Compact, check out its web site: http://www.campuscompact.org/

From today’s NY Times, a very interesting follow-up article on the latest developments made by M.I.T.’s Media Lab “One Laptop Per Child” project. Highlights include:

“Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who is an adviser to the project, has argued that if young people are given computers and allowed to explore, they will “learn how to learn.” That, Mr. Papert argues, is a more valuable skill than traditional teaching strategies that focus on memorization and testing.”

What I find myself asking is, Why “Third-World?” What about every low-income family in America?
Read more here (NY Times free subscription may be required): http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/technology/30laptop.html

We need a new model for engaging students of the 21st century, one that meets these so-called digital natives on their own ground, using the tools and technologies familiar to them but doing so in creative and meaningful ways. Today’s young learners want to be creators of content & knowledge, not just passive receivers of either. But the traditional constructivist theory of learning needs a facelift (I won’t say Facebook lift!). By that I mean technology can and should play a leading role in allowing learners to develop the critical thinking skills and associated problem solving abilities necessary to succeed in our complex, information-centric world.

In this context, integrating information & communication technologies (ICT) into our K-16 curricula makes perfect sense on several levels.

• It engages students as active participants in the knowledge creation process
• It encourages scholarship through self-critique, peer review, and collaboration
• It fosters a sense of pride and ownership through production of digital artifacts
• It lends itself to contextually-based, real world scenarios that result in deeper critical thinking
• It inspires entrepreneurial spirit and sparks creativity
• It connects learners to the surrounding community in exciting ways that result in a stronger sense of civic duty

This blog will serve as a forum for strategizing, sharing ideas, and recommending best practices for those of us interested in developing a dynamic, multi-tiered framework for growing the new technopolis beyond the walls of schools and academia. Our mission is to change fundamentally the concept of “technology integration” by using ICT, new media, and the emerging Web 2.0 to cultivate real scholarship; reach out to community partners & foster civic engagement; and inspire creative social entrepreneurship among both students & underserved populations.

Ambitious? Yes! So let’s get started….

Doug Edmunds is the Assistant Dean for IT at the UNC School of Law. He joined the Law School in January 2007 after 10 years with the School of Education and is proud to be a Carolina alum, having graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in English way back in the late 20th century. Like his colleague and friend, Bob Bradley, a fellow man of letters and musician, Edmunds gravitated to technology almost accidentally. In addition to his new role as Asst. Dean for IT, he is now working towards the completion of his MSIS degree at UNC’s School of Information & Library Science. Edmunds’ master’s paper will focus on applied Cognitive Flexibility Theory.

Robert Bradley received his B.S. in Education from The University of Georgia, followed by an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. A respected poet with numerous publications to his credit, Bob now holds the title of Director of Technology Integration at Tennessee State University. His work with TSU’s Office of Service Learning & Civic Engagement has been instrumental in shaping his vision of how technology can be used to educate and empower underserved populations.