affinity spaces – EDUC 342: Child Development & New Technologies

Week 6 Discussion

lgoochee — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:30:05 +0000

I want to comment on the Curwood, Magnifico, Lammers piece, “Writing in the Wild: Writers’ motivation in fan-based affinity spaces.” Overall, I greatly enjoyed this piece, especially in relation to my user interviewing and testing. My child gave me the feedback that she wanted the writing kit to shift in perspective. Instead of being her journal, she wanted it to be the journal of her favorite doll, Frankie Stein ( Monster High). In essence, she was requesting a fan-fiction writing toolkit to write about Frankie’s Monster High adventures. The week six writings couldn’t have been more timely for the development of my product. I ended up redesigning my Beyond Bits and Atoms course “dream toy” prototype around her feedback. The journal became a secret closet for her doll, with a hidden door beneath for the doll’s journal, and a series of other features that could help her through the inspiration and writing process.

I also want to respond to this particular quote in the final paragraph:

Our field needs to move beyond focusing on young adults’ new literacy practices in the wild, or in informal out-of-school spaces, to articulate how teachers can design for new literacies in school-based settings. All too often, technology creates a digital divide across students, teachers, and schools. If young people have self-directed, multimodal, and authentic writing opportunities in out-of-school settings, this divide will only widen.

It seems to me that the educational researchers in this piece are posing uncompelling solutions to the divide between in-school and out-of-school learning. They want students to engage in this kind of self-directed and multimodal writing within the school context, but at the same time, are posing that teachers can achieve this through simply designing surveys, incorporating a closed and safe online writing portal, engage in collaboration, and offer opportunities for students to share work in class. I would argue that most teachers already do all of these things, and yet it’s not anywhere as engaging or invigorating as a free fan-fiction community where relationships to characters and texts are central to the endeavor, as demonstrated in the article’s examples.

On the flip-side, they say that educators shouldn’t try to become pop-culture contemporaries, but what else can they do to meet the child on their level of passion and enthusiasm, and coach them through their writing?

The limitations of a linear curriculum timeline will always inhibit classrooms from feeling authentic in the post-digital-revolution world.

If students had an opportunity to share how they were “writing in the wild” with the rest of the classroom, this seems to be the best way to incorporate how these online communities are impacting them for the better (or not, and teachers intervene). If students were allowed to make teams around works of fiction that they enjoy the most, and choose the skills they want to work on individually in each piece of authentic writing, this seems like another way to create that relationships with characters building element, which seems to be the most central and binding element of fan-fiction.

Also, it’s important to remember that this is only for fiction writing. Students have to learn personal narrative and expository writing too. So, how these principles can be made powerful across other writing modes and contexts is also worthy of thought.

Week 6 response

marcc — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 05:26:03 +0000

I liked the Rogoff (1991) and Doise (1990) citations in Cassell (p. 78), where Cassell writes: “When two peers collaborate, the simple juxtaposition of their actions allows the peers to modify their understanding of their own actions, through appropriating the perspective of the other peer. That is, to apply Rogoff’s notion to emergent literacy, the very fact of telling a piece of a story that follows after the piece told by one’s peer allows both peers to gain a new understanding of the meaning of their words in the context of the story.”

I wonder how much status matters for Cassell’s model of peer collaboration. I’d think that the “balance” of which participant “modified” the understanding of the other would depend on the roles and status of the participants. Not all collaboration is equal; Rogoff’s own idea of “intent community participation” (Week 2 reading) depends on the notion that children observe community activities for a while before assuming greater and greater responsibilities. This is collaboration via a teacher-student relationship, wherein we’d expect the learner to modify their understanding far more than the teacher.

I’d be curious to know how Cassell’s idea of collaboration extends to the “affinity spaces” that Curwood, Magnifico, and Lammers discuss. Quoting Gee (2004), they say that “‘newbies and masters and everyone else’ interact around a shared passion” in these spaces. Surely “masters” and “newbies” must have different roles in these spaces, as suggested in the features they list for affinity spaces. I’d be curious to know more about the roles of leaders and followers within these affinity spaces [aside: can we just call them ‘fandoms’ like everyone else?] and how they influence the conversations within, and especially the influence on young people. Is the language of superfans influencing the language patterns of young fans?

DQC Week 6 – Writing in the Wild

thuygon — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 02:41:45 +0000

I’m curious about if and how the anonymity of the virtual affinity spaces affect motivation of children who use these spaces. Curwood et al. noted that motivation was increased when Sheena received “in-depth criticism”; however, I wonder for the general population- how often do these in-depth criticisms occur? I think these virtual forums do provide a space in which you can be completely anonymous because you are behind a screen with an audience who cannot see you in your flesh- and respond to you in real time. I assume these forums are moderated to prevent vulgar language and harsh criticism, so the writer can be shielded from them before they are posted. If there is a moderator for these forums, I’m curious if this sense of “safety” contributes to the motivated child’s engagement and contributions; and can this “protection” create a false sense of what the real world may be like? If there is no moderator, how does shallow criticism affect their motivation to continue (or discontinue) their practice?

Additionally, I was hoping there would be greater discussion on the initial motivation to write in the first place. Albeit Curwood et al. recognized the study’s limitation in selecting three exceptional subjects- all three had some inclination to write already; the virtual affinity space allowed them more avenues and motivation to pursue writing. How effective is using these virtual spaces in children whose personal interests and interests in writing do not intersect?