'The Future of Reading' at Festival of Books
Comments (0)
A screenshot from Walden, an educational interactive project discussed at the 'Future of Reading' event.
The speakers at the panel included Tracy Fullerton, the Chair of the USC Interactive Media division, Samantha Gorman, a PhD student in Media Arts and Practice, Henry Jenkins, the Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, and Gisele Ragusa, Director of Teacher, K-12 and Community Education at the Viterbi School of Engineering. The panel was moderated by William G. Tierney, Co-Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education.
The event began with each panel member briefly showcasing their interactive educational projects. The projects shown included a game based on the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a Kindle-only story book called Pry that allows readers to see inside the character's mind and get a first-person view of his world, and a program that asks incarcerated youths to update Melville's Moby Dick.
The goal of the projects is to develop more engaging and accessible methods of learning, particularly for under-privileged and mentally disabled students. All of these projects strive to make intellectual curiosity easier to cultivate in the classroom.
The speakers hope that their programs will be intuitive enough to pick up and play without a manual, but stimulating enough to facilitate knowledge. Many of the projects don't even require a computer or internet connection. The panel assured the audience that there are card versions of the programs available to schools that are unable to provide a computer for its students.
Another screenshot of Walden
After their short presentations, Tierney opened up the floor for questions from the audience. Many of the questions came from educators looking for the best and most cost-effective ways to teach with technology.
One high school teacher asked if these new programs really teach effective literacy or were just fun alternatives to real learning. Meanwhile, a grandmother who had never been inside a game store wanted to know how she could buy reading-related software for her grandchildren.
It is clear from the Q&A period that there is some hesitancy to completely embrace these newer methods of learning. However, there is a great optimism and curiosity for these projects as well. One highly animated man wanted to congratulate the panel for opening his eyes to new ways of teaching literacy.
The panel emphasized throughout the Q&A period that there is a distinct different between productive technology usage and harmful technology usage. The panel wants kids to learn how to interact with the world through technology, not avoid their real world problems by hiding behind technology. They admit that this is a tough act to balance and that it's up to the educators and parents to make sure their children aren't exposed to the negative side effects of technology.
