Tag Archives: critical thinking

Self Child-Pornography

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Here is another interesting case for your digital internship discussions, one that shows that our legal systems are not always equipped to handle issues arising from emerging uses of technologies, especially by teens.

A 15-year-old Ohio girl was arrested on felony child pornography charges for allegedly sending nude cell phone pictures of herself to classmates. Authorities are considering charging some of the students who received the photos as well.

The unnamed student from Licking Valley High School in Newark, Ohio was arrested Friday after school officials discovered the materials and notified police. She spent the weekend in juvenile detention and entered a plea of “deny” on Monday, according to The NewarkAdvocate.com.

Charges include illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and possession of criminal tools. If convicted, the girl could be forced to register as a sexual offender for 20 years, but because of her age, the judge hearing the case has some flexibility in the matter, an official told the Advocate.

Full story here.

Sarah Haskins Targets Advertising to Women

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Adfreak featured a piece on Sarah Haskins today who has been putting together some really neat literacy pieces related to advertising targeting women. Take a look at some of the “Target: Women” series on Current. I have posted links below.

Birth Control:

Yogurt Edition:

Weddings Shows:

Chick Flicks

I like Haskin’s approach to media literacy. While I don’t find it very deep (nor think that’s her intention), she identifies key issues and does it in a humourous way. The technique is key. And, if you are looking for something to critique with your students, here is my growing list of videos for discussing media representation.

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No, THIS Guy Is Edupunk

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My friend and colleague Marc (who really needs a blog) alerted me to this story regarding a recent legal ruling in the matter of the University of Ottawa and the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (UPUO). The case arose when the U of O charged that Professor Denis Rancourt “had misrepresented his course in a detailed web posting, in such a way as to have described a dramatically different course not compatible with the official course description.” The 65-page ruling the case supported Dr. Rancourt’s actions as within the purview of academic freedom.

But here is the stuff I really like! See these pieces of the ruling that help to describe how Dr. Rancourt led this controversial course.

The ruling establishes that pedagogical innovation and implementation are fully protected under the academic freedom enjoyed by a professor, including the choice of grading system – considered an integral part of the pedagogical method.

In the specific case, the protected pedagogical innovations included:

(a) A large fraction of the class time used to present societal and political material – in a physics course intended to deliver fundamental physics concepts as the only required physics course in an environmental studies program – as a way to motivate student learning and to position the science in the broad societal context. This was achieved using invited scientist and non-scientist speakers that included activists, politicians, community workers, etc. The ruling clarifies that no “exception [was] taken to the use of activism and social and political issues as catalysts to learning.”

(b) Parallel student workgroups with evolving themes and freely changing student memberships and town-hall-style whole-class discussions instead of traditional lectures delivered by the professor.

(c) An open invitation to all community members to freely and fully participate in the class, without necessarily officially registering and paying tuition, as a way to bring in the community to enrich class discussions and strengthen relevance and community connections. This brought in a variety of perspectives and expertises that would otherwise not have been available.

(d) Large latitude in individual student decision making regarding: order in which to learn things (e.g., workgroup membership and topic), depth of treatment, method of study, method of reporting progress, degree of cooperative work, etc. (Sharing was not considered cheating.)

(e) A satisfactory/non-satisfactory (S/NS) grading system rather than the traditional letter grade system (used in all other science courses given that term).

I have been very lucky that my Faculty and University has been supportive of my work in pursuing several similar approaches in my teaching. I am pleased to see the results of this case so positive for Dr. Rancourt as it has the potential to help other professors take risks toward passionate and creative forms of teaching and learning.

Learn more about this story here.

How Does the (US) News Shape the Way We See the World

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Alisa Miller or Public Radio International (PRI) is speaking at TED this week. PRI has set up a page for this TED talk which aims at helping citizens become more aware of international news, the limitations of existing news structures and the importance of global journalism. The video below is very well done and makes these previous points through statistics and visualizations.

Our society is becoming more globally interconnected each day. In our increasingly interdependent world, events taking place in distant countries can be of vital significance to Americans; in turn, the choices and actions we take here at home can reverberate around the globe. Yet, Americans seem to know less and less about the world around them, their many connections to it, and the complexities and interrelationships between major issues such as peace and security, energy, sustainability and the environment, economic development, health, and the arts and culture.

This is important because how we comprehend our world shapes how we live in it and what actions we take.

While the target audience is American, I do not get the sense from my contact with high school and undergraduate students that Canadian youth/adults fair much better in their understanding of the global context. Sure, we could blame US news sources and tout the differences evident in our beloved CBC. I know it is not enough. So, what do we do? How do we get our children to better understand the global context? How do we get our kids to see the importance of global perspectives? And more importantly, how do we get them to care?

MyBytes … Bites!

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Microsoft has released the new website MyBytes.com to promote copyright education. The site was announced as the company released the results of a survey testing children’s knowledge of copyright law.

I agree that there needs to be a greater emphasis in schools on copyright law and understandings of intellectual property. However, in addressing these topics, educators and educational materials MUST include copyleft approaches to addressing “ownership” of intellectual property and materials addressing open content/open source approaches. At an appropriate grade level, I would encourage deconstruction of terms such as “intellectual property” and “ownership” and discuss both practical and philosophical implications of copyleft vs. copyright (and everything in between). The terms need to be questioned and critiqued, and their history and current emphasis in our laws need to be critically explored.

MyBytes Interviews

And if you are going to use Microsoft’s materials, use them critically. For instance, watch these “interviews” and ask questions such as:

    – Are these interviews scripted?
    – Are these interviews censored?
    – Whose views are being represented here?
    – Where are the dissenting voices (seeing as M$ has identified that dissent/misunderstandings are the majority)?
    – Are alternative views of copyright/copyleft represented in these interviews?
    – Who is the sponsor of this site, and (how) would they benefit from a strict view of copyright?
    – What is at stake with illegal music downloading? Who stands to lose/benefit?
    – Are there alternative models for distributing content? Who is using them? Are they successful?
    – Who benefits from these alternative models? Who loses?
    – What is the Creative Commons? What is its role?
    – What are the issues of power and control inherent in these arguments?

Any others thoughts?

Educators, please, whatever your views on copyright/copyleft. Be critical, and present both established and alternative views on these issues.

Robot High School

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via Boing Boing.

Robot High School is a music video directed by Roel Wouters with music by My Robot Friend.

Despite how it may appear, the video was shot in a single take with no significant computer-generated effects added, just some minor post-production cleanup.

Robot High School allegorically questions what happens when our perspective and views of reality are manipulated by those in authority without any moral concern for the outcome.

Interesting video and message.

And sorry for this space taking on the link blog/Tumblr approach lately … beginning of semester is always so busy.

What Makes A Message Compelling?

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There’s an interesting article at ars technica titled, “YouTube users prefer lousy science over the real deal“. The article briefly summarizes a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which reports the quality and veracity of information available from Internet-based sources. More specifically, the study focused on the information on immunization found on Youtube.

153 videos related to immunization were identified, categorized and analyzed. Researchers looked for a correlation between the type of message in the video (whether it supported immunization programs, was ambiguous, or was critical of immunization) and the rating and number of comments it received in Youtube. “Compared with positive videos, negative videos were more likely to receive a rating, they had a higher mean star rating and more views.” In other words, videos critical of the official immunization program were more popular and more highly rated.

While I’m more than just a bit skeptical of the conclusion, ars technica summarizes:

The big message in the data, however, appears to be that viewers don’t find the information being put out by public health authorities compelling at all. Even among the positive videos (which were poorly viewed and rated), public service announcements grabbed the smallest audience and the worst ratings; even among videos with a small audience, they stood out as being ignored.

So what makes a message compelling? If the message rejects traditional thinking, is it more likely to be compelling? Is this what make conspiracy theory videos so attractive? If this is true, what does this mean for teaching? Should we put more emphasis on bring alternative messages into our classroom in order to critique and analyze them? Are we already doing this? Sounds like a great opportunity for critical thinking and critical media literacy.