Research update for peer comment March 25, 2010

I guess my research is slightly on hold until I finish my book report and that I’m working on today. Basically though, what I am working on for anyone who doesn’t know is using remixing in the classroom. I wanted to find out how to include technology in the high school English classroom in ways that weren’t too difficult, yet could be motivating and uplifting for students. I am still semi-knew to the creation of podcasts and youtube videos and the editing of imovies, but I think they are technologies students should be getting experience with and I think using them to remix and rethink novels and other stories we read in the classroom would be a great thing. And by remixing I mean taking something that has been read and discussed in class and creating something new that has been fashioned out of new or pre-existing materials. Like mash-ups on YouTube, performances from the perspective of another character, or flash poetry based on a novel, my goal is to show how teachers can use this technology to have students displaying what they have learned in one context and transforming that into another context through metacognition, or informed decision-making. Remixing is powerful because it makes use of images, words, sounds, and any other medium it needs, to make a significant impact on its audience, helping students become literate in a multitude of ways. Through conscious decision-making skills, students can gain agency over their works and become “producers and participants” of a culture rather than just consumers of the texts teachers give them.