Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Feb 12, 2010, 08:17 AM

What cognitive skills are crucial for educators to attend to in our digital age?   Media theorist and practitioner Howard Rheingold has talked about four "Twenty-first Century Literacies"--attention, participation, collaboration, and network awareness--that must to be addressed, understood and cultivated in the digital age (see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rheingold/category?blogid=108&cat=2538). Futurist Alvin Toffler argues that, in the 21^st century, we need to know not only the three R's, but also how to learn, unlearn, and relearn.  Expanding on these, here are ten literacies that seem crucial for our digital age.   None of these are tested in the normal metrics of our educational system, yet all are crucial skills for our time. 

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Oct 21, 2009, 06:42 PM

Forty years ago, on Oct. 29, 1969, a UCLA team sent the very first message over the ARPANET, the computer network that later became known as the Internet. That event ushered in a technological revolution that has changed the way people think, act and interact, says a Duke University professor who studies digital interactive learning.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on May 16, 2009, 04:25 PM

This posting from Japan comes somewhere in the middle of a night (jetlag rules!) in Osaka, before moving to Tokyo where I will be conducting several interviews for The Rewired Brain:  The Deep Structure of Thinking for the Information Age, the book I'm finishing on cognition and digitality and that Viking Press will publish in either late 2010 or early 2011. 

 

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jan 29, 2009, 06:23 AM
NaNatThis is an update from Week Three of "This Is Your Brain on the Internet," taught in Duke's marvelous ISIS (Information Science + Information Studies) program. There are fifteen students in the class, plus myself, TA Katy, and Teaching Apprentice Lindsey. The three of us are what I call "new style English teachers." That is, we're each savvy scientifically in different ways. Katy is a professional stage designer who is a tech wizard. Lindsey worked with primates as an undergrad. And the class members span the spectrum of just about all of the disciplines but with a quite high-level of involvement in computer science, engineering, and pre-med, in addition to strong language-skills, excellent reading, and inquisitiveness. In a typical class, as many as 12 or 13 students out of 15 will ask a question or venture a comment. Interestingly, no one has a laptop open in this class so I've never had to address an issue that many of my peers report in their teaching these days.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Dec 08, 2008, 07:14 AM
When we launch our new HASTAC website, we will have a space where we can invite anyone and everyone teaching a HASTAC-y course to launch syllabi. I put up my course description for ISIS 120, "This Is Your Brain on the Internet" earlier and have been working with the research assistant, teaching assistant, and teaching apprentice (Patrick, Katy, and Lindsey) this semester to get this closer to finished. Here's the syllabus in progress for anyone who might be interested in seeing work in progress. That, after all, is the HASTAC way. We're also delighted for feedback. Next up: working in the social networking affordances into the structure of the class. Facebook? Or as a Facebook friend suggested this morning: Google Friend Connect? That is the question. Even now, with the clunky affordances of our ancient HASTAC site, I hope others out there will post their syllabi and even their syllabi-in-progress so we can all learn together!

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Sep 16, 2008, 05:10 PM

Game playing is universal, diverse, often involves social interaction, and can cultivate teen civic engagement.  The first national survey of its kind finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement. The survey was conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a project of the Pew Research Center, and was supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Sep 08, 2008, 12:09 PM

After several years as an administrator and then on my first sabbatical since 1995, I am returning to teaching in the Spring. One of my courses is called "This Is Your Brain on the Internet" and is an introduction to the deep structure of thinking in the information age. I thought HASTAC readers might be interested in seeing my course description.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Sep 02, 2008, 08:58 AM

As readers of this Cat in the Stack blog know, one of my pet peeves is really bad extrapolation from an instance of human behavior to a reductionist biological explanation to evolutionary hoo-ha (I mean, theory).

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Aug 07, 2008, 07:42 AM
Readers of this blog know I?ve spent the year, my first leave in well over a decade, at an undisclosed location. Really? Isolated and secretive?and yet helped direct the international HASTAC/MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition? Nice trick if you can manage it. Well, I have in two ways. First and foremost, I work with an amazing team. Incredible really. Humbling. Such fabulous, talented, imaginative, dedicated people?Jonathan, Mandy, Mark, Sheryl, Erin (and that?s just on the Duke side; our UCHRI partners, blogged about also on this blog) work just as hard. But, second, my undisclosed location has been mostly mental: finding a way, when not working on the DML Competition, to be mentally away. That?s lots harder than being physically absent.

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jul 18, 2008, 09:52 AM

Last night I saw two performances by the amazing butoh dance group Dairakudakan at ADF. They foster a style called Tempu-Tenshiki which literally means "being born into the world itself is a great talent."