Putting together my post-DML 2012 thoughts for a guest essay on 21st Century Scholar , the blog for USC’s Pullias Center for Higher Education.
TITLE: Digital devotees are made of people! : Leveraging our humanity to enrich digital media and learning
THEMES/CONCEPTS:
Walking the talk, Being the change we (earnestly) recommend
The most engaging, productive moments of the conference occurred when we applied our own best practice by: allowing DML attendees to pool their collective intelligence and creativity; inviting their interactivity, play, relationship-building, and reflection; offering students the opportunity to present their own work in their own words.
Enough of singing to and talking at the (albeit brilliant) choir. We need to connect, think, and make together. And that “we” needs to get blown even wider.
Tangibility
In the digital shuffle, we can’t lose the face-to-face and tactile. There’s intimacy in looking another person in the eye. There’s comfort in snuggling with a grandparent and beloved book. While time and distance may sometimes prevent corporeal communion, I think it should be the preferred option, with virtual meetings a better-than-nothing back-up. Breakthroughs in presence and haptics are exciting but there ain’t nothin like the real thing.
Portion size and frequency
A yearly grand reunion is also inadequate for making and sustaining change. So too, perhaps, are our smaller, monthly meetings. How can we harness the tech tools we love(/hate) so well in order to expand opportunities for contributions and micro- (hopefully leading to macro-) changes? Do we pipe every Impact Games member’s Tweets into a homepage feed? Do we post a daily poll to our FB site? Do we create a quick, casual game application that allows for simple service (e.g., Google Image Tagger)? And, at the same time, how do we avoid irrelevance by appearing like so much noise? In a bursting Inbox, information overload world, how much is too much and how much is just right?
BIO:
Laurel Felt is a Ph.D. candidate, researcher, and curriculum designer focused on nurturing youths’ social and emotional competence, critical thinking, and communicative capacities. She is currently investigating participatory learning with the Annenberg Innovation Lab’s PLAY! Project, and emotional regulation with GameDesk via biofeedback-enhanced impact game Dojo.
EMBEDDED LINKS:
Laurelfelt.org
http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Doctoral%20Students/Felt%20Laurel.aspx
Annenberglab.com
Playnml.wikispaces.com
Gamedesk.org
Gamedesk.org/projects/dojo
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https://twitter.com/#!/laurelfelt