dmlcafe

DML Cafe Call for Proposals Announced:
March 18, 2015

DML Cafe Proposal Deadline:
May 15, 2015

Do you have something exciting to share with practitioners about learning, digital youth, and media? Something you think is a must at DML2015? Do you have hands-on activities to share? Or maybe you just need some space to hack? Want to share some report findings? Information about your program or school? Have you published a book? The DML Cafe is an informal, relaxed space for you to share your ideas.

The DML Cafe will be open Saturday, June 13, 2015, (one day only!) from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, and from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. You will have 2 hours and a round table (that seats 10 people) to invite folks to join you!  Bring your own equipment, laptop, materials, or whatever else you need to prevent a snooze fest!

You don’t need to be registered to submit an application, but selected participants must pay for their own registration, as well as arrange and fund their own travel to/from DML2015. Priority will be given to organizations that are not already formally accepted to present in the conference.

Check out this year’s presenters! Look for the table numbers to locate the presentation in the California Ballroom BE.

DML Cafe Session #1: 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

1Re-shaping the Learning Environment to Support a Participatory Culture. Sandra Markus, Associate Professor Fashion Institute of Technology; Kurt Vega + Fashion Institute of Technology/SUNY

As teachers, we all want to encourage our students to become life-long learners. But in practical terms, how do we do that? How do we transform our classrooms into participatory learning environments? How do we, as teachers model peer-to-peer learning? Are we committed to being lifelong learners? Lets get together and explore some of these issues and concerns and develop a roadmap to solve them!
We want to share our practices regarding transforming the classroom into a participatory learning environment. The learning space becomes an environment for both the teachers and the students to engage jointly in a collaborative process of learning and discovery. Students use new digital tools to support knowledge creation and to build their own learning networks to foster learner agency. Students work collaboratively to develop an ethical framework to understand what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. We would like to share how we explore information sources that are not part of the mainstream media to help students recognize and understand the value of alternative information sources. We explore issues of social inequality, and how to use digital tools to listen to the marginalized voices that are frequently ignored or misrepresented. We hope this discussion contributes to the conversation about educational technology’s potential to reshape our perspective and participation within the global environment.

This discussion is based on an interdisciplinary, experimental course that we launched at the State University where we both teach. We hope to spark an interesting discussion about what participatory learning looks like and how it can change learning and teaching.

2. ArtBots. Mya Stark, LA Makerspace; Tara Tiger Brown, LA Makerspace/KitHub/Connected Camps

Amazing Artbots: KitHub and LA Makerspace co-present a fun learning activity combining simple circuits and art supplies to build robots as creative as their makers. Ages 5 and up.

3. oneKey: Library-Embedded Open Hardware in Philadelphia. Brandon “bk” Klevence, The Maker Jawn Initiative at the Free Library of Philadelphia

The oneKey is a simplified version of the MaKey MaKey, an educational toy and invention kit that turns anything into a keyboard key. The aim with this low-cost single-input derivative of the MaKey MaKey is to sustainably introduce library patrons to learning about and constructing hardware they can tinker, play, make with, and take home, all in the context of a neighborhood library branch. Digital media tools such as the MaKey MaKey are becoming increasingly common in informal learning spaces, however at $50/device, the MaKey MaKey is relatively expensive to use across large populations. Furthermore, it did not satisfy our goals of introducing the making and hacking of hardware to youth, teens, and most recently adults. The oneKey is a direct response to these problems. The oneKey is cheap (<$2 a device), and in deploying the oneKey we’ve seen youth aged 7 and up hack and share it. This shows that informal education environments are capable of making their own educational hardware via desktop manufacturing and production methods. Youth in this program feel a sense of ownership over hardware because they not only use it, but modify, and repurpose it as well. In a city where fewer than 1% of African-American and Hispanic students — who comprise 56% of the District’s enrollment — ultimately earn bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields, the Free Library of Philadelphia is directly addressing the accessibility of technology, both through these daily workshops, but also through directly involving youth in the creation of open-source hardware. one-Key, and the Maker Jawn Initiative, are changing public libraries into spaces where non-traditional technology users gain free access to technology and learning resources. Come to our table to learn about, tinker with, reprogram, and play around with the oneKey.

4. Creating an Equitable Scientific Community with the Support of Blogging. Deb Morrison, Boulder Valley School District & University of Colorado at Boulder

As a teacher-researcher I have been examining the use of blogging as a tool in my science classroom communities as an example of digitally-mediated disciplinary learning with the goal of improving student participation in scientific literacy activities, specifically with English language learners. I will share how I constructed my classroom based blogging communities, how the virtual and physical classroom spaces interacted to improve science discourse practices, and what lessons I have learned in going forward with this tool in terms of educational equity. I argue that blogging can provide a reorganization of power in the classroom, making space for students to experience the multiple roles of science writers with their peers. In addition, blogging provides a bridging space between students’ everyday discourse and the discourse of science, regardless of whether students’ everyday discourse is in a completely different language or a dialect of English. The way in which blogger has been used in my classroom enables students to go back and forth between written and spoken discourse, in a safe and supportive learning environment, helping to improve students’ confidence with science writing and speaking thus supporting positive science identity development.

5. Teaching and Learning about STEM and Information Technologies: A Collaboration between a University and a Community-Based Organization. Stephen Adams, California State University, Long Beach

This presentation describes a collaborative project between a university and a community-based organization for teaching and learning about information technologies in science, engineering, and mathematics. The approach involves a university course that is offered to credentialed K-12 teachers concerning using educational technologies in science, engineering and mathematics. As part of a field experience activity for the course, the teachers work in teams to plan and conduct workshops in these subjects at a community-based organization (CBO). The workshops involve 4 sessions of about two hours each. The approach serves two complementary goals, related to the preparation of teachers and to providing educational experiences for under-served youth populations. One goal is to provide field experiences for teachers, together with support and reflection upon practice(Goldstein, Goldstein, & Lake, 2003), as this can aid in helping pre-service teachers move toward more reform-based practices (Roehrig & Luft, 2006). A second goal is to provide educational activities for youth at the community-based organization. A substantial part of the achievement gap can be attributed to a loss of learning during the summer months (Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay, & Greathouse, 1996, Heyns, 1987), and providing further educational experiences may help offset this gap. This approach was piloted in summer, 2014, with a group of 17 teachers, working in four teams of approximately four teachers each. Each team of teachers worked with one of four groups of 20 students at the CBO. Altogether, there were 80 participating students at the CBO, with half aged 8-10 and the other half aged 11-14. This presentation describes the overall model as well as findings from an evaluation regarding the participating students based on surveys and focus groups. The model and evaluation findings can inform efforts to develop similar collaborations.

6. Increase Student’s Media Literacy by Having Them Tell Stories with Social Media. David Magolis, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Enjoy creating stories with social media? Do your students enjoy using social media? Do your students like telling stories? Social media storytelling has moved from a pastime to a skilled endeavor. Come to this session to find out how college students are using Storify to increase their media literacy production and storytelling abilities by creating stories with previously produced social media and their own words. Storify is a drag-and-drop multi-media blogging platform that incorporates various social media technologies to help produce and tell stories through pictures, videos, tweets, and other media. Students utilized this drag-and-drop software in a college class as a means to integrate multimedia to produce a story, thus increasing their media production literacy. I will share their experiences of discovery, becoming civically engaged, and telling meaningful stories through text, images, videos and other social media. This conversation will briefly highlight the approaches used in the lessons and will guide attendees to what works and what does not work when using this technology, as well as a conversation about using multi-media platforms to enhance media literacy skills. This conversation will help current and future media users to successfully teach and utilize multi-media platforms for strategic communication endeavors.

7Connecting Across Discourse Communities. Joanne Larson, University of Rochester; George Moses, Northeast Area Development

We will present interdependent model of developmental pathways and learning trajectories we put together as part of a long term ethnography at Freedom Market. Through participatory action research, university researchers and community members are collaborating to transform an ubiquitous urban corner store into the cornerstone of the neighborhood. We will show how the relationships built at the Market are woven throughout the community through multiple means, including social media.

8. Pre DML. Shimira Williams, TekStart

Does your two year old gravitate to your digital devices? Let us explore how to implement technology into early childcare facilities utilizing the joint position statement issued by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College as guidance. In addition, methods to inform, families about resources for how create a balance digital diet. More importantly, how do we advocate for equitable access to technology in our early childhood and out-of-school programs?

9. Connected Camps. Tara Brown, Mimi Ito, Timothy Young, Sima Patel, Victor Lazo, and Summer of Minecraft counselors

Embraced by kids, educators, and parents alike, Minecraft offers a unique opportunity to support and spread connected learning. The Summer of Minecraft team at Connected Camps and Institute of Play have been designing Minecraft challenges and in-game events based on the principles of connected learning. We invite educators, games researchers, designers, and Minecrafters to join our roundtable to share experiences in developing Minecraft programs. What kinds of learning environments are best suited to connected learning through Minecraft? What makes for engaging and productive challenges? What kinds of skills do counselors, facilitators need to mentor and moderate on Minecraft servers?

DMLCafe Session #2: 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

1. Exploring the Intersections of Community Action and Education. Nina Barbuto, Assemble; Sienna Cittadino, Assemble and Maker ED VISTA

Assemble is a community space for arts and technology, focused on serving Pittsburgh youth and the urban neighborhood of Garfield by providing access to Maker, STEAM, and digital media education. Assemble’s Girls Maker Night program engages middle school girls in engineering challenges, human-centered design, public art pieces, and other hands-on applications of STEAM-based skills. The Girls Maker Night participants are currently working on an installation that will be publicly displayed in a nearby neighborhood. The Community Ecology Pattern Project will showcase the girls’ own artwork in a repeated silkscreen pattern. The artwork is all inspired by local biodiversity, and its role in their daily lives. Girls will work hands-on with silk screening, Photoshop, and more to complete the project with the help of expert makers. We intend to offer an interactive workshop in which participants can view the work the girls created (through photograph, as it will be still be on display), and complete a hands-on activity relating to the work. The activity will incorporate the same techniques and processes that the Girls Maker Night participants used to complete the project. We will also offer stickers of the girls’ individual artwork that make up the greater pattern. The overall goal of the workshop will be to promote discussion regarding the role of youth educational programs in community action. The Community Ecology Pattern Project is an example of how digital media education intersects with the wider community. The girls who participate in the program not only learn useful real-world skills, but also how art and technology can affect public perception of society’s relation to our natural world. We hope to foster an interest in this kind of programming elsewhere, and to assist others in getting their projects started.

2. KQED Do Now: Youth Civic Participation Using Social Media. Matt Williams, KQED; Randy Depew, KQED

Two trends have converged in education: Common Core and the changing nature of our digital landscape. Learners are exposed daily to infinite amounts of information online, whether through watching videos on YouTube or sharing photos on Instagram. They have the interest and capacity to read and write simultaneously as this is the norm of growing up digital. However, we cannot mistake this “tech-savviness” as digital literacy. That’s where we as educators can play an effective role as guides and mentors. KQED Do Now is one way to embrace this convergence as it takes on a connected learning approach to education where students learn about and respond to real world issues using media making tools in their pocket and share their ideas on social media to develop critical discourse skills. In Do Now, technology transforms learning as students integrate the of use of mobile devices and social media to convey and respond to arguments about civic issues. In the process of participating in a Do Now discussion, students learn about a topic that has been summarized through the trusted brand of PBS and NPR. They are encouraged to go deeper and learn more about the topic by researching it using social media. Then, they are asked to develop their own response to the issue, often times looking at a national issue through the lens of their local community. They can convey this argument in a variety of ways: 1) a 140 character tweet; 2) a more extensive comment on the website; and 3) a media produced response using one or more modes of communication. When they share their response, it generates peer-to-peer discussion using open platforms like Twitter. This process opens the door to several opportunities for students as they learn to write with a variety of rhetorical strategies, share with an authentic audience, and continue to grow and develop their world-views and voice. They learn civic participation, netiquette, and have the chance to develop into digital citizens – a critical skill for the current and future landscape of our democracy, a landscape in which young people will more and more need to understand how to represent themselves and present ideas in a networked culture. KQED Do Now is simple and elegant as it can be used in a vast amount of ways depending on the learners’ needs. To teach Do Now effective, educators need to understand the Connected Learning framework and allow students to maximize the learning potential through this activity. Working in conjunction with the educator network, the National Writing Project, KQED Do Now is also growing a network of teachers engaged in this work. Currently, over 250 schools from around the world use Do Now in their classrooms. This session will surface ways KQED Do Now can add value to learning in content areas and advance civic engagement and digital citizenship in high school and middle school learning environments.

3. Creating a Digital Hub for College Knowledge: Lessons Learned in Technology Development.  Sharla Berry, University of Southern California

Currently, there is no digital hub for college prep events in Los Angeles. College Knowledge LA is a mobile app that crowdsources college events in the city and lists them in a student friendly format. Join us for a discussion about how to use technology to connect students with community-based resources. College Knowledge LA was built by a group of education researchers. In this discussion we will talk about how we used data about college prep experiences to inform the process of developing the mobile app. The app’s design was informed by focus groups with high school and college students. During the discussion, we will also share what we learned from students about how to build college knowledge in the online space. We will share insights learned from students of color and first generation students about their experiences looking for college prep resources online. We will also discuss lessons learned in the process of securing funding for a civic tech project. In addition to discussing lessons learned in building College Knowledge LA, this discussion will focus on how to build sustainable education technology products that strengthen the pipeline of college information and access for diverse, first generation college students.

4. From our Playbook to Yours: How Educators Can Open-Source Results, Share Lessons, and Broaden Impact Globally. Randy Paris, The Sprout Fund; Nina Barbuto, Ani Martinez, Cathy Lewis Long, Matt Hannigan

At the DML Café, The Sprout Fund will share our Remake Learning Network Playbook, an ambitious project to open source the project code for Pittsburgh’s learning innovation ecosystem. The Remake Learning Network is a diverse group of more than 200 organizations including schools, museums, libraries, afterschool programs, higher education representatives, education technology entrepreneurs, local philanthropies, and community leaders. This collaborative group of individuals and organizations joins together to launch initiatives and channel resources to projects aimed at providing all children and youth with opportunities to develop the skills they’ll need to thrive in the 21st century. The Remake Learning Network Playbook shares (1) the stories of many of Pittsburgh’s leading education innovators and (2) these innovators’ key resources and critical lessons learned. We’re doing so because we want to empower and enable others to benefit from our experience as a learning innovation network. We think that making this project code visible, accessible, and useful for others will hasten the pace at which innovations develop and spread, increase the adoption of effective strategies, reduce redundancy, and allow new innovators to more easily enter the field. We also think that whether you’re a mayor or a museum employee, you have a role to play in remaking education in your community. With the Playbook, we are equipping these practitioners with useful, compelling, and actionable information that will enable them to take advantage of cutting-edge STEAM, digital, and Maker learning practices. Using iPads, participants will be able to engage directly with this novel learning innovation tool and explore The Sprout Fund’s virtual Playbook, guided Sprout staff and some of the learning innovators who the Playbook features. The facilitators will walk participants through the theory behind the project, illustrate the Playbook’s features, brainstorm with Playbook’s utility for participants, and receive direct feedback.

5. LAST MINUTE CANCELLATION: Fresh Ed: The Holodeck, Culturally Responsive Technology.  Jamel Mims, Urban Arts Partnership; Michael Cordero, Urban Arts Partnership, James Miles, Urban Arts Partnership

Fresh Prep, the arts-integration test prep program that leverages the engaging power of hip hop music to help prepare students for success in Global History, US History and English exams, presents The “”Holodeck””, an interactive, classroom space that features all original Fresh Prep music, kinesthetic experiences and challenges for students to self-direct their learning. Rooted in culturally responsive pedagogy, which puts students at the center of the classroom – the “”Holodeck”” is a malleable learning environment that leverages technology and gamification to make curricula more relevant and accessible to students traditionally alienated from the classroom experience. Using widely accessible technology such as miniature projectors, makey-makeys, and augmented reality apps, the Holodeck is a learning environment that comes alive as students enter it, and presents them with a series of challenges related to content. Imagine learning about the Neolithic Revolution by experiencing an immersive environment that projects video and sound from rainforests around the classroom, and then challenges the participants to hunt and gather the resources in the room. Touching objects then triggers a music video filled with content related vocabulary that depicts the transition between hunting and gathering and farming. After the video, participants use tablets to scan artifacts, and remix the music video they just watched. At the end of the experience, participants complete a performance based assessment, and record their own music video, karaoke-style, recalling the keywords and concepts they learned. After a widely successful debut at the SXSWEdu 2015 conference this spring, the presentation will feature a live demonstration of the Holodeck, and a discussion on culturally responsive applications of technology. Participants in this workshop will take away valuable skills in developing lessons and designing classroom spaces that utilize core tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy, and leverage the addition of game layers and technology to promote student engagement.

6. Can Eighth Grade Science Students Find Geospatial Justice? Deb Morrison, Boulder Valley School District & University of Colorado at Boulder

This program was conducted in an 8th grade science classroom with the intent of connecting students everyday lives and issues of equity with science. In middle school, students are often very centered on self and their own social worlds. The first step of our work with middle schoolers began having them examine their own educational journeys and looking for patterns in the ways that their classmates have interacted with education over their lives. The initial examination of self and peers was then expanded in the second step of the program to look at the school and community, exploring the ways in which individual experiences differ within the space that the students’ occupy daily. Finally in the third step of the program we asked students to explore one area of the natural world using the geospatial toolkits they had developed and see if there were issues of equity at this scale. These last two steps were done in groups of 3-4 students. At each step, students created maps, shared their work with peers and looked for patterns among the collective work of their classroom communities. Each student produced a digital portfolio of their work which they shared with parents and community members during an open house event. Students gained a great deal of insight into the ways in which they were both privileged and oppressed at various scales and spaces. They engaged in critical literacy work within their science content. The use of geospatial tools provided students with learning around the intersection of technology, geography, and various branches of science in the context of examining the world through a lens of equity. All digital tools used with students are freely available to K-12 students.

7. Teach Web Literacy and Digital Skills with Mozilla Hive Learning Networks. Julia Vallera, Mozilla Hive Learning Networks, Hive NYC; Sam Dyson, Hive Chicago, Robert Friedman, Hive Chicago, Elsa Rodriguez, Hive Chicago, Leah Gilliam, Hive NYC, Karen Smith, Hive Toronto

Multiple facilitators will be on hand from Mozilla Hive Learning Networks, which offers programs and a global community dedicated to helping people learn the most important skills of our age: the ability to read, write and participate in the digital world. Mozilla wants more people to see themselves as citizens of the web. Our approach focuses on peer learning for adults and youth that is production-centered, rooted in open practices, facilitated online and in person, and localized culturally but connected globally. In this DML Café station, attendees will be introduced to aspects of Mozilla’s web literacy educational offerings or to facilitate smaller group discussions on specific topics of interest. Participants can: * Explore the Mozilla Web Literacy Map and related curriculum/teaching resources that are modular, adaptable, and have been developed and tested in various learning settings. * Play with browser-based tools like X-Ray Goggles to remix your organization’s homepage–an activity you can also facilitate with learners * Find out how to host a Maker Party event, or set up a Mozilla Club where learners meet regularly and learn digital skills by making. * Learn about how to bring the Hive Learning Networks model to their city, an organized effort to bring local educators, organizations and learners together for greater impact. In 2015, Mozilla’s goal is to foster and sustain web literacy activities in 500 cities around the globe. Join us by teaching, learning, sharing and imagining the full power of the web.

8Join Us for a #CLMOOC-style Mini Make Cycle Anna Smith, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Christina Cantrill, National Writing Project; Kim Doulliard, Cardiff Elementary School and San Diego Writing Project

During six weeks in the heat of the summer, educators from around the globe come together online to write, “make,” reflect, and play with new tools and processes in order to explore the Connected Learning framework. Called the Making Learning Connected MOOC (or #clmooc, for short), the goals of this professional learning opportunity are to: – Engage participants in interest-driven, making-centered experiences that embody the Connected Learning principles. – Adopt a collaborative approach and a reflective stance toward the processes of making and learning. – Provide an opportunity for participants to plan for an enactment of these experiences in educational settings. At our table, we will host a #clmooc-style Mini Make Cycle. We will have “make” invitations, a range of supplies and tools to explore, and enthusiastic educators ready to discuss what connected learning means for you and the learners for whom you design instruction. Just like in #clmooc, you can come and go as you please. You may end up hacking a toy or a notebook, making a map to explore an issue near and dear to your heart, or designing images with new apps. We can’t wait to see what we make and learn together!

9. Youth, New Media, and Democratic Governance: Designing Digitally Enabled Initiatives to Support the Youth Participatory Policy Making Process in an Emergent Democracy. Jaime Lee, UNESCO; Ashley Lee, Independent

UNESCO is working on drafting and passing of a legislation on Access to Information (A2I) in Cambodia, in collaboration with local and international partners, such as the Government of Cambodia, international organizations, international and local NGOs, civil society, academic institutions, and youth organizations. Young people have traditionally been excluded from government decision-making processes and are not equipped with skills, tools, and platforms to voice their concerns. Yet, for the A2I legislation to reach a robust implementation stage after its initial passage, it is critical to build the capacity of the public to exercise their right to know and increase the demand for public information. Young people’s participation in the A2I process will be critical for the long-term sustainability of such efforts. This session will explore how policymakers and educators can design policy, educational and technical platforms to engage young people – both online and offline – in the country’s participatory policy-making process. How can the A2I initiative include young people in a legislative drafting process of the Access to Information law, and directly engage them in envisioning and building an open and responsive government? In particular, how can the A2I Initiative leverage digital media to engage young people in countries with a large youth bulge and highly centralized governments? This session will invite you to discuss successful models of youth participation in other organizations, and to brainstorm a multi-stakeholder approach for UNESCO to engage effectively with young people across the partnership structure on its A2I priority areas. In a mini-hackathon, participants will have an opportunity to brainstorm a youth engagement strategy for the A2I Initiative that moves beyond the more traditional channels of engagement by leveraging digital media.

10. Sharing EdTech Skills in South Africa August 2015.  Karen Page, K2 Productions Global

EdTech Summit South Africa is a program that invites teachers from all over the world to apply to join a global cohort that travels throughout South Africa each year in August to share teaching and technology skills and ideas with teachers there. The group is comprised of approximately 15-18 people and we join South African teachers in each Summit location as we present hands-on workshops that help teachers move away from a lecture-based style of delivering content. We are focused on teacher training program development addressing education equity and social justice issues by working to implement creative and cutting edge technologies in schools and communities. The Summit is free for teachers to attend and we reached over 800 teachers last year in 6 locations around the country. We support teachers and learners with innovative technology tools and training to aid in the acquisition of modern skills, methodologies and instructional strategies. EdTech Summit South Africa is specifically aimed at growing the confidence and skills of teachers in creative technology integration and implementation. We are particularly dedicated to educators teaching in challenging, underserved and under-resourced environments where technology has been nonexistent or training opportunities rare. We believe motivated teachers who are aware of the vast open-source and low-cost resources out there to teach with can cross generations of barriers to bring excitement, innovation and measurable learning acceleration into their classrooms. The 2015 program will begin Aug 5 in Johannesburg and travel to 8 locations ending in Cape Town on Aug 25.

 
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