NAMLE 2009 Wrap-up

Last week I attended the National Association of Media Literacy Education’s 2009 conference in Detroit.   Going into the conference I didn’t know much about the organization or about media literacy outside of reading Henry Jenkins’ blog.  The conference proved to be a wonderful introduction to a whole new field which offers me a new perspective to complement what is often an echo chamber in the field of educational technology.

I presented A Critical Look at New Jersey’s 8th Grade Literacy Assessment during the conference’s poster presentations and I had many wonderful discussions with people who stopped by my poster session.

After my presentation, I attended an excellent panel discussion by Cyndy Scheibe, Renee Hobbs, Peter Worth,  and David Kleeman called Does It Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Media Literacy in K-12 Education. The presentation focused on the research that is being done and metrics being used to assess the effectiveness of media literacy research.   What I found interesting is researchers in media literacy have a lot of the same problems as researchers in educational technology;  issues with sample sizes not being enough to prove that something is working, creating curriculum for teachers that doesn’t always result in better teaching, etc.

I also attended a session called Fandom 101: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know, But Didn’t Know Who To Ask by Cynthia Walker.  It was a survey of the scholarly concept of fandom and its educational implications.  The session was fun and comprehensive.  What I took away from it was that the internet and connectedness is allowing fandom to expand as a social force and that fans are everywhere.  The session gave me a new perspective on K-12 students as “fans” of pop culture and has me considering ways of leveraging that fandom within my classroom.

Then I attended a session detailing the integration of Comic Life into a college freshman writing course called Seeing Arguments: Using Digital Media to Visualize Academic Literacy by Chris Gerben and Steven Engel. This was a frank discussion about what problems they found in teaching writing to undergraduates and how they used comic life to enhance a writing assignment.  The presenters did an excellent job highlighting how amazing student creations can emerge when we present students with a technology-rich alternative means for demonstrating a student’s competency with content.

Monday’s day at the conference concluded with the best keynote I have seen all year by Sonia Livingstone called From Page to Screen? Critical Reflections on the Prospects for ICT in Education. She has a new book coming out soon called “Children and the Internet”.   I was very impressed.  She focused her keynote on the fundamental change that is occurring in the relationship between teachers and students.  The pace of her keynote was incredible and it was difficult to keep up with the sheer volume of good information she presented.  I would love a chance to see her presentation slides again.

Then on Tuesday I attended the keynote address of Chris Sperry of Project Look Sharp called The Epistemological Equation: Tapping into the Curriculum of Adolescence. The theme of his talk was that it is important to listen to the student voice in teaching.  He mentioned that in one of his class evaluations a student wrote that “In most classes, I study equations. In this class, I am the equation”.  Sperry explained that “I don’t know what meaning my students can making of my teaching, if I don’t listen to them”.  This is a timeless lesson, that reminded me of what a favorite former undergraduate professor of mine used to say about teaching; “teach me how you learn, so I will know how to teach”.  Too often we focus too much on measuring the effectiveness of our methods without appreciating what the students may be articulating.

The conference was amazing because it introduced me to a whole new perspective on my work as an educational technologist by presenting me with a new body of knowledge to inform my practice.

I believe the conference will be in Philadephia in 2011 and I plan to be there.

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