Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 3:42PM Among other interesting insights around youth and new media literacy, Mizuko Ito talks about how younger teachers are less likely to incorporate technology in the classroom. [Original post]
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 9:20PM 
The new media literacies are a set of social skills critical to living, working, and participating in today's connected world. Media literacy used to be about interpreting what we saw, read, and heard on TV, the radio, newspapers, and magazines. But new media isn't a one-way channel any longer; we are active participants: sharing, commenting, contributing, and creating.
This shift from simple media consumers to media creators is significant and requires a different set of skills - the new media literacies.
The Youth New Media Literacy Jam is built on the idea that these skills are important for youth. But youth, having grown up in this environment, are already quite adept at using them so what are a bunch of adults doing sticking their noses into this?
Good question.
This project isn't about teaching youth about the new media literacies. It's about bringing the new media literacies into consciousness. There are many things we do without thinking: walking, running, driving, breathing. But before you can improve your running, for example, you first need to become conscious of how you run right now. Or to learn to drive a car safely in snow, you need to consciously be aware of how you interact with the car's controls. Similarly, a consciousness of how we interact with our media helps us to more effectively and intelligently navigate it.
The other goal of the Youth New Media Literacy Jam is to encourage the active understanding of new media literacies by those who create content for youth. Although there are those incorporating the skills into their work, the new media literacies are more recognized by educators than content creators. Presenting our work at the TIFF Kids Festival will help even things out.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that we can all benefit from reading through the new media literacies. The list of twelve is below and if you're interested in finding out more or the informative if not pretty video, click here.
Play: the capacity to experiment with one's surroundings as a form of problem-solving. Having a strong sense of play can be helpful when you pick up a new piece of technology that you've never used before, when you're trying to write an essay and your outline isn't functioning as you'd hoped, and when you're designing anything at all, from a dress to a web page to a concert's program.
Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery. Being able to move fluidly and effectively between roles can help you when you're exploring online communities, when you're trying to decide what actions are ethical, and when you're shuffling between home, work and school.
Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes. Being able to interpret, manipulate and create simulations can help you understand innumerable complex systems, like ecologies and computer networks - and make you better at playing video games!
Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content. Being able to remix media content (and knowing when doing so is appropriate) can help you understand literary works, music, and art; it can also help lead you to a deeper understanding of copyright and cultural clashes.
Multitasking: the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details. Being a good multitasker is required in our new media landscape - and that includes learning when it isn't good to multitask.
Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities. That can mean something as simple as using a ruler or calculator, or something as complex as efficiently using Wikipedia on your iPhone to access information on the fly.
Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal. This ability is key to open source projects. Being able to pool knowledge with others can allow us to solve challenges far more complex than the individual mind can process.
Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. If you're worried about your students using Wikipedia at inappropriate times and taking everything they read on the internet as gospel truth, you're worried that they aren't exercising good judgment. But judgment also includes knowing when sources are appropriate for your use: for instance, sometimes Wikipedia might be the appropriate resource to use.
Transmedia Navigation: the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple media. Anyone who needs to do research needs a good understanding of transmedia navigation - how to follow threads through video, still photography, written work, music, online sources etc.
Networking -- the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information. Writing something isn't enough without the ability to circulate it to the communities where it will matter.
Negotiation -- the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms. We now need to know how to live in multiple communities - from the hyperlocal to the global and from those composed of people like us to those consisting of people very different from us.
Visualization - the ability to translate information into visual models and understand the information visual models are communicating. VIsualization has become a key way we cope with large data sets and make sense of the complexity of our environment.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:12PM The Bar Mitzvah in Jewish culture represents the moment when a 13 year old boy (Bat Mitzvah for a 12 year old girl) becomes responsible for their actions in the community and can be called on as a participating member: it's a coming of age. At the same age, youth begin to move their online lives from avatar-based, role-playing interactions (e.g. Club Penguin, Neopets, Moshi Monsters) to self-identification and participating as themselves alongside other in the digital community: another coming of age, but a digital one. Our digital and non-digital lives are inseparable and ignoring either is painting a picture of an incomplete person. So with the responsibility of creating new experiences for youth, we must consider both. This is why the "band of creative misfits" participating in the Youth New Media Literacy Jam includes a such a varied group: Incredibly tech-savvy digital creators alongside analog artists and makers, youth educators and entertainers and those who don't have the internet at all. Appreciating the digital and analog sides of life, our online and offline friends and families, ourselves, and nature are important in developing as well-rounded human being. So a "Digital Bar Mitzvah" it is, but it's also so much more.
Originally posted on the TIFF Nexus site where I'm leading the Youth New Media Literacy Jam.
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 10:32PM 
Originally posted on the TIFF Nexus site where I'm leading the Youth New Media Literacy Jam.
Illustrator, film maker, producer, photographer, writer, psychologist, youth worker, educator, hacker, maker, motion graphics artist, animator, web designer, sculptor, programmer, musician, video game maker, board game designer, pilot, break dancer, spelunker, astronomer, bicyclist, rugby player, chef, and climber.
These are the people in the ‘Band of Creative Misfits’ participating in the Youth New Media Literacy Jam and we’re going to build some wild stuff.
The Youth New Media Literacy Jam is part of the TIFF Nexus initiative and an opportunity to build experimental new experiences targeted at youth. More specifically, it’s a varied group of people from across interests and industries (the band of creative misfits) coming together to creating experiences to engage and inform youth in the 12 new media literacies.
Youth are already heavily involved with online social interactions, games, and transmedia content. They are better at navigating these interactions than most adults but do so as self-taught explorers. As such, they can be unaware of the skills they’re using. Consciousness of these skills brings deeper understanding and control (like focusing on your breathing) and helps to navigate and engage in the world more effectively.
Over the next 10+ weeks, we’ll be taking field trips, speaking with experts, engaging in creative games and exercises, and building experiences. Throughout, we’ll be uniquely free from corporate agendas, marketing plans, and ROI considerations and have the backing of many great partners. It’s an exciting and rare opportunity to have these means to explore; our sandbox is wide open for dreaming, playing, and creating.
To follow along, check back here or follow @TIFF_Nexus. We’ll have people filming and photographing the field trips and build sessions and I’ll be blogging about the participants, process, and projects as we go.
So what happens when you mix a spelunker with an hardware hacker, musician, and break dancer? Stay close, we might find out.
PS.. for more information about the guiding principles of the jam, you can find my entirely (and poorly) hand-drawn presentation with audio from Wednesday here or download just the slideshow here.
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 8:20PM This is a guest post on GameChangers, a Toronto game development project I'm an advisor with.
People get their ideas in different places: the shower, driving, running, riding. Mine seem to come eating noodles.
In August 2009 my friend Jaime and I sat in a pho restaurant deep in discussion about video games. We reminisced about glorious Saturday mornings parked in front of the TV, disputed the merits of our favourite titles and sequels and developers, and lamented not having a group to play with anymore.
We both found our playing dropped dramatically around university. With our days full of engineering studies, travel, and becoming “grown-ups” there was little room for play. We’re not sure if it was the noodles or a flash of intuition but at that moment we decided to start the Gamercamp Festival which has grown from a one-day, fingers-crossed attendance of 50 people to three days, 1000+, and the biggest indie games event in Canada. More importantly, it introduced us to the vibrant game design community.
The Toronto games community is home to some of the kindest, most creative, and interesting people I’ve ever met and in the last two years running Gamercamp I’ve developed many lifetime friendships.
When asked to help with the Game Changers project, it was in the interest of further growing the diversity of this community that I agreed.
Despite the ongoing debates, games are a medium for artistic expression and as the pundits sling tweets and blog posts at one other, the makers have their heads down creating beautiful, exciting, and inspired play experiences. In my opinion, a game, a book, or photograph are equals in terms of artistic potential.
Game making tools are as accessible as pens and paper, cameras, and paint brushes – everyone can make games – but it can still be intimidating. This is where Game Changers comes in. It gathers the tools, knowledge and (most importantly) mentorship and guides people through the process.
More creators means more voices means a richer space. If you’ve ever thought about making a game, I’d like to encourage you to sign up for the Game Changers info session on February 4 at 4pm (no experience necessary). Take a friend out for some noodles and come down – it could be the start of something great.
Inspiration, games, indie games, noodles in Gaming, Living Creatively, Tech/Mobile/Future, Thoughts 
Creative Commons Attribution, non-commercial license.
