What's mine is yours and what's yours is... everyone's.

I really enjoyed that article! Jenkins brought up a lot of the ideas and problems that we have been discussing in class and explained in ways that I hadn't thought about.

I guess what stuck out to me most as something that could/should have an impact on my instruction is the skill of transmedia navigation, being able to follow and create stories and information across an array of modalities. To begin with, this sounds so much like my students. I especially identified with his description of the kids who struggle to understand why Spiderman doesn't appear the same in the comics, cartoons, films, and figurines. It goes to the idea, in a way, of judgment and being able to examine the perspectives and influences of the authors/creators of the varied images of Spidey. Using popular culture to help students begin the process of analyzing for perspective and purpose seems like it could be very powerful and could be a great scaffolding activity to get them into talking about identifying and analyzing images in advertising or news for perspective, bias, and purpose.

The bigger thing for me though, as an English teacher, was the concept of creating stories across modalities. Jenkins quotes Kress as "[advocating] moving beyond teaching written composition to teaching design literacy as the basic expressive competency of the modern era" (Jenkins 47). As someone who is currently staring down a stack of 150 sophomore narrative essays that need grading, the idea of the students creating a story that's a combination of film, sound, and other mediums sounds very appealing. :) It certainly would appeal to the students' strengths and interests, and it seems very constructivist in nature. The students would really have to understand what they were trying to communicate in order to get the message across accurately and meaningfully through a variety of media. There is a concern though about what kinds of materials and images the students appropriate for their creations. And I'm not just talking about copyrights and plagiarism. What happens when a student uses an image or video or soundbite that enforces negative, harmful stereotypes or assumptions? How do we engage with them about it? How do we read that use of that image/video/soundbite in the first place?

Another idea that appealed to me was the idea of collective intelligence. I especially noted the quote about how schools teach kids to work as autonomous problem-solvers, not as a community of collaborators. Again, looking at this from the practical side, having students work collaboratively in groups to complete projects and tasks could cut my grading load in half. :) It would require a huge shift away from the idea that students have to produce individually to be successful. And there would certainly be concerns that some students will simply try to sail through on the coat tails of their more productive team mates. We've all been there and felt that and it's frustrating as all get out. Is there some way to measure individual involvement to guarantee that all group members are participating or does that go against the very principle of collaboration and collective intelligence in the first place?

I think that's about it for now. Until next week...