Allied Media Conference June 27, 2009

11th Allied Media Conference
“We Are Ready New: Media and creativity to transform our selves and our world”
July 16-19, 2009 • Detroit, Michigan
www.alliedmediaconference.org

The 11th annual Allied Media Conference will advance our visions for a just and creative world. It will be a laboratory for media-based solutions to the matrix of life-threatening problems we face. For the past 10 years, we have evolved our definition of media, and the role it can play in our lives – from zines to video-blogging to breakdancing, to communicating solidarity and creating justice. Each conference builds off the previous one and plants the seeds for the next. Ideas and relationships evolve year-round, incorporating new networks of media-makers and social justice organizers. The 2009 AMC will draw strength from our converging movements to face the challenges and opportunities of our current moment. We are ready to create, connect and transform.

Keep reading for more information, or go register now for the AMC at www.alliedmediaconference.org

Dots June 14, 2009

 

mondaydots in education: student generated content model from jeff monday on Vimeo.

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I love the ideas surrounding student generated content and technology in the classroom. The video focuses on college-age students – but what if this were brought into the elementary, middle or high school classroom? Check out Jeff Monday’s “Monday Dots” series…elegant, simple and powerful tech tools for communicating your message visually. Why dots? See below…

new tools + technologies March 6, 2009

A new acquaintance mentioned Animoto to me after the board meeting for the young entrepreneurs society. It’s really cool. If you end up using it…give them my info and I can get a free account for a few months. I’d use it with my youth groups…they’d love it!

Food for Thought… March 5, 2009

I just revisited an interesting video by the Skoll foundation tracing the emergence of social entrepreneurship from the micro-financing pioneered by Muhammed Yunus in the 70’s to today. The video comes across a little hokey and watered down but overall I think it’s a compelling look into the field…especially for those who are just being introduced to it. I’m going to try and weave it into my lesson plan tomorrow with The Young Entrepreneurs Society. 

On another note…

I just started Teaching Youth Media: A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production and Social Change

by Steve Goodman of the Educational Video Center

In my mind EVC is one of the leading after-school video workshops in the country. I’m compelled to learn more about his thoughts on his connections between the literacy gap and reading/writing
the media. Also, Maxine Greene wrote the introduction…so it’s gotta be good!

New Literacies March 4, 2009

I just finished reading The Debates and Challenges of New Literacies in the 21st Century published by the Media Education Lab - a rich resource for anyone interested in media education. This article was helpful for me in tracing the key similarities and contradictions found in this emerging field of education. The four primary and distinct areas in media education are:  Media Literacy, Information Literacy, Critical Literacy, Media Management. 

I have been working in after-school media arts programs for several years. I absolutely love it…but the next big step for me is translating this work into my future as an educator in the public school context. Incorporating media technologies into the classroom is a powerful hook for most young people today. My challenge is to find ways to teach students to improve their writing, communication and critical thinking standards of a public education via the medium of media arts. The technical, creative, and civic engagement are common standards in my practice as an after-school media arts educator. But, to expand the scope and audience of this work I need to frame it in terms of the standard accountability of teaching in a primary or secondary classroom…and that’s where the writing, critical analysis and I would add writing would come in…

Once upon a school March 3, 2009

Writing is only his day job: Dave Eggers moonlights as a publisher, philanthropist and advocate for students and teachers

This is his story about creatively engaging with local public schools. He talks about how 826 Valencia, a tutoring center/pirate supply store/publishing headquarters, is changing thousands of lives and transforming neighborhoods.

I’ve been in a rut trying to put together the listening project, a multimedia performance/presentation about using media arts and education as catalysts for positive community growth in two communities…this talk and re-visiting Jose Abreu’s story about El Sistema has helped me re-discover the power of listening to the journey of what they are doing.

do social entrepreneurs need to speak in terms of human rights? March 1, 2009

I’m sharing this post from Change.org’s social entrepreneurship blog…a really poignant critique that ties in a lot of different things for me…

Watching the Skoll Foundation’s recent short video overview of social entrepreneurship, I was struck anew by the story of Muhammad Yunus’ $27 loan that launched what would become known as “microfinance.” What struck me, however, was not the “innovation” of the business model, but instead the fact that that loan was an affirmation of a human right – the right to credit.

In our society, it has been easy to think of credit simply as a little card that lets you buy more things with money you don’t have. But as the economic crisis has reminded us so dramatically, credit is at its best, a tool for enabling people to pursue a better future. What Yunus did was reject the assumption that poor people are unworthy of our trust or incapable of making smart financial decisions, and trade it in for an assumption that they too deserved, indeed had the right, to the same opportunity.

February 28, 2009

Dresden Mills

You Make My Heart Sing So Loud…

I’m So Glad That You Exist

Music Cues:

Light + Happy

Somber + Contemplative

Backwards + Triumphant

Obama on Education February 26, 2009

Here’s the five minutes and 45 seconds Obama devoted to education at his address to Congress. Drag the slider in the vid to 4.00, or read transcripts below.

What are your thoughts on his speech?

potential collaborators/partners February 23, 2009

this was a exciting weekend…i attended the ASK for Social Justice Conference here at Hampshire College all day Saturday…i went to workshops ranging from “media and social responsibility” led by Rec, one of the forces behind Trrgr Radio, “conflict is inevitable, combat is optional: conflict-resolution toolbox”, and a workshop on personal sustainability…al in all it was a great conference…one of the highlights was making new connections and finding new potential collaborators for Project Coach Media…including the latino youth media institute - based at the Springfield headquarters of WGBY-Public Television for Western New England. The institute, funded with a Local Service Initiative grant of $106,800 to WGBY from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is designed to increase the engagement of Latino communities with public broadcasting within the WGBY region by giving 10 high school and college Latino students journalism-related internships and training in the field of communication.

Trrgr would be great to partner with in one way or another…TRGGR is a new quarterly grassroots/academic journal of independent thinking and expression.

Instead of its common association with guns and violence, we use the term to connote the sparking of ideas, the TRGGRing of new ways of thought, new ways of being, new, different and courageous ways of seeing ourselves and our role in society and in the world.

We seek to TRGGR the transmission of knowledge for self and community education and edification. We seek to TRGGR discussions with topics that speak to and illuminate the conditions that we as a global Hip Hop generation find ourselves in, with specific focus on people of color, poor and working class, oppressed and repressed communities. It is a celebration of our rebellious spirits, our dedication to struggle and our commitment to bridging the gaps between and within our communities, and to open dialogue across generations.

TRGGR is foremost a journal of grassroots intellectual thought that seeks to inspire thoughts into action and TRGGR ideas into motion.