National Writing Project Michigan Retreat- Day 1

National Writing Project Michigan Summer Retreat: Day 1

During the keynote address, given by MSU's Danielle Devoss, the concept of writing as digital was presented. As she put it, "Writing IS digital." Through her presentation, Danielle highlighted eight components of what digital is:

1. Digital is networked.

2. Digital is collaborative.

3. Digital is multimodal.

4. Digital is re-mediated.

5. Digital is remixed.

6. Digital is policed.

7. Digital requires critical thinking.

8. Digital can be democratic.

Digital is Networked

Danielle showed us several staggering statistics, including the number of content postings every day on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and several other social sites. As she put it, "the innovation isn't the tool, the innovation is in what educators are able to do with the tool." Paul Allison tells us that the networking ability of writing in digital environment amplifies the writing instruction effectiveness.

Digital is Collaborative

My favorite thing Danielle showed us is the Lol Cats Bible Translation Wiki. I'm slightly familiar with the icanhascheezburger LOL cat, but it is hilarious that large teams of people are spending their time translating the Bible into LOL cat language. 

Digital is Remediated

If you look through YouTube, a common thread is the remediation of writing, where a media object is taken and moved into another medium. An amazing example comes from angryalien.com where they take feature films and retell them in 30 seconds, using bunnies.

                              "March of the Penguins in 30 Seconds"

Digital is Remixed
Julian Marsano, a teacher from Brooklyn, creates public service announcements with his students as a way to teach media literacy. By identifying an important message that students want to address, such as global warming, students write a script and determine how to ethically incorporate photographs, music, and other created media with their script to create an effective message. On YouTube, there are several remixed clips, including the Scary Mary Poppins in which clips from the movie are set to the Psycho soundtrack, giving a completely different (and humorous) message.


Digital is Policed
There are several examples of videos from YouTube that have been forcibly removed after copywritten material was reposted. The fact is, authorship is an important struggle with the ease of information. She asked the question, what happens if students use media in the creations for which they do not have permissions? It's important to teach acceptable use policies, similar to blogger BudtheTeacher's policy. The Center for Social Media is a good resource.


Digital Requires Critical Thinking

Click for larger image.

This was my favorite point. Danielle emphasized the need for teaching media and visual literacy. Not everything we see is necessarily true, therefore critical skills are necessary as we consume media. A perfect example is the picture of Faith Hill in the 2007 Redbook magazine. The original image was released, and the differences between the two are staggering. This reminds me of the Dove commercial where they show the process of a photoshoot.


And without giving too much away, check out the website for the new Pomegranate Phone website. 


Digital can be Democratic
There are many great examples of digital media providing a level of democracy to users, as the control lies with the users and not any particular power. A perfect example was during a media blackout in Iran. CNN reporters were told not to leave their office, under penalty of law, yet thousands of Iranians used Twitter to tell the world what was going on. In our own country, voices were given to students during the NWP's Letters to the Next President letter campaign, or the CNN YouTube Debates in which citizens posed questions to Presidential candidates. 


I just have to say, wow. Danielle is a genius.