Twitter :-)

I cannot believe that it has almost been a year since my last post. Wouww… time flies. This post is simply to create awareness of the fact that I also engage with Twitter now: http://twitter.com/MikalaHansboel. I am actually not that active on this either at the moment, but it may come…

Post doc in learning games

From the 1st of February 2009 I’m going to work as a post doc in learning games in relation to the Serious Games on a Global Market Place project. I can hardly wait :-)

Nyt Experience Lab

Jeg læste om det nye laboratorium her: http://www.cedi.dk/visNyhed.aspx?ID=7553

Besøg Experience Labs hjemmeside: http://www.science.ku.dk/experiencelab/, hvor der bl.a. står følgende:

“Experience lab er et rum til observation af mennesker der bruger IT/medier. Med Experience lab er det muligt at lave iagttagelser og forsøg med menneskers handlinger, specielt brugen af medier og informationsteknologi. Det består af moderne udstyr til optagelse af personers handlinger og til registrering og bearbejdning af observationer.

Udstyret gør det muligt at lave iagttagelser og forsøg på en mere pålidelig og langt hurtigere måde end ved brug af papir og blyant. Derved bliver det specielt muligt at undersøge medier og kunstneriske udtryk med brug af eksperimentelle metoder.

… Experience lab er oprettet i efteråret 2008 og drives som et samarbejde mellem Datalogisk Institut og Institut for Medier, Erkendelse og Formidling. Det er desuden åbent for undervisning, for andre forskere ved Københavns Universitet, for forskere fra andre institutioner som led i samarbejdsprojekter med forskere på Datalogisk Institut og Institut for medier, erkendelse og formidling.”

Digital Youth Project

Today, I recieved an interesting mail on the mediaanthro list announcing the public release of the findings from the to date most extensive US (three year 2005-2008) ethnographic study (of mostly youth between the ages of 12 and 18/19 – depending on where you read) of new media in kids’ everyday lives. The “Digital Youth Project” has among other published some of its findings in a summary report. Furthermore, it is possible to take a glimse at the forthcoming book “Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) at the project’s website. 

The authors of the forthcoming book write: “The goal of this project and this book has been to document the everyday lives of youth as they engage with new media and to put forth a paradigm for understanding learning and participation in contemporary networked publics. Our primary descriptive question has been: How are new media being taken up by youth practices and agendas? We have organized our shared analysis across our different case studies according to categories of practice that correspond to youth experience: media ecologies, friendship, intimacy, family, gaming, creative production, and work. In this way, we have mapped an ecology of different youth practices as well as mapping the broader social and cultural ecologies that contexualize these practices. As we take into account these larger structuring contexts, we have remained attentive to the dynamics of youth culture and sociability, seeking to understand new media practices from a youth point of view. We have described the diversity in forms of youth new media practice in terms of genres of participation rather than categorizing youth based on individual characteristics. In this way, we have articulated the relationship between broader social and cultural structures and everyday youth activity in ways that take into account the changing and situationally specific nature of youth engagement with specific practices. Although we see our work as essentially exploratory, as among the first steps toward mapping the terrain of youth new media practice, we have tried to identify some initial landmarks and boundaries that define this area of ethnographic inquiry.

Following from our descriptive focus, we had a central analytic question: How do these practices change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge?” (Source: Final Report: Conclusion).

At present, this can in many ways be considered a seminal research project. Both the draft of the book as well as the project website appears worth while taking a thorough look at . I’m certainly going to do that, and I hereby invite others to do the same and engage in discussions on this blog of the Digital Research Project and its results.

Some questions that come to my mind:

On what ‘grounds’ have the research been conducted?

What (if any) are the contributions from this research which we as (Danish) researchers may take with us and learn from?

In which ways may the Danish (media) ecologies of everyday livings be viewed as similar to as well as different from the US (media) ecologies of everyday livings – as presented by the Digital Youth Project researchers?

What may be the contributions of this research to the further development of our understandings of the ways in which ‘new media’ can take part in youth’s learning practices?

What may be the contributions of this research to the further development of our understandings of the ways in which ‘new media’ can take part in educational designs and practices?

Nyt online tidsskrift Læring og Medier (LOM)

På Læring og Mediers hjemmeside står der om tidsskriftet:

“Læring og Medier (LOM) er et web-baseret, elektronisk tidsskrift om anvendelse af it og digitale medier til formidling, læring, kompetenceudvikling og samarbejde.

Tidsskriftet henvender sig til undervisere, formidlere af forskningsresultater, udviklere af e-læring, samt til planlæggere med ansvar for undervisning, læring, kompetenceudvikling og samarbejde på de videregående uddannelser.

Læring og Medier udkommer to gange om året, og er udelukkende tilgængeligt on-line.

Læring og Medier skaber et forum for udveksling af erfaringer med brugen af formidling, e-læring og e-baseret samarbejde – med udsyn til internationale tendenser og forskning, der kan støtte en kvalitetsbaseret udvikling af området på danske og skandinaviske institutioner….

Tidsskriftet, der fra 2008 udgives af Forskningsnettet i tilknytning til dettes LOM-netværk, er en fortsættelse af Tidsskriftet for Universiteternes Efter- og Videreuddannelse (udgivet i perioden 2003-2007 af Universiteternes Efter- og Videreuddannelse, UNEV). De tidligere numre er fortsat tilgængelige under det gamle navn, men de kan også ses fra Læring & Mediers hjemmeside.”