I was contacted by a researcher at NPR the other day. They wanted me to take part in a live conversation on the program News & Notes (hosted by Farai Chideya). The topic was about kids, technology, and science. In particular the focus was described as follows:
We want to explore the ways kid handle technology. How is technology affecting them in terms of their learning capacity and social skills? The second part of that discussion is this—with all the gadgets that are available to kids, are more of them becoming interested in science in general? We especially want to look at the subject from perspective of urban education.
Yes, all topics that intersect with many of my own interests and passions (which might be why they found me through the blog!), but I did not feel qualified to really answer some of the specific questions pertaining to how things are going currently. There are people who study this full time. I’m not one of them. So I declined to contribute. However, I had a few names in mind, and passed them along, together with two more names recommended to me by Mary Andres, a friend and colleague in the USC School of Education.
Turns out that the first person I thought of was the one they used. My friend and colleague Tara McPherson from USC School of Cinematic Arts (you’ll recall her from an earlier post, with the “we read the science news so you don’t have to” picture) turns out to be rather passionate about the topic of learning through video games and various modes often referred to as “new media” (particularly literacy issues in that sphere), with considerable expertise in many aspects. (Check out the online publication which she founded called “Vectors”, by the way. Looks interesting.) There were two other guests as well (Jerone Mitchell and Mario Armstrong). So with a broader scope touching on more aspects of learning than just access to science, a good conversation was had for 17 minutes on the show this morning. I thought it was pretty good, and maybe you will too. The link is here.
Enjoy!
-cvj
