Chris Lott

With diminishing hope of achieving clarity and avoiding undue magnification of any critical notes in what is to follow, that I enjoyed Marco Torres’ NMC 2009 keynote “It’s Not About It, It’s About What to Do with It.” Marco’s talk on Day 2 was a good fit with Kathy Sierra’s the day before, demonstrating the best aspects of her talk (passion, teaching others how to kick ass, etc) in both his own presentation and in the examples of what he is doing working with learners.

Mulling over what I heard, I keep coming back to a few points:

Risk Taking – Marco pointed out that one of the cool things about digital technology (both in music and, I think, in general) is that it more readily allows users to take risks. It’s hard to learn (create) without taking risks, something Marco literally demonstrated as he pieced together a soundtrack in Garageband. Of course taking risks as a learner involves trust in yourself and your teacher(s). Living that trust is no low hurdle… and then we have to consider the dangers of risk-taking. After all, there is no risk without danger. There are complex issues here involving experimentation and sharing, the value of creating artifacts and the import of the existence of those artifacts living on into later parts of a student’s life. The movement toward more open education, involvement of social networking, and the ever-present promise and specter of portfolio creation—ad-hoc, formal and de-facto.

Complexity – Marco made two related arguments that others have also made: 1) our media is more complicated than it used to be (the foundational idea in Steven Johnson’s book Everything Bad is Good for You), and 2) the rich community that is built around these complicated media and entertainment properties is a place of learning and creation (echoing Stanley Jenkins’ arguments in Convergence Culture).

The first point feels specious: is comparing Gilligan’s Island with Lost a fair comparison, much less a meaningful way  of comparing US culture today with that of the mid-1960s? Isn’t Gilligan’s Island more fruitfully compared with According to Jim or the like? The “infosphere” no doubt continues to grow exponentially and our ability to access that information greater. But at some point, as long as we know the basics of access, exploration and management, that growth is meaningless in the way that if you know how to swim you can swim in 5- or 500-foot water equally well. It’s the optional skills of deep diving where new demands are most felt. There’s something a bit too self-congratulatory in contentions of how much more complex and difficult our lives are than they supposedly were in the golden days of yore, when it’s really just a shift in emphasis. It might be complex to negotiate the terrain of social networks and ubiquitous access to information, but it’s not really significantly more complex than other aspects of daily life we now take for granted. Not to mention that, being the victim of a gall bladder bursting a few years back, it is likely that 100 years ago I’d probably be dead.

I wholeheartedly agree with the second point… the communities built around shows like Lost and books like Harry Potter are impressive, rich and complex. The convergence and cooperation of media around such creations contributes greatly to that richness. But the mere fact of engagement in such communities begs the question of what is being learned there. Certainly participation in the constellation of sub-communities built around Lost demands learning something of communication, negotiation, persuasion and other valuable skills. But the big question is how this translates to (more) formal learning activities. How do we use the skills learned in such arenas? How do we create that kind of community or duplicate some of its dynamics? What (and how) do those communities mean for teaching and learning?

Assessment and Conformity – Underlying all discussions of storytelling and media creation as a part of learning is the question of assessment. Gardner Campbell’s Fear of Art session ably demonstrated the complexity inherent in assessing new media creations that are built with and upon new literacies (and fluencies). As a philosophical discussion we can dwell on the unanswerable, but at some point assessments are—at least for now—required of us. Marco’s story of the brilliant young musician who couldn’t play in his school orchestra reflects this problem. On the one hand, it’s clear that the young man in question was very talented and the school probably had no idea what to do with him… but at the same time, orchestras have conventions and repertoires and specific demands to be met. But is it really an unfair of assessment to keep the young man out of the orchestra when he is described as not wanting to play the music that orchestra was playing? Assessment is in part about conformity… and not all conformity is bad (and some acts of non-conformity are misplaced). But it does bring into light the way our institutions evaluate and work with outliers like this brilliant young musician, and if we had to assign them a grade, it would be a low one.

An Aside: Musical Meaning – Speaking of music, Marco demonstrated that–even at a relatively simple level–music can have meaning (the example of the two-key music in Jaws was apt) and the tools to get started creating musical accompaniment are well within the grasp of even casual users. But it does seem that the musical elements possible in digital storytelling are often under-emphasized or totally absent from many storytelling activities. Not only is this a “teachable moment” for considering intellectual property and copyright, but a place to introduce or expand upon the whole idea of music as a part of a larger production and the very idea that music can convey meaning. Which can lead into discussions of genre and transformation which can lead to richer storytelling.

Grammar and Language – Marco’s phrase (one of many clever phrases Marco employed) “schools teach the grammar of math, not the language of math” resonated with many in the audience because it’s true. In fact this same statement could be revised to apply to many disciplines—we teach the grammar of X but not the language of Y—and is at the heart of the literacy/fluency discussion in many of those areas. But it’s also true that trying to teach the language of math without the grammar would also be an epic fail for all but a very talented few. So the answer isn’t to “teach language” but to “also teach the language,” a distinction I fear is sometimes forgotten.

Memory and Memorization – Related to the necessity of grammar and implied by the critique of teaching grammar but not language are questions of memory and memorization. I was troubled by Marco’s anecdote regarding discussing curriculum with a group of teachers and then asking them if “everything they just talked about could be found on Google” and questioning their teaching on that basis (at least that’s how I heard it). The value of memorization—at the basic level of rote memorization, at the higher level of “practice,” and as an important part of the even more sophisticated ability to actually know something and be able to use that knowledge to achieve a higher creative state—has been dismissed too readily as part of our contemporary emphasis on teaching as facilitation and avoidance of “transfer” teaching.

Learning Styles – I was intrigued by the notion of learning styles as they apply to creation, not just reception, which seems under-emphasized in learning styles discussions. I was more intrigued by the idea—which I had not heard discussed before—that we need to consider individuals who have particularly apt styles when it comes to receiving information that are different from their styles while creating. The assumption always seems to be that these are the same—if I am a particularly good auditory learner then I will be more suited to creating audio, etc—but the more I consider this assumption, the more I think it is questionable (at least sometimes).

Again, quick notes now, reflection later in the day…

I have to admit to knowing nothing (that I can remember) about Marco Torres prior to reading about him in this year’s conference program…

“It’s Not About It, it’s About What to Do with It”

Music is an aspect of multimedia that isn’t talked about enough… probably 80% of multimedia presentations he sees have copyright violations in their music/soundtracks.

He’s always loved that John Williams could convince Spielberg that two chords were enough for Jaws… just speed it up or slow it down.

“That’s the cool thing about digital technology… it allows you to take risks”

A nice way to dive into the presentation by demonstrating how simple sound elements produced with simple tools that aren’t super demanding to use can evoke emotion. Marco models iterative construction using layering of musical elements, building and rebuilding, playing and replaying, mixing and remixing.

Marco’s mother was an established photographer, and two uncles who made “the worst movies ever to come out of Mexico”

“I spent my childhood on sets watching professional wrestler’s solving all the world’s problems.”

“I’m fascinated with everything that story does, not what is done in school.”

A succinct message: stories give stuff purpose… the purpose isn’t the stuff itself.

Narrative produces meaning; the search for meaning is narrative.

I don’t know how often this is the case, but I think post-avant poetry, among other pursuits, demonstrates that there are ways to engage in the search for meaning without necessarily engaging what we commonly consider narrative.

When asked to tell stories, students always tell stories of what they’ve experienced, seen or heard… not things they’ve read.

Recapitulating in altered form the point Gardner was making yesterday—we are using assessments today based on media and technology of yesterday. But it’s no easy task to figure out what the assessments of tomorrow should or will look like.

Learners need to be producers, not just consumers. Learning styles are always oriented to reception. Many are auditory learners but visual producers or other combinations. We need application of “learning styles” for more than just the act of reception, but also that of creation.

This fascinates me. Very little discussion of learning styles directly addresses styles of creation, though it is often implied in motivations for activities like digital storytelling. But most interesting is questioning the assumption that our style as creators necessarily matches our learning style as consumer/learner. I need to think on this more.

Performance matters because of audience perception… even if you know the content and understand the context, flawed delivery will lead people to assume you don’t know what you are talking about.

We exist in an age of ubiquitous information… Marco asks a group of social studies teachers: can your students look everything you are saying up in Google? The stuff is not enough. Albert Einstein: don’t ask questions you can look up.

It’s a good quote, but Einstein had an enormous stockpile of memorized facts and concepts. This has to tie to memory, which ties to memorizing and the debate about “rote” facts and practice, not to mention Connectivism and the like. Memorization is very powerful and, imo, necessary. It provides the material for thought and contemplation and conceptual connections.

iPhone as an example of tech mediation that changes the nature of discussion and dispute outside of formal settings for engagement.

How does learning occur outside the academy?

“We teach the grammar of math, not the language of math.”

Isn’t this a statement that could stand-in for much of our educational system? We teach the mechanics, the systems, the parts that are, in effect or actuality, literacies, but rarely approach fluency. It could also be said that we teach math literacy but not math fluency.

Our vision should be: school shouldn’t suck.

Using examples of Alton Brown and MythBusters. “In MythBusters you aren’t watching two guys teach you, you’re watching two guys learn.

As the audience for MythBusters we don’t care if they succeed or fail; we want to see the process, not just the result.

There’s great power in learners learning by observing and interacting with the learning teacher. Not “I see what you did” or even just “how did you do that” but “how did you come to do/be able to do that?”

Why don’t schools do more collaboration, the learning is so easy… what’s getting in the way is schooling. We’re complexing the holy shit out of the learning system, school is what’s complicated.”

“Schooling is reliance on institution, learning is you + your network”

It took a youth 30 minutes to explain “call of duty”—it didn’t take 30 minutes to explain Frogger.

Sophisticated fans are producers, they are influencing the show through use of technology, tv is more complex than it used to be. And there are layers of discussion and community and even applications build around shows like Lost. 

This is very similar to Stanley Jenkins’ point in Convergence Culture about the richness of participatory culture. Fans as participants and learners. And some Shirky Here Comes Everybody w/r/t evolution of media.

I can buy the argument about television being more complicated, but that a change in characteristics of overall culture, that things now are more complicated and complex than they were in the simple times of yore… shouldn’t Gilligan’s Island be compared with Two and 1/2 Men or something? Aren’t we patting ourselves a bit too hard on the back when we go on about how much more complex/dangerous/trying/etc our times are than those of our parents, grandparents, etc?

Shows funny “academic” list of questions about Gilligan’s Island, stereotypical of what might be asked in a class. “Lost fans don’t care about those questions.”

Really? Much of the community that he adores around shows like Lost exists to answer those kind of questions. The change is where those questions are being generated and the fact that the answering is happening in the open… which enables much of the rest.

People are deeply engaged in television, but engagement alone is just a characteristic that is a part of learning… though there are certainly media and info fluency skills being learned through that engagement.

“Evolution of technology in education” – back to people and purpose.

Back to?

Shows some cool, funny Star Wars music remakes in Mariachi(?) style made by students. That’s a great example of student production and the use of multimedia/music. The student who made them did so because he was given the tools that allowed him to express himself musically and with audio rather than just with text.

“David wasn’t allowed to play in the school orchestra because he didn’t play the music the orchestra played. We’ve all seen crap like that happen.”

Whaa? So he should’ve been accepted and allowed to play something else? I’m not sure what the lesson is in that statement. Not having an outlet or place is different from leveling every play to suit everyone who might want to be in it.

Some resources:

• torres21@mac.com
• http://sfett.com
• http://flickschool.com
• http://challengebasedlearning.com