In my last few posts, I have argued that network writing—that is, writing that mimics the conventions of emerging, online genres—should occupy a larger place in writing instruction. However, it can be...
Categories: Digital Citizenship, Digital LearningDigital Citizenship
Web Literacies: What is the ‘Web’ Anyway?
I’ve recently started in a new role for the Mozilla Foundation. At least half of my job there is to come up with a framework, a White Paper, around the concept of...
Category: Digital CitizenshipFor people on the academic calendar, resolutions tend to be undertaken in the summer months rather than at the start of the new year in January. This summer I am picking up a...
Category: Digital CitizenshipGeorge Couros: Why School Administrators Should Embrace the Social Web
By encouraging administrators to become learner-leaders, to use social media to connect with each other, share best practices and experiment, Canadian school principal George Couros is leading by example, exhortation, and instigation...
Categories: Critical Perspectives, Digital CitizenshipShould We Fear Children Accessing Facebook?
In recent months, there has been an intense media and policy vortex surrounding the questions of when and how children – especially those under 13 – should gain access to popular online...
Categories: Connected Learning, Digital CitizenshipPortoAlegre.cc: Giving A City Back to Its Citizens
Several new projects are trying to use cyberspace as a platform to help citizens build an information network and share information about their cities. One effort that has achieved significant traction is...
Categories: Civic Engagement, Digital CitizenshipGoing Low-Tech to Teach New Literacies
Ethnic Studies professor Wayne Yang takes a distinctive approach to new media literacies to get UC San Diego students to host their own Comic-Con comic book convention with original graphic novel projects....
Category: Digital CitizenshipSocial Media and Public Sphere: The #VetaDilma Movement and Brazil’s Forests
Today Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vetoed several parts of a controversial forest bill that had been approved by Brazil’s Congress and promoted by powerful agricultural interests. Until today, it was unclear how...
Categories: Civic Engagement, Digital CitizenshipHow and Why to Make Your Digital Publications Matter
I don’t have the metrics, but I’ll stake my professional reputation on the following statement: In the last one or two years, there has been a seachange in how even the most...
Category: Digital CitizenshipDigital Underlife and the Writing Classroom
In a 1987 paper, Robert Brooke argued that instructors needed to pay attention to the ways that students didn't pay attention, like passing notes in class or whispering conversations. Building on the...
Category: Digital CitizenshipTechnology, Cities & Collaboration
As Assistant Professor of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, Laura Forlano’s interests converge at the intersection of technology, cities, and culture. Prior to her professorship in design, Forlano...
Category: Digital CitizenshipWhy Critical Design Literacy is Needed Now More Than Ever
One thing is clear in our work at Texas City High School (TCHS) this year: students like to create their own media. Students at TCHS create their own YouTube channels, compose original...
Categories: Digital Citizenship, EquityReflecting on Dharun Ravi’s Conviction
On Friday, Dharun Ravi -- the Rutgers student whose roommate Tyler Clementi killed himself in a case narrated through the lens of cyberbullying -- was found guilty of privacy invasion, tampering with...
Categories: Digital Citizenship, EquityReflexivity: Why We Must Choose to Shape, and Not Be Shaped By, Technology
In her new book, Consent of the Networked, Rebecca Mackinnon offers a reality check: "We have a problem,” she writes. “We understand how power works in the physical world, but we do...
Category: Digital CitizenshipDistributed Writing: From Bad to Brilliant
In the report "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture" the authors argue that distributed cognition is a key skill that citizens must master to be active in participatory culture. Of course, most...
Categories: Digital Citizenship, Digital Learning
