Participatory (Multi-)Media Assignment
"What if teachers could help students discover what they really care about, and then show
them how to use digital media to learn more and to persuade others?" -- Howard Rheingold*
"In 2006, more than one billion people are connected to the Internet and close to three billion people carry mobile telephones. These technological changes in accessibility of production tools and distribution media have led to social, cultural, economic, [and] political changes in the ways people communicate, a set of technologies, practices, and skills some call participatory media. Participatory media enable broad participation in the production of culture, power, community, and wealth " (Rheingold Participatory Media Literacy). In these few sentences, Howard Rheingold, Berkely-Stanford professor of Communications and noted expert on technological culture, summarizes the potential that new media hold -- not only for transforming culture and economy, but, as he later notes, for innovating education, too.
That is because -- to educators who seek to enhance their students' engagement in learning by involving them in meaningful, relevant, and authentic learning experiences -- "participatory media" is a dream come true. By bringing into the classroom the reading, writing, listening, and viewing (or ELA) practices in which students already willingly engage in outside of school, participatory media provides a forum in which students can explore and have a say in issues that they, as Rheingold observes, really care about. Connective digitial technologies (e.g., the internet and cell phones) provide authentic forums in which students can use writing and speaking (and graphics and video and sound recording -- the digitial offspring of pre-digital expressive langauge arts, writing and speaking) to communicate their ideas to a real live (or "authentic"), albeit virtual, audience.
However, a citizen of any 21st-century indutrialized nation today would be hard pressed to deny that the effects of virtual community, online dialogue, and internet canvassing are anything but virtual, as these spheres become increasingly influential in shaping both the concrete reality of our daily lives and of major world events (think "texting" and the influence of the internet in ongoing US presidential campains, respectively). Given students' awareness of the transformative potential of these digital forums, their being asked to participate or "publish" in them can be a similarly transformative experience: empowering and motivating them to engage in literacy learning in ways that traditional classroom-delimited writing (and speaking) instruction simply cannot.
Your task
The Media Literacy Module that you just completed asked you to extend traditional understandings of reading (and listening) to 21st-century understandings of these receptive language arts. This Parcitipatory Media Production Assignment will enage you during the second half of the semester in extending the expressive language arts -- writing and speaking -- in the same ways.
You will select a particular medium for your final project -- film, podcast, website, wiki, blog, etc. --
and work either alone or with a group to produce a piece of participatory media.
Planning Process: The Project ProposalThis assignment extends the analytic and interpretive skills of the Five Principles to a creative element. As implied in the discussion of participatory media (above), "production" necessarily involves the following steps:
1) Finding something you "really care about" and identifying exactly how you feel about it. < Content
2) Figuring out what you want done about it. < Purpose
3) Determining which audience is the best to communicate with in order to achieve your goal OR (there may be several) Which -- of these possible audiences -- do you most want to communicate with? < Audience
4) Deciding which medium will best help you achieve your goal? This is where you select the medium. < Format Think about what each medium allows you to achieve that others don't. For example, blogs invite dialouge in ways that websites don't; films convey an emotional immediacy that written texts lack; wikis allow people to collaborate in ways that other media don't; enhanced podcasts allow someone to experience your visual message in a non-linear fashion that is unique to the medium.
5) Deciding upon how you will construct your message. < Production Using the tools available to you in this medium, how will you use it to help achieve your goal? For example, if I'm doing a blog, I'll need to think about the following (consider the following 5 items, no matter what your medium):
a properly annotated Works Cited page.
or shift the dialogue? Be specific and justify the need for your contribution.)
Trackbacks? Commenting on their posts? Embedding their ideas into my posts? All of the above? (Provide a specific and detailed plan for what technology tools you plan to use to connect to others who are engaged in the conversation.
"Context" above. This is where you elaborate on the short version of this overview that you provide in #1 & 2 above).
video or sound or photos to enhance my presentation? (List other media you plan to include IN your presentation -- i.e., in
addition to those you intend to use to distribute it or make connections). N.B.: Thinking about how you and/or your group (no matter the medium), will achieve the intertextuality and dialogue objectives of the first four of Rheingold's five blog "assignments" (pages 107-110) will be a useful way for groups to cross-check their work in this section and to ensure that the project is adequately "participatory."
6) Deciding upon where you will broadcast your message and how will you make sure that people concerned <Publication and Publicity with the issue learn about it? |
Rubric creation
You and others working in your medium will collaborate on designing a rubric for evaluating the final product, using the tools provided to you under the specfic links on pages respective to your chosen medium.
With others in your "medium group" (e.g., all of you who are working on blogs):
- Find 3 examples online of productions that represent the full range of quality (make sure these are permanently and publicly accessible): these creations should show the range of what's possible in the medium, from what you'd deem an example of excellence (with all the appropriate bells and whistles that function to enhance the users' experience/understanding) to shoddy or poor work (that use bells and whistles for the sake of using them or really don't fully maximize the medium's potential for enhancing the user's experience/understanding). Discuss with your group what makes these examples excellent, satisfactory, and poor;
- Copy links onto the medium's wiki page (see "Sidebar" link above, where, for example, I would choose "blogs"), label each respective example "excellent," "satisfactory," or "poor," and briefly describe just beneath the link what justifies your assessment of each;
- Using the example of excellence as your model, list the characteristics of a quality production in this genre/medium on the respective page of this wiki (click on the "Sidebar" link above);
- Share this list with me to get approval to move ahead to the next step;
- Based on this work, create a rubric for all work in the medium at rubistar and save this rubric with a password and login that you note in the appropriate space on the medium's wiki page;
- Share this rubric with classmates working with other media to make sure that the work/expectations are equitable across media;
- Classmembers not working in this medium must note their approval or suggest changes by making comments by the beginning of class on 4/7.
- Revised and final rubric must be completed by class time on 4/14 (after which I will check and assess it).
Production Schedule
Working with others on your project team (most likely a subset of the "medium group," if there are several different projects being created in this medium"), you will create a Production Schedule for your project.
Steps:
- Find at least one internet source that discusses production in the medium (e.g., "blog production," or "web production"). Post the link on your wiki page and label it accordingly.
- Using the information from this source, along with the criteria from your rubric, create a list (on your wiki page) of everything you will have to do in order to achieve an "A" on the project.
- Agree upon what a midterm "draft" of the project will be (ie., what the project will look like when it is halfway finished) and get my approval on this. If you are working with any form of digital storytelling (video production or podcasting), plan to be finished with shooting and/or recording by this date (i.e., by midterm, you should have all the raw footage of your piece completed and have only editing and post-production left to do).
- Plan to have that "draft" completed by the beginning of class on April 21. This week you will also plan to meet with the technology trainer to follow up on the project, anticipate next steps, and possibly revise your plans.
- Assign tasks to particular people in the group in order to meet that April 21 deadline. Make sure that the workload is evenly distributed amongst all group members.
- Using your list from #2, figure out what tasks remain after April 21 to complete the project at the "A" level by May 5. Assign tasks to individuals, using the same principles you used for #5. (If you are doing a video or a podcast, you will publish your piece to the appropriate web community ON MAY 5 -- or as shortly thereafter as possible --, but ALL production will be complete by this date.
- Revise your Project Proposal accordingly and plan to submit a final version of it on the wiki, along with your group's Production Schedule.
Production Schedule
Copy and paste a copy of this schedule onto your project-group's wiki page; then create your group's own production schedule by adding your project tasks and the person(s) responsible for completing them in the appropriate spaces:
M March 31 (PREPRODUCTION)
To do: Schedule group a) training and b) a "midterm"/follow-up meeting with Tera Doty-Blance (type dates of mee
tings below).
Person responsible: _________________________
M April 7 (PREPRODUCTION/PRODUCTION)
Deadline: Project Proposal, Rubric, Production Schedule, and pre-filled Peer Evaluation forms
M April 14 (PRODUCTION)
Deadline: Have met with trainer
M April 21 (PRODUCTION/POSTPRODUCTION)
Deadline: Draft of Project due
M April 28 (POSTPRODUCTION)
M May 5 (PUBLISH)
Deadline: Final draft due
Weekly peer reflection
Pre-filling "Confidential Peer Evaluation" forms
Once you are finished with the Production Schedule, copy and paste from it in order to pre-fill the weekly "Confidential Peer Evaluation" forms on the group's wiki page, using the appropriate blanks for the tasks assigned to each individual. Divide this inputting so that the work is equitably divided amongst group members. DUE: April 7
Completing "Confidential Peer Evaluation" forms
Each week, each group member will assess each group members' performance (including their own) and submit this form to me confidentially.
Each week, each group member will download one copy of that week's form from the group's wiki, evaluate each group member's performance BEFORE class begins, and submit the confidential form to me at the beginning of class. Forms not completed by the beginning of class, will not be accepted and the indivdiual will receive "0" points for the assessment.
If individual tasks have been changed since the form was first completed, these changes must be noted on the wiki by each respective individual no later than Monday at 8am.
Mid-Project Draft/Self-Assessment
April 21 -- in class
Group self-assesses with rubric and provide justification.
Identify areas for growth/improvement.
Modify production timeline if neccesary.
Final Reflection
May 5 -- in class
Self-assess w/ rubric and provide justification
Articulate the ways in which this assignment extends ELA, citing Grade 12 Performance Objectives
Provide an annotated bibliography of 5 works of traditional (print) Literature that might be related to this topic/issue.
Articualte the ways in which this assignment satisfies Media Literacy Standards.
Articulate the ways in which this assignment prepares you with a "whole new mind" and the "flat world."
Reflect upon what you learned: about the topic; about reading and writing on the web (positive and negative); about yourself as a person, a learner, and a future teacher; about media literacy.
*Rheingold, Howard. “Using Participatory Media and Public Voice to Encourage Civic Engagement." Civic Life Online: Learning How
Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Edited by W. Lance Bennett. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media
and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 97–118.
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