Media Literacy

Tonight all presentations will be podcast, but for now some highlights:

JAMES GEE
Media Literacy
Based on the idea people are dupes
It makes you look at technology in a way that you won’t be duped
Studies today show that young people don’t believe anything
The only person that is truly duped is the media literacy specialist

Young people no longer want to be consumers, but want to be producers.
Modern technologies allow young people to produce at a high level, a Hollywood level
This productive level is one of the crucial skills that a economy might need in the future.

Games are a great site, when you put them in the right environment, you can think like producer.
Already this medium makes you think like a designer to play it.
IN chivy robo, you get to be a four inch robot.
Take any area that is design, and realize there is a grammar.
There is a structure to any design (architecture,
When you are four inches tall you think about the design space completely different
You have to get people to think about things in a different way.

Another thing that is happening. Media literacy is being separated from traditional literacy
Media literacy issues are as important as traditional literacy, scientific literacy…
All [literacies] are married to each other.
Pick Science by tool
We are in a world where the divide between technology art and science don’t exsist anymore

Worlds we put people in pours right into games

The single variable is not learning phonics. The most important is the childs ability to handle complex language (biology, technology)

Kids and their video games face more complicated languages than they see in the classroom.
Look at the Yu-Gi-oh website, and listen to the arguments of 7 year olds about rules.

KURT SQUIRE

In school and after school programs with historical games

Why work with games?
There are at least 3 characteristic take into account
Today’s media environment is about production not consumption

Simulation- literate with simulation is a key part of consumption
Get kids the opportunities to think about historical events.
Makes interesting introductions

Games Provides opportunities to get teachers to talk to their students about history

WE LOST TECHNICAL CAST IN MY ROOM SO I MISSED SOME HERE

CONSTANCE STEINKUEHLER
Science is not a bunch of facts, its a way of reasoning about the worlds.

Pulled thread about Druid’s class points off of WOW forums
Had over 300,000 views
Looking at Scientific views.

Model based reasoning.

MMOs are about grasping a complex system.

When you start to look at classrooms
1 in 5 have basic scientific literacy, despite the fact that we mandatory science education
Why?
The kind of science we teach in school, and the course of instruction
It engenders the opposite of science.
Science is not about facts, its about structure.

In Lineage, some players were collecting data and creating excel sheet to determine the best way to beat a boss.
They didn’t know they were doing science, they thought they just were cheating the game.

April issue of Wired Will Wright. Mastering the game system means doing some basic scientific reasoning.

BETTY HAYES

We have a problem in this country.
Our economy is going to be in trouble between of the gap of people we need to run our advanced computer systems and the number of people educated.

Young people are just as bad as most people about finding information. Learning about information technology at school is not enough.

Gaming is a key experience for getting people interested in further education.