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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIESMonday: 12.00pm to 1.00pmLogan HallDavid Buckingham, Institute of Education, University of LondonIs there a digital generation?

Abstract:

Children and young people who have grown up with digital technologyhave a new orientation towards learning, communication and social interaction – or so we are frequently told. Technology, it is argued, is producing a new generationgap with profound social, psychological and political consequences. But what is theevidence for such claims?This opening presentation will offer a critical evaluation of the rhetoric of the ‘digitalgeneration’, and outline an agenda for further research. It will focus on a series of claims that are often made about the impact of digital technologies on areas such aslearning, play, communication and identity - and indeed on the very definition of childhood itself.The presentation will draw on sociological analyses of generations, on debates aboutthe social construction of age categories, and on existing evidence about youngpeople’s uses of both new and ‘old’ media. It will challenge the technologicaldeterminism and the essentialist views of childhood that often characterise suchdebates. However, it will also argue that the use of digital technology reflectsfundamental changes in the lived experiences of children and young people thatcannot be ignored.

Biography:

David Buckingham is Professor of Education at the Institute of Educationwhere he directs the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media(www.ccsonline.org.uk/mediacentre). He is the author, co-author or editor of seventeen books, including Children Talking Television, Moving Images, The Makingof Citizens, After the Death of Childhood and Media Education. His work has beentranslated into fifteen languages. He has recently directed projects on the uses of educational media in the home; young people’s interpretations of sexualrepresentations in the media; and the uses of digital media by migrant/refugeechildren across Europe. His most recent book is Young People, Sex and the Media:The Facts of Life? (with Sara Bragg).

Thurday: 9:00 – 10:00Logan HallAndrew Burn, Institute of Education, University of London and James Durran,Parkside Community College, CambridgeDigital anatomies: analysis as production in media education

Abstract:

Media education in recent years has placed considerable emphasis on thenew technologies of production, especially of digital video. While it is natural, in thiscontext, to want to explore and celebrate student production work, we want to askhow these technologies also function as analytical tools. We will take a look atexamples from our own practice of the use of technologies to unpick media texts, tohelp children to analyse them, transform them and rework them. We want tocontribute to the bringing-together of processes of analysis and production,proposing that analysis can be creative, productive and affective. Our aim is to seetechnologies such as digital video editing softwares as produced by the structuresand histories of film and television, but also as tools whose use is transformativelydetermined by processes of teaching and learning in media education, by the needsof teachers and students.

Biographies:

Andrew Burn is Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media. He has taught English, Drama and Media Studies incomprehensive schools for over twenty years. He has been Head of English and anAssistant Principal at his last school, Parkside Community College in Cambridge. Hismain role there was to direct the school’s media arts specialism: it was the firstspecialist Arts College in the country with a media focus. He has also been amember of the national executive of NATE, and editor of NATEnews. Publicationsinclude Analysing Media Texts (with David Parker); and Videogames: text, narrative,play (with David Buckingham, Diane Carr and Gareth Schott (forthcoming)).James Durran is an Advanced Skills Teacher at Parkside Community College, wherehe was previously Head of English, Media and Drama. As mentioned above,Parkside was the first specialist Media Arts College, and is also a ‘Leading EdgeSchool’ developing innovative uses of classroom technology. James is involved intraining and curricular development both locally and across the country. He alsotutors on PGCE courses for the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. He isactive in the National Association for the Teaching of English, and has co-written anumber of publications for Pearson Publishing, in Cambridge.

Monday: 4.15pm – 5.15pmLogan HallGunther Kress, Institute of Education, University of LondonGains and losses in the era of the digital generation

Abstract:

Much attention is focused on attempts to understand what precisely themove to the digital media entails, in all domains of public and private life. However,from the perspective of education that attention and consequent questions are likelyto be quite specific ones; and it is these which I wish to explore. In that exploration Iam not going to confine myself to the traditional sites (school, the university e.g.) andnotions (formal curricula, assessment e.g.) of education, for after all, the undercuttingof these is precisely one effect of the ubiquitous presence and use of the digitaltechnologies. And of course, the kind of institutionalised education which hascharacterized ‘Western’ societies has been a phenomenon only of the last twocenturies or so, and may very well disappear again during this century.Nor will my attention be focused on the media – or the technologies – alone; rather Iwish to consider the simultaneous changes in representational practices which are,in part, due to changes in technologies of (semiotic/cultural) production and of dissemination and which are at the same time in large part independent of them.That is, I will focus, for instance, on what happens when we move from thedominance of the mode of writing to a dominance of the mode of image: when imagebecomes the deep metaphor that guides representation (as in layout practices for instance, even of printed materials), rather than writing.I use the phrase “Gains and Losses” as a means for thinking; not in any waynostalgically or pessimistically, but, I hope, with a sense of responsibility to thosewho are moving into full adult lives in that era. As an educator I see it as my aim, firstand foremost, to understand, and from the standpoint of the best possibleunderstandings to reflect on consequences, actions, and future directions in policiesand practices around representation, pedagogies and curricula, forms of knowledge,and potentials for learning.

Biography:

Gunther Kress is Professor of English and Head of the School of Culture,Language and Education. His main interests are in questions of society, culture andmeaning; all aspects of communication from a (social) semiotic perspective; visualcommunication / semiotics of the visual; language, literacy and questions of literacy;discourse analysis; questions of curriculum and pedagogy for the future; andeducation and social futures generally. Recent books include Literacy in the NewMedia Age, Multimodal Discourse, Before Writing: Rethinking the paths to literacyand Reading Images: The grammar of graphic design.

Category:	Brochures/Catalogs
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Upload Date:	03/23/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	Education Education (fewer)

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