Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Kristina Woolsey

Executive Director of the New Media Thinking Project

Opening Slide - An egg with an antenna stick up out of it. A man climbing out of a book.

We are just emerging from the book. Our ideas are now spread before hatching, if we do so, but it's hard to do so. Doers don't take the time to share.

New media means new choices. Papers, etc. are old school. Now we have so many new ways to share and learn. Most new ways come from pop culture, not universities. This will continue, perhaps not as fast as recently.

We want people to know all these choices for learning and be able to use them.

http://flood.firetree.net - A tool to show when you will be flooded out from seal level rising.

http://mapsofwar.com - Visual timeline of great wars.

Tools like this just come to us via email, etc. Learning opportunities abound!

The Big Seven

Youth

New media sparks youth - brings their ideas alive. They can explain things in ways never seen before. Imagination + tools = Understanding at an earlier age.

Youth are also producers of media, not just consumers. Active vs. passive. Technology is not an add-on - it's integral to learning.

New Media Competencies

• Media awareness
• Technical Savvy
• Design Savvy
• Intentionality - Making choices
• S0und judgment for use

Digital citizens - we need to enculture digital natives into a community, can't just expect them to do it on their own.

BB thought - New medias may not just be augmenting our intellect, it may be allowing us to realize our true intellectual potential, each and every one of us. Maybe new media is that silent 1-on-1 teacher that we know is the best way for individuals to learn.

Visual Abstraction

How we develop deep structures is key. We may not be doing this well. We need to be able to "look" at something in multiple ways. For example, to know a town layout, we need overhead views as well as eye-level views. And different people/jobs need different views.

New Media

BB thought - Not the tool, it's how it's used.

Hypercard was a landmark. It brought user content, multiple senses, interactivity all together.

The web does all this + social interactions. Content is no longer the key element - it shares the stage with senses, interactivity, and community.

Conversation

Using new media to spark intellectual debate.

Casual Multimedia

It's fun to make these things. Remixes. The ratio of content to technical issues is changing. Used to be 1:1. You had to work through the technical issues. Now that's changed. Better on the content side, lesser on the technical side. Maybe 2:1 o 3:1. Typical cycle with many technologies. Starts out complicated and specialized, then we engineer it to make it easier to use.

BB thought - Why can't we do this with social issues? How can technology in the hands of the "rest of us" help?

NMC

New media can help change the way people think and learn. NMC is a change agent.

The Future

It's what we decide to make it. Individuals have a larger voice than ever before.