I’m in the process of slowly weaving various conferences into my teaching/studying/dog-walking schedule.

This Friday I’ll be participating in the Digital Media and Learning Conference in San Diego. I’m speaking as part of a session titled “Orality, Pedagogy, and New Media: How Children Develop Self-Awareness and Collective Consciousness.” I’m pasting the info below. Registration is closed, but if you’re heading down there anyways, drop me a line.

Orality, Pedagogy, and New Media: How Children Develop Self-Awareness and Collective Consciousness

Location: Room 4004

Chair: Antero Garcia (University of California, Los Angeles)

Participants: Antero Garcia (University of California, Los Angeles), Greg Niemeyer (University of California, Berkeley), Davida Herzl (Aclima), Dehanza Rogers (Cal State Northridge), Scott Ruston (Arizona State University, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication)

An analysis of the convergence of orality, pedagogy, and new media, this session looks at how new technologies are still rooted in oral culture and the implications of this distinction on pedagogy. Presenters will discuss and provide interactive opportunities around ways these themes tie into game play, literacy development, data aggregation, and DIY filmmaking. Alternate reality environmental game, the Black Cloud, will anchor part of this presentation and allow real-time prediction and aggregation opportunities for participants. Similarly, session participants will engage in cell-phone literacy demonstrations, help author a FlipCam documentary, and engage in traditional dialogue. Further, presenters will examine the role of radical transparency and collective eco-intelligence as they disrupt existing measuring systems. As social media proliferates and cell phones continue to overcome barriers within classrooms and informal learning environments, the role of orality within education continues to be disregarded. Reexamining new media’s emphasis of an oral culture through text messages, status updates, and twitter feeds, this interactive symposium provides analysis of orality as it plays out in gaming, cell phone applications in a high school context, data aggregation, and the role of documentary filmmaking. Looking into the connections between John Dewey and Walter Ong, this symposium and its interactive dialogue help guide practitioners and researchers towards expanded media and pedagogical opportunities through orality.

Further down the road, I’ll also be presenting with a group of friends at the Critical Teaching in Action Conference on March 13. The full program is not online yet.

The AERA schedule is up too, but I’m still figuring a few things out.