Exploring curation as a core competency in digital and media literacy education — from the Journal of Interactive Media in Education (jime.open.ac.uk); with thanks to Robin Good for the Scoop

Paul Mihailidis
Department of Marketing Communication, Emerson College, United States

James N Cohen
School of Communication, Hofstra University, United States

Abstract:

In today’s hypermedia landscape, youth and young adults are increasingly using social media platforms, online aggregators and mobile applications for daily information use. Communication educators, armed with a host of free, easy-to-use online tools, have the ability to create dynamic approaches to teaching and learning about information and communication flow online. In this paper we explore the concept of curation as a student- and creation-driven pedagogical tool to enhance digital and media literacy education. We present a theoretical justification for curation and present six key ways that curation can be used to teach about critical thinking, analysis and expression online. We utilize a case study of the digital curation platform Storify to explore how curation works in the classroom, and present a framework that integrates curation pedagogy into core media literacy education learning outcomes.

MarkOToole-11Reasons-June2013

 

From DSC:
Internships may set you apart, but from my experience, it used to be very difficult to get one and only existed in any sort of quantity for certain fields (such as Engineering or Computer Studies).  How can the corporate world and higher education better support our students in this area? Perhaps more efforts akin to Qeyno Labs…?

Qeyno Labs works with local partners and schools to close the STEM diversity gap in K-12 education by transforming the interests of under-served youth into STEM career pathways using web and mobile-based technology.

Using game-like rewards and mentorship from real-life professionals, Qeyno makes “career day” an everyday experience for the 40+ million students that can’t afford private college and career guidance.

Students earn badges, win prizes, internships, and scholarships endorsed through the $124 billion talent acquisition market spending by non-profits and companies.

 

Also, somewhat relevant here:

 

Addendum on 7/2/13:

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KPCB Internet Trends 2013by Mary Meeker and Liang Wu on May 29, 2013

Description:

The latest edition of the annual Internet Trends report finds continued robust online growth. There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped. The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio. Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches – and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms.

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Excerpts:
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The emergence of Chief Digital Officers — from sloanreview.mit.edu by Robert Berkman
As social and other digital technologies shift responsibilities in the C-suite, businesses are creating a new position, the chief digital officer or CDO, to focus their digital strategy. This is the fifth and final piece in our series on how social business is changing power dynamics in the C-suite.

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Also see:

  • The coming era of ‘on-demand’ marketing — from mckinsey.com by Peter Dahlström and David Edelman
    Emerging technologies are poised to personalize the consumer experience radically—in real time and almost everywhere. It’s not too early to prepare.

NASA hosts its first Google+ Hangout connecting with space station— from nasa.gov

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — NASA will host its first Google+ Hangout live with the International Space Station from 11 a.m. to noon EST, Friday, Feb. 22. This event will connect NASA’s social media followers with astronauts on the ground and living and working aboard the laboratory orbiting 240 miles above Earth.

From DSC:
Talk about some serious communications!

The words “mini MOOC” come to my mind…

 


From DSC:
First, what prompted the questions and reflections that are listed below?  For that, I turn to some recent items that I ran across involving the use of robotics and whether that may or may not be affecting employment:


 

The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee; for example their book Race Against the Machine

Excerpt of description:

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

 

How to freak out responsibly about the rise of the robots — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson
It’s fun to imagine an economy where machines are smarter than humans. But we don’t need  an artificial crisis over artificial intelligence.

Excerpt:

Let’s say it upfront: Technology can replace jobs and (at least temporarily) increase income inequality. From the spinning jenny to those massive mechanical arms flying wildly around car assembly lines, technology raises productivity by helping workers accomplish more in less time (i.e.: put a power drill in a human hand) and by replacing workers altogether (i.e.: build a power-drilling bot).

What ails us today isn’t a surplus of robots, but a deficit of demand. Yes, we have a manufacturing industry undergoing a sensational, but job-killing, productivity revolution — very much like the one that took farm employment from 40 percent in 1900 to less than 5 percent today. But the other nine-tenths of the economy are basically going through an old-fashioned weak-but-steady recovery, the kind that hundreds of years of financial crises would predict.

 

America has hit “peak jobs” — from techcrunch.com by Jon Evans

Excerpt:

“The middle class is being hollowed out,” says James Altucher. “Economists are shifting their attention toward a […] crisis in the United States: the significant increase in income inequality,” reports the New York Times.

Think all those job losses over the last five years were just caused by the recession? No: “Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market,” according to an AP report on how technology is killing middle-class jobs.

 

Technology and the employment challenge — from project-syndicate.org by Michael Spence

Excerpt:

MILAN – New technologies of various kinds, together with globalization, are powerfully affecting the range of employment options for individuals in advanced and developing countries alike – and at various levels of education. Technological innovations are not only reducing the number of routine jobs, but also causing changes in global supply chains and networks that result in the relocation of routine jobs – and, increasingly, non-routine jobs at multiple skill levels – in the tradable sector of many economies.

 

 

Man vs. robot — from macleans.ca by Peter Nowak

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industrial-robots

 

 

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Secondly, some reflections (from DSC)


I wonder…

  • What types of jobs are opening up now? (example here)
  • What types of jobs will be opening up soon? How about in 3-5 years from now?
  • Should these trends affect the way we educate and prepare our kids today? 
  • Should these trends affect the way we help employees grow/reinvent themselves?

Again, for me, the answer lies at least partly in helping people consistently obtain the knowledge that they need — i.e. to help them build, grow, and maintain their own learning ecosystems — throughout their lifetimes.  We need to help people dip their feet into the appropriate streams of content that are constantly flowing by.

Perhaps that’s one of the key new purposes that K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training departments out there will play in the future as they sift through the massive amounts of information coming at us to help individuals identify:
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  • What are the most effective tools — and methods — that people can use to connect with others?
    (Then allow folks to pick what works best for them. Current examples: blogging/RSS feeds, Twitter, social bookmarking.)
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  • Who are some of the folks within each particular discipline/line of work that others (who want to learn about those disciplines) should know about?
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  • What trends are coming down the pike and how should we be preparing ourselves — and/or our organizations — for those changes?
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Less is more — from Harold Jarche

Excerpts:

If you were to sum up the psychology of learning in three words, it would be ‘less is more’. Donald Clark

In FrogDesign’s presentation on Design is Hacking How we Learn, slide #27 clearly shows where the emphasis of our learning efforts should be, and where organizations should place the most support and resources: practice.
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how we learn

 

 

From DSC:
In the corporate world, my thought is to provide the training as to where and how employees can get/stay in the know — especially by encouraging the use and ownership of blogs, social media, and developing/leveraging their personal learning networks.  But also to provide the infrastructure and tools — the plumbing if you will — to allow for people to quickly connect with each other and to easily share information with each other (i.e. to develop their own learning ecosystems). Formal classes won’t cut it. As Harold and other members of the Internet Alliance have long been saying, it’s about informal learning. (Speaking of his Internet Alliance colleagues, Charles Jennings recently discussed how the pace of change is affecting the corporate world big time; and, just as in higher ed, being able to adapt is key to staying relevant.)

As a relevant aside…my issue with my Master’s Program in Instructional Design for Online Learning was that there was too much emphasis on theory and not enough emphasis on practice.

 

 

 

Driven to distraction: How to help wired students learn to focus — from eschoolnews.com by Larry Rosen

Excerpt:

A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project report surveyed 2,462 middle and high school Advanced Placement and national writing project teachers and concluded that: “Overwhelming majorities agree with the assertions that today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans, and today’s students are too ‘plugged in’ and need more time away from their digital technologies.”

Two-thirds of the respondents agree with the notion that today’s digital technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically.

Mind you, we are talking about teachers who typically teach the best and brightest students and not those who we would generally think of as highly distractible.

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If attention can be visualized as a gate...is it getting harder to get through the gate?

 

From DSC:
If I’m an educator or a trainer and I can’t get through the gate (i.e. get someone’s attention), I have zero chance of getting a piece of information into someone’s short-term memory/working memory — and then ultimately into their long-term memory.

Also, from my own experience…
Especially in regards to information in a textual format, I know that I’ve grown increasingly impatient when someone doesn’t get to the point. When drinking (information) from the firehose, I seem to be almost forced into this type of situation/perspective.

 

Looks like a very interesting set of tools/technologies out at livefyre.com — a piece of which is subtitled, the “Web’s first Engagement Management System.”
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  • How might this set of technologies/functionalities affect what’s possible with MOOCs?
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  • Could universities and colleges use something like this to talk to their constituencies?
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  • As the computer, the telephone, and the television continue to converge, what educationally-related opportunities might be possible here?

 

http://www.livefyre.com/

 

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http://www.livefyre.com/

 

The Future of TV -- an infographic from Beesmart

 

From DSC:
The educational “store” part of this graphic could take several forms:

  • Online-based exchanges between buyers and sellers (teachers/professors and learners) — professors as their own brand
  • Institutional offerings/brands
  • Team-based content from newly-developed firms, organizations
  • Each of us puts up our own learning materials for others to take (for free or for a price)
  • Other

 

 

Also see the following items from Genius:

  • The New Consumer Agenda:
    From authentic collaboration to small indulgences … what consumers want in 2013 and beyond, and how brands are responding.
  • Marketing Trends 2013+:
    From black marketing to crowd creatives, brand gaming to urban formats, solomo and diffusion … what will be big in marketing in 2013

 

Additional notes from DSC:

  • With thanks going out to Mr. Jim Woods (@hyperinnovation) on twitter for this resource
  • The wave-related graphics above are very appropriate for our times — and I’d rather be surfing the waves then being crushed by them!

 

 

Connected learning: The Power Of Social Learning Models — from teachthought.com

Excerpt:

Connected Learning “is an answer to three key shifts as society evolves from the industrial age of the 20th century and its one-size-fits-all factory approach to educating youth to a 21st century networked society.”

1) A shift from education to learning. Education is what institutions do, learning is what people do. Digital media enable learning anywhere, anytime; formal learning must also be mobile and just-in-time.

2) A shift from consumption of information to participatory learning. Learning happens best when it is rich in social connections, especially when it is peer-based and organized around learners’ interests, enabling them to create as well as consume information.

3) A shift from institutions to networks. In the digital age, the fundamental operating and delivery systems are networks, not institutions such as schools, which are one node of many on a young person’s network of learning opportunities. People learn across institutions, so an entire learning network must be supported.

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From DSC:
This reminds me of the animated video that I recently ran across at remixteaching.com entitled, “I, Pencil”:

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If that’s what’s involved with creating a pencil, what does the family tree look like for creating the Internet?!

 

Could we use social media/tools to get input from all constituencies in order to set future strategic directions?

 

 

From DSC:
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Could we use social media/tools in order to get input from all of the constituencies of a
college or university? Such input could be used to create innovative ideas,
establish buy-in, and build future strategic direction/vision.
What would that look like? Work like?

I wasn’t sure where to put the workplace here…but certainly that is also a key piece of our future.

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The intersection of  innovation and faith — from fastcoexist.com by Morgan Clendaniel
Religious organizations have historically been on the front-lines of doing good. How can they benefit from social innovation, and what can social innovation learn from them?

 

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