When we walked into the room, the first thing we thought was “Oh my goodness, so many kids!” Originally, we had contracted to do LAMPcamp for the Prospect Park YMCA, we had figured on 12-15 kids (even split between boys and girls). Well, the room was brimming with 29 future LAMPers who looked at us with a little confusion. We didn’t have much time so we started right in (and so much we hoped to accomplish on our first day), passed out their LAMPackets for the week and moved everyone into a circle.

We showed them some basic interview techniques and then handed them the camera. They were supposed to switch back and forth interviewing the person seated next to them, then handing off the camera, and going around the circle. With so many kids, we pulled out another camera and got the other side involved in the same activity.

And even while this was going on, we still had kids idling doing nothing. So we chatted them up. Asking them about all sorts of things regarding media: Facebook vs. MySpace (”MySpace is so boring” “Facebook is for adults” etc.), Sidekicks vs. Smartphones (They all decided that DC’s phone needed a massive upgrade), TV vs. hulu/youtube/limewire (”Why would you need to listen to the song on your phone when you can get it for free at limewire?”), etc. Finally, we made it through the opening interviews, which meant it was time for our Media Scavenger Hunt.

Once out on the street, the LAMPers really engaged with the urban environment, trading off taking pictures and videos of different instances of media they encountered. And because we had such a short period of time to work with, we really had to cut short the full exploration. But every single kid had the exact same thing to say at the end of the Hunt: “I never realized how many advertisements and media there are in the neighborhood before we stopped to look today.” Score!

We broke into smaller groups (2 boy groups, 2 girl groups) and discussed the media projects each group will be working on for the rest of the week. Here we’ll really be able to engage in a deeper exploration and conversation about topics that really interest them. We’re looking forward to what these obviously creative LAMPers will come up with.

Some of the best lessons and interesting experiences from the 1st day:
- On the Scavenger Hunt, our LAMPers found a bodega that had a wall panel overflowing with cigarette ads (who didn’t know why they’d never seen a cigarette ad on TV), sitting next to another panel that was advertising NY State’s “Quit Smoking” campaign.

- When we broke into girls-only and boys-only groups, one of our male LAMPers asked why we did. It was stated to allow us the opportunity to explore topics and to talk about things that we don’t feel comfortable saying in front of the opposite gender. He replied “I don’t act differently around girls.” Really? Don’t you say things with other guys that you don’t say in front of girls? “Oh, yeah, i guess i do.”

- During a short discussion about “What defines a guy?”, after answers like “your father, your brother, your uncle, etc.” we got ‘Michael Jackson’. Someone replied to that “Michael Jackson ain’t a man, he talks like a girl.” Many were quick to defend Michael but it also led to an incredibly rich discussion about what makes a “guy” (deep voice, big muscles, anger, etc.) and how did they derive this image.

Already we can see that time is a very precious commodity, and we have so much to accomplish by the end of this week. On Wednesday, we’re getting a presentation from Daniela Capistrano on her work at MTV, and then we’re going to break back into our small boys/girls groups and really get to cracking on our media projects.

If any of you would like us to explore anything in particular with our LAMPers, leave us a comment on this site or drop as a line on Twitter: @thelampnyc

Catch ya on Wednesday!

I think it’s most useful to take the long view here when thinking about how to adopt any kind of new technology into education.  There can be good and bad applications of any form of communication in learning, even face-to-face communication.  The standard lecture format really stinks in many instances because it can be so darn boring, even for us analog types who really enjoy listening to a good speaker.  Not everyone learns well that way, and sometimes that method actually inhibits learning.  Likewise, the use of television in the classroom can be good, if used the right way.  Courses taught remotely via television have, for years, been beneficial to those who are geographically (or otherwise logistically) separated from a place of learning (remember “Sunrise Semester”?).   A recent U.S. Dept. of Education study on on-line learning shows that students who take on-line courses often do much better than those who sit in a large classroom for the same course, and that those who take a hybrid course using both online and face-t0-face communication do best.  Using the Internet for formal educating seems to be gaining acceptance, despite years of negative opinions on the matter (even by me, I must admit).  These things take time.  It’s hard to break old modes of learning, especially by educators like me who like to do it the way we’re used to doing it.

Let’s be realistic, though.  We have to recognize that our communication technologies and styles have been changing for centuries.  These technologies change so much of who we are, and how we see the world, and we don’t keep up well in all areas of our  social/civic lives.  In particular, our education methods are far behind our modes of communication a lot of the time.  It’s not entirely the fault of educators.  They’ve been trained to use certain models of learning that keep them in tight communicative control of the learning situation, even with differentiation for learning styles (a hats off to special education teachers here).  The revolutionary digital era that we’re enmeshed in is changing us very quickly and it’s hard to think about having  everything change with it.

But not everything has to change, and not that quickly.  However,  cell phone technology ought to be seriously considered as one of many communicative tools that could be used in some education settings some of the time.  Note that I’m not suggesting it replace anything else being used right now.  I think that, as a mode of communication, cell phones are very engaging for students of many ages who take to it like ducks to water.  Texting, twittering and surfing the net are ways in which youth and many adults engage with the world.  Let’s not ban it altogether in their learning, but try to embrace it somehow where it makes sense, or at least try to experiment with it a bit.  That will mean we have to give up some of our dyed in the wool ideas about what learning settings are to look like.  And I don’t mean just learning settings where we’re teaching about technology.  I mean all learning settings, from mathematics, to ELA, to history, to even home economics (is that still taught?).  

I challenge you to stop some of your short-term fluster for a bit and put some deep thought into what a different paradigm of learning might look like.  For a short time, try not to worry about which cell phones will be used in the classroom, who will pay for the service, how will we get the DOE of wherever to change their policies, how will we keep control of the kids when they can’t pay attention to us because they’re so attached to their hand-held devices, etc., etc.  

I challenge you to think about changing your habits as educators, parents and even students.  Maybe there’s a hybrid method of learning we can consider where different types of communication can be used for different learning purposes.  We’re going to try it at LAMPcamp next week when we get to work with middle-school aged kids from Brooklyn who are attending a YMCA camp that we’ve been invited to.  Instead of having the campers check their cell phones at the door, we’re going to welcome their sidekicks and phones into the room, and we’re going to have the kids text us, and, most importantly, we’re going to try to have them really talk to us about their communication lives.  We’re psyched.  We have no idea how it’s going to go, but we’ll definitely keep you posted.   

–Katherine G. Fry

Contact: Emily Long, Communications Director

The LAMP

718-789-8170

http://www.thelampnyc.org

The LAMP Announces LAMPcamp

Brooklyn tweens explore advertising to youth, gender in media during hands-on media literacy creative workshop

Brooklyn, New York: The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) will hold its first LAMPcamp at the Prospect Park YMCA from July 13-17^th. Middle-school aged boys and girls, or ‘LAMPers,’ will explore the ways that advertisers attempt to market products to them, and how women and men are represented in the media. The boys and girls will separate to discuss issues such as body image and gender stereotypes, and will create their own short documentaries on the subject. In addition, LAMPcamp will include guest speakers from the media industry, a media scavenger hunt, and multiple opportunities for the students to create their own media and discuss the way media impacts their daily lives.

“The summer can be an especially tough time for young people in terms of media inundation,” said Katherine Fry, Ph.D., Education Director for The LAMP. “A lot of kids spend their summer nights in a movie theatre with their friends, or even watching TV or playing video games all day. Even going to the beach or to the pool can bring up a lot of uncomfortable body image issues, many of which are exacerbated by the media messages sent to them every day. LAMPcamp is a way for our students to stay sharp about what they see and hear.”

Guest speakers for LAMPcamp will give LAMPers a behind-the-scenes at how and why certain media are made. Speakers will include Daniela Capistrano, producer for the 2007 and 2008 MTV Movie Awards and MTV Music Awards; Sean Murphy, award-winning artist and author with D.C. Comics; Jennifer Vineyard, freelance journalist and cultural critic, with possibly more to be confirmed.

About The LAMP:

The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) is a non-profit organization based in Brooklyn and founded in September 2007. With a commitment to address the lack of basic media literacy education in New York City schools and communities, The LAMP offers free workshops and public events designed to help young people, parents and teachers make sense of the media barrage they encounter in their daily lives. LAMP workshops not only demystify the content and technologies of media, but they also help bridge the digital divide that often alienates youth from adults, while providing the workforce development skills needed to compete in a modern job market. By creating and editing their own blogs, videos, newspapers and more, students are further encouraged to explore the use of media as a positive outlet for creative expression.

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Reports that arrived immediately following the announcement of Jackson’s death flooded the airwaves (that term’s still relevant when referring to TV and the Internet together, right?). It was in fact via Twitter that we here at the LAMP first learned of this occurrence. It didn’t take long before these reports started to dissect this newly deceased man’s life, pulling up stories, images and videos of his various missteps and malfunctions off the stage. Somehow this was appropriate to mourning the loss of one of the biggest impacts in the last quarter century on our global culture - both entertainment-wise as well as with regards to humanitarian efforts. The public debate became one about his legacy - how it should be framed and what should be its content.

What now emerges, just as the wicks in the mourning candles lit last night in remembrance of this man start to cool, is another debate. What damage is news coverage of his passing doing to other important stories? Is his death newsworthy? In the wake of the protests in Iran, does the sidetracking of the focus the Western media had put on the uprisings harm the cause of the protesters (this of course presumes that media coverage in the West has helped the protesters and not hurt them)?

We do not take a particular position on this matter. Frankly, we’re delighted that people are even debating what is newsworthy and what isn’t. It speaks to a much more prevalent media literacy that exists, and it doesn’t escape our notice that the same media folks are choosing to participate in this polemic (social networks, Twitter) are the same ones that informed us of these current events to begin with.

On Friday, general elections for Iranian President took place. Shortly after,  incumbent President Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, defeating his rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The reaction worldwide was astonishment and shock, but none more outraged than those within Iran’s borders. Gradually, demonstrations began to assemble on the streets of Tehran, growing in intensity, despite the threats of armed response from the government. Coinciding with these brave protesters, another demonstration has emerged on Twitter. Thousands of people are spreading information, links, pictures and other words of encouragement all with the hash tag of #iranelection, which means when you perform a Twitter search on that term, you can witness the constant stream of tweets it chains together. I encourage you to spend a few minutes reading through the long list of updates. It’s pretty incredible. You see hundreds and perhaps thousands of folks around the world using this “useless” medium to voice their support for those Iranians gathering to demand their voices heard and their votes counted.

While monitoring the events that are unfolding on Twitter (and on some other sites as well), several things occurred to me. Numerous messages are being forwarded about actions by the Iranian Government:

“They’re cutting off all connections now, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger Twitter..”

“CONFIRMED!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLEASE RT! URGENT!”

While monitoring this stream, I’ve encountered these repeated over and over by folks who probably have the kindest of intentions, but how do they possibly know that what they are spreading is accurate information? There have been several photos posted via TwitPic that depict some gruesome scenes, but again, how are we certain these photos are coming from these harrowing events? Another item was posted several times in Twitter that the BBC’s website had changed it’s colors to green in order to show solidarity with Mousavi’s supporters (”2mw: rt@omasciandaro: The BBC web site just went green in support of Iraninan opposition. Small gesture, huge message. Go green! #iranelection“). However, this isn’t true. The BBC’s website has been these colors for a long while.

We asked several questions on Twitter about this subject:

-How many of you are following #iranelection? How many of those tweets w/that label can you trust? What % need to be dismissed? % heeded?

-Twitter + #iranelection = first Internet uprising? http://bit.ly/ZQYDc But who’s in command? Are there guiding principles?

-How do you trust the “factual” ones? are those twitpics really pics of #iranelection? Who’s factchecking?

While this is by no means a statistically significant sampling, the only responses we got to our questions were of the nature that factchecking, guidance and critical analysis weren’t important to what was being attempted through Twitter. This response brings up a whole bunch of other questions: What constitutes an uprising? Do these well-intentioned folks really understand Iranian politics and the positions Mousavi held in the election?

Maybe we’re seeing the first Internet uprising, and perhaps other uprisings also dealt with this amount of misinformation being disseminated, but one thing is for sure: Twitter is more than just telling others about the chili cheese dog you had for lunch.

I forgot how much fun it is to do show and tell.  As a first grader I loved to bring something special from home to show my classmates:  something I made, something I thought was interesting, or sometimes any old thing at all, just so I could command their attention while I nattered on enthusiastically at the front of the classroom about the little bag or rock or book I brought from home.  What a rush that was.

 The LAMP got to do a show and tell of our own last week at Media Conversations IV, a media literacy/media education conference held at several venues in Manhattan from June 4-6.  Our show and tell was at Fordham, Lincoln Center from 1-3 pm on Saturday afternoon.  Conference organizers Lance Strate of Fordham University and David Walczyk of Pratt Institute invited us to be part of a conference that included pretty much a who’s who of media literacy, media education and media ecology scholars in the New York City and surrounding area. 

 We just loved telling our audience what the LAMP has been doing for the past two years, and showing them a selection of videos from our media scavenger hunt, our advertising, documentary and news workshops, and from other special events (all available on our youtube channel).  We even got to whine a bit about the challenges we’ve faced trying to bring an enlightened, reasoned media literacy education to our fellow New York families, educators and the like. 

 On the one hand our show and tell was a great way to strut our stuff for educators for whom I have deep respect, and on the other it was a wonderful chance to reflect on all that we’ve been able to accomplish on a shoe-string. 

 Our particular show and tell was flanked by two spectacular panels that same day at Fordham.  The morning panel consisted of panelists working on media literacy issues internationally.  It was a most impressive presentation and discussion about the media literacy work Hofstra University’s Paul Mihailidis is doing at the Salzburg Institute, that Holly Morganelli of Pratt and Sister Mary Bosco Amakwe of Seton Hall have done in Africa, and that Jordi Torrent is doing via the Media Literacy Education Project through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. 

 The panel following ours included esteemed media literacy pioneer Renee Hobbs of Temple University, Dan Latorre, Martin Levinson, Bill Petkanas, and Thom Gencarelli.  With their opening remarks, the five of them, an interesting mix of academics, consultants and a former President of the Institute of General Semantics, set the stage for an inspiring philosophical conversation about the direction of media growth, how we talk about and think about media across generations, and how all of us, as educators in one sense or another, face amazing challenges in our quest to come to terms with what media are and what they will become. 

 I was flattered that the LAMP had the chance to showcase our media-literacy-on-the- ground amongst this stellar group.  What a rush.

Katherine G. Fry

Of course there are alternatives. I can take my stuff to EplanetEwaste and pay for the convenience of more or less handing them a bag of stuff and walking away. One excellent option is to bring unwanted e-waste to the Lower East Side Ecology Center, although their e-waste events are currently on hold until September. Another is RecycleThis!, which was formed in 2002 in response to Mayor Bloomberg’s recycling program budget cuts, but their event calendar is empty. Outside of that, I can investigate buyback or donation programs for every individual piece of e-waste I’ve stockpiled.  This can be done, but it’s time-consuming and inconvenient for me to have to make separate trips for each item.

That’s not necessarily an excuse not to recycle my e-waste, but what I hate is that it is at all difficult. A densely-populated city like New York, where mp3 players, laptops and cell phones can seem like standard issue items, should make it as easy as possible for me and everyone else to make responsible choices. I could just stuff it all in a garbage can; that won’t be illegal until July 2010. PLANYC has a lot of great ideas for reducing carbon emissions, but–and please correct me if I am wrong–basic recycling isn’t part of it. I understand that nobody likes making budget cuts, but it’s counterproductive to try to build a healthy city in a modern age where electronics recycling is not sponsored or more widely promoted by the city. Let’s hope that when the downturn starts to turn up, the DSNY e-waste programs will be restored.

We ended up giving away the old TV set to an elderly neighbor whose equally elderly television had died; truly, we could not find anyone who wanted to buy our practically ancient device. In the meantime, we’re watching TV shows and movies online from a laptop, and it’s a different experience. Years ago, as a graduate student living just above the poverty line, I went without television at all and just watched DVDs on the set I bought with my college graduation money. It was kind of great not having ads and chatter being brought into my home, but instead I was in control. So, it’s surprising to me that I miss television at all, knowing firsthand how great life can be without it.

Even with the rise of sites like Hulu and YouTube, the percentage of people who prefer to use their computer as their television remains rather low; a recent study by Pangea and YPulse found that only 10% of teens opt to watch shows on their laptop rather than on a TV set. In some ways, I can see why. The form does change the way you view content, however so slightly. While watching a movie last night, it didn’t have the same larger-than-life feel that lingers on a big screen. I had to keep hitting the mousepad every 5 minutes when the screen went blank to energy-save mode, lulling me out of my couch potato state. And since the computer is something I typically use to do work, the impulse existed to catch up on email with the movie playing in an inset window. Sure, I check email in front of a regular TV, but the difference is that I don’t feel like it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, since that isn’t the purpose of a television. It’s different on a laptop. I had more distance from what I was watching, and couldn’t quite commit in the same way.

I suppose the real test would be to ban myself (and my husband) from watching anything at all on the computer, and spend two weeks with no movies or videos whatsoever. But, come on. Moving is stressful enough, right?

As 28.8 Million American television viewers crowned Kris Allen the latest American Idol, thus potentially launching the young man onto stardom, the conversation about whether he deserved his crown didn’t end. It happened in the newscasts that evening, on the radio the next morning, and throughout the country’s newspapers. It happened at the water cooler, and for me, even at lunch. That’s where it occurred to me how brilliant the show ‘American Idol’ truly is.

Simon Cowell created the show, which just completed its eighth season. The show offers the view that they are making someone’s dream come true (i.e. the winner), but the real accomplishment is Simon’s growing fortune. In every episode, the show essentially goes to the consumers themselves, in their living room, and asks them to pick the future popstars they will want to listen to, download their music and attend their concerts. This is taking the guess work out of the process that used to occur in the privacy of the music company’s board room. And on top of that they are making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in advertising revenue, doing this before the Idol sells a single album. Like i said, the conversation about these Idol champions do not end as the final vote is cast. People all over the country, on Twitter, and during their lunch hour are debating whether Kris should’ve won over Adam (the runner-up), thus continuing the work for Idol beyond their living room.

Simply brilliant. And I wouldn’t have come to this understanding if I myself hadn’t been part of a conversation about a TV show (that admittedly, I’ve never caught an episode of).