Digital Youth: Media Arts Practices of Disenfranchised Youth (2008-present)
Based on work in new media studies, educational technology, media literacy, and empirical research on media arts practices, we are currently studying the experiences of rural and disenfranchised youth in informal, after-school learning spaces. Our goal is to introduce and situate new ways in which youth are participating in creative production and the subsequent impact that this might have on education today.
Uncovering Literacies, Disrupting Stereotypes: Media Arts Practices of Youth with (Dis)Abilities (2007-2009)
Many youth enrolled in special education courses are seen as lacking the skills and competencies for creative production in new media because they may not possess the ability to read and write in a traditional sense. However, early pilot research has revealed that such marginalized and preliterate youth are avid consumers and producers of media arts texts. This study will take a closer look at this phenomenon to document, describe, and analyze the media arts practices of youth with disabilities within the context of schools participating in the one-to-one laptop initiative, contrasting their abilities with the common (mis)perceptions of these youth as being preliterate or even illiterate within today’s educational system.
Creative Bytes: Learning and Literacy in the Media Arts Practices of Urban
Youth (2006-2007)
The arts are a traditionally understudied area in the learning sciences. I examined how studying the learning of arts and programming can open new avenues of research in the field of learning sciences. The focus of is twofold: To document, describe, and analyze urban youths' media arts practices within the context of a design studio; and to explore the ways that youth learn discipline-specific knowledge in media literacy, computer programming, and the arts. Aspects of new literacy studies, social theories of literacy, and situated learning guided the methodology and interpretation in this study.
Media Arts Practices
I define "media arts practices" as the means by which one engages in media art and the reasons and motivations for doing so. Since practices are not observable units of behavior, they can be inferred from observable literacy events and mediated by media arts texts.
