Marco Torres Keynote – NMC 2009
Again, quick notes now, reflection later in the day…
I have to admit to knowing nothing (that I can remember) about Marco Torres prior to reading about him in this year’s conference program…
“It’s Not About It, it’s About What to Do with It”
Music is an aspect of multimedia that isn’t talked about enough… probably 80% of multimedia presentations he sees have copyright violations in their music/soundtracks.
He’s always loved that John Williams could convince Spielberg that two chords were enough for Jaws… just speed it up or slow it down.
“That’s the cool thing about digital technology… it allows you to take risks”
A nice way to dive into the presentation by demonstrating how simple sound elements produced with simple tools that aren’t super demanding to use can evoke emotion. Marco models iterative construction using layering of musical elements, building and rebuilding, playing and replaying, mixing and remixing.
Marco’s mother was an established photographer, and two uncles who made “the worst movies ever to come out of Mexico”
“I spent my childhood on sets watching professional wrestler’s solving all the world’s problems.”
“I’m fascinated with everything that story does, not what is done in school.”
A succinct message: stories give stuff purpose… the purpose isn’t the stuff itself.
Narrative produces meaning; the search for meaning is narrative.
I don’t know how often this is the case, but I think post-avant poetry, among other pursuits, demonstrates that there are ways to engage in the search for meaning without necessarily engaging what we commonly consider narrative.
When asked to tell stories, students always tell stories of what they’ve experienced, seen or heard… not things they’ve read.
Recapitulating in altered form the point Gardner was making yesterday—we are using assessments today based on media and technology of yesterday. But it’s no easy task to figure out what the assessments of tomorrow should or will look like.
Learners need to be producers, not just consumers. Learning styles are always oriented to reception. Many are auditory learners but visual producers or other combinations. We need application of “learning styles” for more than just the act of reception, but also that of creation.
This fascinates me. Very little discussion of learning styles directly addresses styles of creation, though it is often implied in motivations for activities like digital storytelling. But most interesting is questioning the assumption that our style as creators necessarily matches our learning style as consumer/learner. I need to think on this more.
Performance matters because of audience perception… even if you know the content and understand the context, flawed delivery will lead people to assume you don’t know what you are talking about.
We exist in an age of ubiquitous information… Marco asks a group of social studies teachers: can your students look everything you are saying up in Google? The stuff is not enough. Albert Einstein: don’t ask questions you can look up.
It’s a good quote, but Einstein had an enormous stockpile of memorized facts and concepts. This has to tie to memory, which ties to memorizing and the debate about “rote” facts and practice, not to mention Connectivism and the like. Memorization is very powerful and, imo, necessary. It provides the material for thought and contemplation and conceptual connections.
iPhone as an example of tech mediation that changes the nature of discussion and dispute outside of formal settings for engagement.
How does learning occur outside the academy?
“We teach the grammar of math, not the language of math.”
Isn’t this a statement that could stand-in for much of our educational system? We teach the mechanics, the systems, the parts that are, in effect or actuality, literacies, but rarely approach fluency. It could also be said that we teach math literacy but not math fluency.
Our vision should be: school shouldn’t suck.
Using examples of Alton Brown and MythBusters. “In MythBusters you aren’t watching two guys teach you, you’re watching two guys learn.
As the audience for MythBusters we don’t care if they succeed or fail; we want to see the process, not just the result.
There’s great power in learners learning by observing and interacting with the learning teacher. Not “I see what you did” or even just “how did you do that” but “how did you come to do/be able to do that?”
Why don’t schools do more collaboration, the learning is so easy… what’s getting in the way is schooling. We’re complexing the holy shit out of the learning system, school is what’s complicated.”
“Schooling is reliance on institution, learning is you + your network”
It took a youth 30 minutes to explain “call of duty”—it didn’t take 30 minutes to explain Frogger.
Sophisticated fans are producers, they are influencing the show through use of technology, tv is more complex than it used to be. And there are layers of discussion and community and even applications build around shows like Lost.
This is very similar to Stanley Jenkins’ point in Convergence Culture about the richness of participatory culture. Fans as participants and learners. And some Shirky Here Comes Everybody w/r/t evolution of media.
I can buy the argument about television being more complicated, but that a change in characteristics of overall culture, that things now are more complicated and complex than they were in the simple times of yore… shouldn’t Gilligan’s Island be compared with Two and 1/2 Men or something? Aren’t we patting ourselves a bit too hard on the back when we go on about how much more complex/dangerous/trying/etc our times are than those of our parents, grandparents, etc?
Shows funny “academic” list of questions about Gilligan’s Island, stereotypical of what might be asked in a class. “Lost fans don’t care about those questions.”
Really? Much of the community that he adores around shows like Lost exists to answer those kind of questions. The change is where those questions are being generated and the fact that the answering is happening in the open… which enables much of the rest.
People are deeply engaged in television, but engagement alone is just a characteristic that is a part of learning… though there are certainly media and info fluency skills being learned through that engagement.
“Evolution of technology in education” – back to people and purpose.
Back to?
Shows some cool, funny Star Wars music remakes in Mariachi(?) style made by students. That’s a great example of student production and the use of multimedia/music. The student who made them did so because he was given the tools that allowed him to express himself musically and with audio rather than just with text.
“David wasn’t allowed to play in the school orchestra because he didn’t play the music the orchestra played. We’ve all seen crap like that happen.”
Whaa? So he should’ve been accepted and allowed to play something else? I’m not sure what the lesson is in that statement. Not having an outlet or place is different from leveling every play to suit everyone who might want to be in it.
Some resources:
July 26th, 2009 at 5:41 am
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