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Minister of State for Schools and Learners Jim Knight visits Learn 4 Life Island

Today the Minister of State for Schools and Learners Jim Knight visited the Learn 4 Life Island in his address to the Naace Conference. He talked briefly to Leon Cych AKA Eyebeams Electricteeth and Bill Urwin AKA Acosta Shan of SWGFL about the use of virtual worlds in education.

Learn4Life Island was chosen as one of the outposts of innovation in virtual learning in the UK in this field and we were very happy to accommodate the minister and answer all his questions.

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Second Life Seminar at Bett 2008

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Channel 4 Digital Media Literacy Conference

L4L were recently at the Digital Media Literacy conference at Channel 4 organised by Policy Unplugged today covering events. Here are some brief notes…

Heather Rabatts chair of Media Literacy Taskforce (informal think tank) introducing the day talking about to engage in the debate.

Hon James Purnell MP Secretary for State for Culture Media and Sport.

Topic he is covering.

How media literate are we - Ofcom’s audit tracks progress over time. Charter for Media Literacy. Media Literacy at heart of the Curriculum. Framed within the literacy context and other subjects, art and design and media art courses. 50 specialist art colleges with media as there specialist courses. Digital switchover is important. Importance of access to internet. Digital switch over in some areas is happening now.

Some Ofcom stats
Over 21 percent over 65’s have takeup.

87 per cent ethnic communities have mobiles compared to 82 per cent of the population as a whole.

Information - millions of sources - look at consumption side - user generated content.

Regulation of broadcasting - look more widely and ambitiously to get the info they want. Media is no longer passive - access to harmful content - influence. Wrong reaction is to curtail freedom of speech.

Need to protect free speech - first principle to protect this. Right way to approach is to support the dissemination. Audiences needed to understand how this happens. No watershed on the internet. Adequate tools for protection - Ofcom, Home Office Kite mark for blocking access - KiteMark March 2008. Broadband stakeholder group - help to people to make informed choices. Risk of access to inappropriate content - help navigation.

Over 70 per cent of parent worried about inappropriate content. Theoretical understanding to practical matters.

Yemisi Blake, student, performance artist and writer. Talking about his media day - finds it hard to understand that email was never around. Allows him to say what he wants to say when he wants to say it - someone in the world can link to his blog. Talks about wordpress.com - his first blogpost was about a christmas party.

Showed his moleskin and apple laptop. Looking online for up to date academic sources found a website called Racialis about racism in everyday life, current up to date information. Searching for other people’s experiences. Networking with involvement with anti-racist issues. Blogher mentioned - group of people writing were not asking for authority Art & Design, Astrology. Doing things and getting on with it.

His history of listening to podcasts - not something school, family can give - web 2.0 and internet allowed him to tune into. Made him reflect on his life as a writer. Growth of confidence. Wordpress changed his life - allowed him to have a public profile he has created and people can see what he is about. Everyone should have a blog even if they don’t write in it.

Jon Gisby, former Managing Director of Yahoo! UK andIreland, MD and Vice President of Media – Europe

Setting up contexts that will inform the afternoon. Media industry changing more fundamentally more than anyone have had experience of. Keynote speeches will be pretty dead. Making it interactive by asking some questions.

Who are you?

Primarily work in the media industry,

Education,

Policy,

Other

Media Consumption

Newspaper

Online

-

Friends online

Updating profile

Series of questions

1350 - media industry - means of production controlled - could burn dissenters.

William Caxton Quote “If this is wrong then it is a good and noble wrong.”

Marconi, John L Baird, Lord Reith - Mass media. Slaves and advocates. A more effective printing press.

Tim Berners Lee, Alexander Grahame Bell, Vince ? Html protocols

Fundamental change - don’t know where it will end up.

TV in analogue homes. Share of TV time

Give people choice things change quickly

Green line time spent by UK web users.
Tail pink line people watching telly.

Green line out to a hundred sites 30 - 40 per cent opf online time. Rest 35 45 55 thousands.

Doing, publishing, creating may or may not involve big media brands.

Top activity Search

Shopping , ebay , communities come up in the last couple of years.

News, finance, sprot movies, health, information, video, games. Substitutional effect of games. Challenges to the media business. Bottlenecks before control and squeeze markets consumers less choice, limited about consumption not about participation.

No limit on distribution anymore - anyone can be a distributor. Participation networks.

Policy regulation everyone is trying to catch up. Net benefit wonderful getting media organisations to change their game.

Fundamental shift - democratises business.

Consequences…?

1) Participation - technology kit bandwidth - about skills access to understanding, mentors, evangelists - participation gap as big as not having the kit

2) Transparency - ID fraud - offline - validation. What is the content, motivation, commercial criminal. Frameworks for consumer choice web is more hybrid. Marketing is not yet mature?

3) Ethics - Henry Jenkins - sharing info. Tools are there but the training isn’t…How does that change. Appropriate online behaviour - communicate educate when and where appropriate - Intellectual Copyright. Cyber-Bullying

4) Atomisation

Suddenly become part of communities you couldn’t become part of before. Don’t know what the catalysts are the knock on effect - national identity.

Needs new skills

Assess validate compare contrast resources to get to the truth. Whole range of content harness collective intelligence. New skills not the immediate media literacy skills.

Media Literacy Debate has never been mopre important.

Nature of medium is so fundamentally different.

It’s never been harder to execute.

Personal experience different to ours. Gamers, young children, small children, collaborative networks.
If you are not doing it don’t take the attitude I have to have people doing it for me.

Joan Barker, Silver Surfer of the Year 2007: My Media Day

Heather interviews Joan - she signed up for a scheme. As soon as I could control the mouse I got hooked on it I was away. Used Solitaire to control the mouse. Having a go in the lounge every afternoon - I wasn’t scared of it all. Have a go. Emailing family - felt really proud and could shopw grandchildren she could do it. Sent photos to her grandchildren in Italy. Hopes to do a lot with Skype. Shopping, flowers, books, booked theatre tickets. Helped own sheltered housing scheme - helped an 80 yr to contact her niece. Into Google Earth

Never lose sight of who we are …

Session 5. Perspectives and Panel

Ten minute presentations followed by Q&A (Chair: Julia Hobsbawn, Chief Executive of Editorial Intelligence)

Here to explore degree of online media literacy from perspective of social networks in context of Tanya Byron’s view.

Reference - to Finnish killer. Children use internet to consume media more than TV.

Participation for protest mobilised for propaganda, new media and creativity.

Reason for flocking to facebook - application programme came in but makes people creative.

Commentariat - bellweather / shaper of public opinion . Put in search references - what preoccupies the commentators

Admiring observations of how consumption is changing. Mange my Kebab - run on Northern Rock website jammed.

Virginia blackburn - middle England columinst writing for masses about facebook.

“In the future if you are not online you will not exist.”

• Ewan McIntosh – National Advisor on Learning Technologies at Learning
• and Teaching Scotland :

Bottom up behaviour.

Social media type work. The first criticism only a small number of people create stuff. 1.6 per cent create. Wiki edits wasn’t even 5 per cent. Easy put down for digital literacy.

Half of todays kids create content. 1/3rd share it - 95 per cent penetration in Ireland. In Scotland it has been a wildfire effect - class by class - from about 7 or 8 years old. What do you do with wildfire - firefight but it doesn’t work. Only a 1/4 turned up to technology in classroom. Fiefdom for media teacher - schools banning vehicles to do that - creating VLE national internet have as many corners as a 70’s school building. 21 st century illiterates running the system. Immigrants native good excuse for not running. Digital holiday makers turn up to digital land and don’t move there permanently.

Lack of will - fear factor. Fear factor in education. YouTube massacre in Finland. YouTube killer in Times. Media Literacy get blank expressions - talk to teachers - they don’t know - a handful do. Denmark 3/4 have social media and use it effectively. In New Zealand effective exemplars. Exemplar of a student playing World of Warcraft to find out about winning battles in history project.

Daily Telegraph web page offer - spurious because it’s free anyway

Social Media used in education - teacher - think about what they are doing - 20 out of 1000 sharing at beginning - end of year 360 sharing.

Uses Henry Jenkins classification:

Play

Learned most important thing learned through play - reference to Consolarium - impressive creative writing.

Performance - Gaming - Blogging

Increasing research shows virtual selves get towards projected self.

Simulation

Play get it wrong
Appropriation

Cognition

Judgement

Networking

Who why speaking

Negotiation

Negotiate what media literacy means.

Dick Penny, Director of the Watershed

Passionate about using all the tools.

Quote Anthony Lilley. Jokes about web 26

The ceaseless riptide of innovation - it will keep changing.

Throwing together difference and seeing what comes out

Celebrating diversity of cultures of experience - identity. Lots of media examples of identity. Key is place… Distributed but linked nature of place. Examples of video commentaries - skills ands shared output.

Jeremy Olivier, Head of Convergent Media, Ofcom
Realtionship between media literacy and role of content regulator. How to avoid exposure to harmful content. Consumers take responsibility for their own production. Industry through innovation allow audiences to have a broader range of services which won’t harm or offend. Unlimited supply of potentially harmful and invasive content new roles to come into play that work for consumers. Content information, responsibilities of industries. Greater choice works. Labelling functionality, flagging, takedown procedures.

Vicky Read, Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Safety,

What is a media literate person - social networks great place to practice these skills. How social networking sites can promote these skills on ly 2 or 3 years old challenges that lie ahead.

• Dick Penny, Director of the Watershed
• Jeremy Olivier, Head of Convergent Media, Ofcom
• Vicky Read, Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Safety,
• Bebo,
• Matt Locke – Channel 4 Commissioning Editor:

Jelly Ellie talks about her digital day!