I’m loving working with a group of secondary English education students this semester and tomorrow’s workshop will be explorations of The Tempest. We’ll be doing some close readings of selections of text, some dramatic work, and a range of experiences to encourage visual, aural and kinesthetic interpretations of text. One of the tasks will be to create images of Caliban and make notes on the kinds of decisions that might be made with Caliban’s costume and make-up for a production of the play. Students have to consider Trincolo’s speech as he mocks Caliban:

TRINCULO

What have we here?

a man or a fish? dead or alive?

A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and

fish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-

John. A strange fish! Were I in England now,

as once I was, and had but this fish painted,

not a holiday fool there but would give a piece

of silver: there would this monster make a

man; any strange beast there makes a man:

when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame

beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead

Indian. Legged like a man and his fins like

arms! Warm o’ my troth! I do now let loose

my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no fish,

but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a

thunderbolt.

To this end, I have gathered a few of my favourite images of the character:

I am excited to announce that I will be running a portion of the 2010 NMC conference! I will be running a sub-sub-theme on Digital Literacies, and was granted funding from the Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy to collaborate with some of my favourite colleagues on this theme as follows:

Focus: Are informal activities like video games, social websites and virtual worlds suited for learning at school? From broad, nation-wide surveys and research reports to microanlayses of single texts, this full day workshop and follow-up special issue of Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy will showcase the discursive, social and literacy practices of young people as they engage informally in online spaces, and provide analytical evidence of the kinds of learning that actually occurs. It will also capture the ways some schools across three countries (Australia, United Kingdom and the United States of America) are attempting to leverage this informal learning into formal classroom contexts, and report on the issues and attitudes which have impacted upon learning, Finally it will draw from media practitioners who will offer advice for best practice as we consider the future of education and the ways educators might best prepare young people for successful social futures.

Collaborators:

Dr Angela Thomas (University of Sydney, Australia)

Dr Ilaria Vanni (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Professor Guy Merchant (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Dr Julia Gillen (Lancaster University, UK)

Professor Barbara Guzzetti (Arizona State University, US)

Dr Kathryn Pole (Saint Louis University, US)

Ms Kaitlin Heller (Del Ray, Random House Inc. Publishing)

Ms Jessica Hammer (Teacher’s College, Columbia University, US)

Ms Gillian Andrews (Teacher’s College, Columbia University, US)

Ms Jenn Scott-Curwood (University of Wisconsin, US)

Ms Damiana Gibbons (University of Wisconsin, US)

The conference is being held in California, with the University of Southern California as this year’s host. It’s actually being held in the Disneyland hotel, so its amusing to see the expressions of my friends when I say I am being paid to go and hang out in Disneyland for a week So… come and join us there for a magical time!

I have a book chapter in this hot-off-the-press book, co-authored with Nicole Tufano, called “Stop Motion Animation”. The description of the book (from amazon.com) is as follows:

Schools remain notorious for co-opting digital technologies to business as usual approaches to teaching new literacies. DIY Media addresses this issue head-on, and describes expansive and creative practices of digital literacy that are increasingly influential and popular in contexts beyond the school, and whose educational potential is not yet being tapped to any significant degree in classrooms. This book is very much concerned with engaging students in do-it-yourself digitally mediated meaning-making practices. As such, it is organized around three broad areas of digital media: moving media, still media, and audio media. Specific DIY media practices addressed in the chapters include machinima, anime music videos, digital photography, podcasting, and music remixing. Each chapter opens with an overview of a specific DIY media practice, includes a practical how-to tutorial section, and closes with suggested applications for classroom settings. This collection will appeal not only to educators, but to anyone invested in better understandingand perhaps participating inthe significant shift towards everyday people producing their own digital media.

I had great fun researching my chapter, and speaking with a number of members of the online stop motion animation community, a number of youtubers who regularly posted SMA, and I even communicated with the Hollywood animation archives people. I also spoke with marvellous Martin Waller about his work with “orange class” at a Primary school in the UK.

I’d love to hear about any Tasmanian schools doing exciting things with new media in their classrooms!

It has been forever since my last post, but today I have a special announcement – I am relocating to Tasmania! The move is really motivated by personal reasons but I am pleased to say I have an exciting new position at the University of Tasmania which I’ll be starting in March. The University of Tasmania, or UTAS, is where I started my career, and I’m looking forward to returning and to working with some of my favourite colleagues and old friends once again. Once I am settled I hope to get back to regular blogging once again! Stay tuned