The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy

What have we done with innocence? It disappeared with time, it never made much sense. What do Foo Fighters lyrics have to do with new media literacy? Nothing really, but the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy is a topic in Digital Native, Digital Immigrants.

From what I understand the Marc Prensky Digital Native, Digital Immigrants article is one of the seminal texts in the new media literacy in education movement. Prior to engaging with this text, I would often use the terms digital immigrant and digital native in my discussions of entering the media and instructional technology profession.

What Prensky does right is he takes to task the fuddy duddy old profs that dream of yesteryear and that old time literacy. Prensky argues for a new methodology, a new creativity and a new way to engage with information for students and instructors.

My issue with Prensky comes with his tone. Prensky complains that too many "digital immigrant" educators object to new media and interactive gaming in their classroom. Using the example of the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy and a number of other examples, Prensky concludes that educators are "dumb and lazy" if they don't see the benefits.

I am what Prensky defines as a Digital Native, "spend[ing] [my] formative years learning with Sesame Street." And I can tell you this for sure, Big Bird never once called Oscar the Grouch dumb or lazy for not changing his ways.

So maybe there is a connection to the Foo Fighters lyrics. The new media literacy movement is not all gum drops and lollipops. What have we done with innocence? My innocence.

Blogging???

Yes folks, I still have a blog!

Spent some time on vacation in Alaska, and my mind didn't really want to come back from the endless expanse of wilderness. But, sure as death and taxes, another school year begins and I will rejoin the edtech/library hive mind.

My latest efforts are in line with Henry Jenkins "New Media Literacy Syllabus". After scanning most of the readings for the course, my eye was caught on:

Antonio Lopez, "Circling the Cross: Bridging Native America, Education, and Digital Media" in Anna Everett (ed.), Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media (Cambridge: MIT Press/MacArthur Foundation, 2008). pp. 109-126.

Antonio's work with Native communities is fascinating, his substantive responses to pedagogical inquiry is equally fascinating. We have been in touch about resources to develop a community based project to introduce critical media literacy using new digital media tools on a reservation in MN.

The semester is young, yet I still fear I am being overly ambitious. I don't know if this project will ever get off the ground, but I will tell you that the research phase is starting off strong and I am excited about the connections I am making.

Look to my blog over the next few weeks as I will be dropping reflections along the path of my new media literacy journey.