People-Centric Public Media, Public Media 2.0, & New Media: Considerations for Interactive, Collaborative Multimedia Content

I followed a link from an article written by Andy Oram, of the O'Reilly Radar and found some interesting information related to public media. The graphics and quotes below are from a publication, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics (pdf), written by people from the Center for Social Media at the School of Communication, American University.

Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics    Full Report pdf

Center for Social Media,  School of Communication, American University



"Multi-platform, participatory, and digital, public media 2.0 will be an essential feature
of truly democratic public life from here on in. And it’ll be media both for and by the
public. The grassroots mobilization around the 2008 electoral campaign is just one
signal of how digital tools for making and sharing media open up new opportunities
for civic engagement.

But public media 2.0 won’t happen by accident, or for free. The same bottom-line logic
that runs media today will run tomorrow’s media as well. If we’re going to have media
for vibrant democratic culture, we have to plan for it, try it out, show people that it
matters, and build new constituencies to invest in it.

The first and crucial step is to embrace the participatory—the feature that has also been most disruptive of current media models. We also need standards and metrics to define truly meaningful participation in media for public life. And we need policies, initiatives, and sustainable financial models that can turn today’s assets and experiments into tomorrow’s tried-and-true public media.

Public media stakeholders, especially such trusted institutions as public broadcasting, need to take leadership in creating a true public investment in public media 2.0."

Action Agendas
"Public media institutions and makers need to develop a participatory national network and platform; to cross cultural, social, economic, ethnic, and political divides; to collaborate; and to learn from others’ examples, including their mistakes.

• Policymakers need to create structures and funding to support national coordination of public media networks and funding for production, curation, and archiving; to use universal design principles in communications infrastructure policy and universal service values in constructing and supporting infrastructure; to support lifelong education that helps everyone be media makers; and to build grassroots participation into public policy processes using social media tools.

• Funders can invest in media projects that build democratic publics; in norms setting, standardization of reliability tools, and impact metrics; and in experiments in media making, media organizations, and media tools, especially among disenfranchised communities."
Some key points from the article:
Five fundamental ways that people's media habits are changing - The Five Media Habits:
Choice
Conversation
Curation
Creation
Collaboration
Trends with possibilities for public media 2.0:
Ubiquitous video (choice, creation, collaboration)
Powerful databases (curation, creation)
Social networks as public forums (conversation, collaboration)
Locative media (choice, creation)
Distributed distribution (choice, curation)
Hackable platforms (creation, collaboration, curation)
Accessible metrics (creation, curation)
Cloud content (choice, creation)
Pervasive gaming (choice, collaboration)

RELATED
Eight Public Media 2.0 Projects That Are Doing it Right
Jessica Clark, Mediashift, 10/6/09
("MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.")
The intersection of media literacy and public media 2.0
Katie Donnelly, Public Media 2.0, 10/16/09
VoiceThread "VoiceThread is a powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos"

I'll update this post with some of my thoughts/reflections about Public Media 2.0 and interactive multimedia content development.

The Social and Technological Innovations in Social Media: Video of recent panel presentations moderated by Henry Jenkins at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism

Times are changing faster than we can change the buzzwords that convey this change. Social Media. Spreadibility. Immersive Journalism.

Henry Jenkins, the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, recently moderated a panel on the topic of social and technological innovations in social media.  If you are in the mood for reflection, the videos below of the panel presentations are worth a look.  Topics covered include on-line social networks, 3D virtual worlds, immersive journalism, social computing research, "stickiness moving to spreadable", and more.

If you are in a rush, the following article provides an overview of the panel discussions, along with key quotes from the various participants:

Annenberg panels explore "Social Media:  Platform or Provocation for Innovation?
Lara Levin, Student Writer,  USC Annenberg News   11/16/09


Session 1- Video    Social Media:  Platform or Provocation for Innovation?


Session 2 - Implicatons of Social Media for Business, Learning and Institutional Development


Description from the USC Annenberg YouTube Channel:
Nov. 5, 2009: "Implications of Social Media for Business, Learning and Institutional Development"


"As part of the week-long visit by and dialogue with Annenberg Innovator in Residence Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Dean Ernest J. Wilson III hosts a half-day conference titled "Social Media: Platform or Provocation for Innovation?" In this panel, "Implications of Social Media for Business, Learning and Institutional Development" experts from USC Annenberg and IBM will explore recent innovations and future trends in the social media space as well as industry responses to these developments. The rate of innovation in social media has been staggering in recent years. The result is a substantially different media landscape than one confronted by media organizations even five years ago. The conversation will focus on both the demands of the new media marketplace and the barriers that organizations are likely to face in attempting to meet these demands. In addition to Wladawsky-Berger, panelists include USC Annenberg faculty members Henry Jenkins, Jonathan Taplin, Dmitri Williams, Marc Cooper, executive in residence David Westphal and research fellow Nonny de la Peña. They will be joined by IBMs Steve Canepa, general manager for media and entertainment and Julia Grace, software engineer and Melissa Cefkin, ethnographer and research scientist."

Interview of Henry Jenkins on Games-Based Learning and Importance of Collaboration, Learning Ecology, and Media Literacy

Henry Jenkins will be moving from MIT to USC Annenburg School of Communication and the Cinematic Arts School. He'll be teaching courses such as "Transmedia Storytelling" and "New Media Literacies".

"...there is a learning ecology now, one that takes place outside of the classroom in the after school world...and right now, schools are cutting themselves out of the learning ecology by blocking games, by blocking YouTube, by putting filters on the computers. They block off ways the students are technologically connected, from the best ways of learning..and they leave those students who are trapped behind the participation gap from having access to the experiences that prepare the technically literate for the future."

"..Good teachers are fighting a valiant battle just to be able to access the materials of YouTube .. the other day we discovered that students could not access online resources about Moby Dick, the great American novel, because it had the word "Dick" in it."

My high school blocks websites about games. TeacherTube is blocked, too!

In the above video, a school that integrates the use of games within the curriculum is mentioned. The school is Quest to Learn, scheduled to open for the 2009-2010 school year. It is known as "New York's school for today's digital kids".

"Quest supports a dynamic curriculum that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences for students. Games and other forms of digital media also model the complexity and promise of “systems.” Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century."




Institute of Play (A partner of the Quest to Learn school)
Quest to Learn Press Links
A Win-Win Scenario: "Game School" Aims to Engage and Educate
Eliza Strickland, Wired 8/6/07

Visual and Multimedia Literacy Revisited - Quotes

It has been about a year since I shared quotes about the importance of visual and multimedia literacy. Since many of my readers are responsible for putting together presentations about education, technology, and topics related to visual or multimedia literacy, I thought I'd link to my orignal post.

I'm putting together a short video for TeacherTube on the topic of multimedia literacy. My premise is that multimedia technology supports engaged learning and also provides educators with a means of accurately monitoring progress. While I am not 100% certain that the effective, appropriate use of multimedia technology in our high schools will help to combat our nation's 30% drop-out rate, I am pretty sure it will help, especially if students have access to on-line multimedia learning activities outside of school.

If you have any quotes that you'd like to share about the multimedia and visual literacy, let me know - even those of your own.

My hope is that this video will be useful for people who are interested in learning more about visual and multimedia literacy. Since it will be on TeacherTube, it will be available for anyone to use.

The Importance of Media Literacy - Link to Quotes

This is a link to quotes from a variety of people about media literacy.

The quotes were posted on the Media Literacy Clearinghouse Website. If that link does not work, try this one. The Media Literacy Clearninghouse has a variety of resources for K-12 educators.

Interactive literacy applications and on-line resources

Here are some literacy links:

STARFALL
This extensive, free resource works well with in situations such as peer-tutoring, small group instruction, and home learning interventions. Good potential for reading intervention research, also for interventions/support for ELL students. Impressive on an interactive whiteboard. From the website: "“Starfall's online reading programs, together with Starfall's printed materials, are available free from our website as a public service. The website is easy to access and does not require special software to operate. Our printed materials are available for download free of charge. Starfall's educational objectives are consistent with the findings of National Research Council in their report on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children."

EDUTOPIA ARTICLE ABOUT AUDIOBOOKS- "Listening to Literature"

EDUTOPIA ARTICLE ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND READING - "Tech Teaches"

LEXIA LEARNINGSYSTEMS
Lexia provides interactive software applications for reading. A Spanish version is available. The Lexia Cross-Trainer provides interactive games to develop visual-spatial problem -solving skills. For more information, visit the Lexia products link and the support library.

HEADSPROUT

"HeadSprout's secure, web-based performance reports summarize the online instruction into practical information for teachers and administrators. Automated performance reports provide objective, empirical information about each student's individual strengths and weaknesses and progression within the Headsprout reading program."

Samples

EDMARK and RIVERDEEP

Edmark and Riverdeep offer a range of educational applications geared towards special learning needs. Some of the validity research regarding these products is dated. (Research that compares the effectiveness of these products with other interactive reading and academic programs is needed.)

LITERACY RESOURCES FOR SPECIAL NEEDS
Resources from UConn to support reading and writing for students with special needs.

NORTH CENTRAL REGIONAL LIBRARY ARTICLE ON TECHNOLOGY AND LITERACY - "Critical Issue: Using Technology to Enhance Literacy Instruction

READ PRINT
Good resources for reading materials. Includes biographical information about various authors. According to the website: "Our website offers thousands of free books for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast."

VCOM3D INC

From the website: "This technology provides interactive, 3D animated characters that communicate through body language (including gesture, signs, and facial expression), lip-synched speech, and action. Their embedded behaviors reflect each character‚’s individual personality, and makes them appealing and lifelike."

"A striking increase in attention span, their level of engagement, and results. During an evaluation at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, the increase in comprehension when shifting from text-only to text accompanied by sign language using SigningAvatar technology was 17% to 67%."

INTERVENTION CENTRAL

A great on-line resource is Intervention Central, created by Jim Wright, a school psychologist and school administrator. On this site, you will find several on-line tools, downloads, and links to a variety of academic and behavioral intervention strategies. Many of the interventions focus on literacy. There are some technology links on the site.

Update 3/24/10:  READ 180

"READ 180 is a comprehensive reading intervention program proven to meet the needs of struggling readers in transitional Grades 3–12. The program directly addresses individual needs through differentiated instruction, adaptive and instructional software, high-interest literature and non-fiction, and direct instruction in reading, writing, and vocabulary skills."