Speaker 1: Barbara Jansen
Title: Information Behaviors of Young People in the Participatory Environment

Speaker 2: Jennifer Noble
Title: The Blurring of In/Formal Learning Environments

Abstract 1:
The practice of using participatory websites and tools, often categorized as social or new media, by educators and students dominates educational discourse. Many school librarians and teachers... [read more]

Speaker 1: Barbara Jansen
Title: Information Behaviors of Young People in the Participatory Environment

Speaker 2: Jennifer Noble
Title: The Blurring of In/Formal Learning Environments

Abstract 1:
The practice of using participatory websites and tools, often categorized as social or new media, by educators and students dominates educational discourse. Many school librarians and teachers currently employ a variety of social media to help students practice and master national standards and to support their information behaviors. Accessing and using participatory media sites and tools affords students opportunities for critical thinking and development of creative ideas and products, while providing unique occasions for students to collaborate and share. These sites also allow access to information not contained in traditional sources. Increasingly however, school librarians and teachers report that their school administrators are blocking access to these tools.
Findings suggest that we have yet to realize the full range of information behaviors exhibited by youth in the participatory culture. Determining these behaviors will help professionals guide students to successful information use and development for their academic and personal needs and will also help convince school policy makers to allow wider access to important resources.

Abstract 2:
This presentation draws from ethnographic research conducted by the MacArthur Foundation?s Connected Learning Research Network. This research works with a large, ethnically diverse, low income high school in central Texas. The overall goal is to explore the media ecologies of teens and to understand how schools can optimize in/formal learning environments for connected learning.

What we are finding is that the after school technology club provides a liminal space between formal and informal learning which tends to be both socially and interest driven. Teens come to the club to (learn to) use video editing software, write scripts, play online games, upload and edit photos, create web pages, produce music, and hang out (online and off). The club provides access to technology and a space for students to apply formal skills learned in the classroom with informal messing around on their own interest-driven projects. Through our observations, we are teasing out the larger implications of school policies which inhibit and limit students? participation.

My talk will present preliminary findings from the first semester of observations as our research team begins to parse how schools (and other institutions such as libraries) can optimize in/formal learning spaces and re-think restrictive digital policies.