Last week I attended the Digital Media and Learning Conference which focused on diversifying participation. The attendees and presenters were a mix of practitioners and scholars working with digital media and youth. Conversations explored diversity not in terms of just the haves and have nots regarding access, but rather the ‘degrees’ of access, differences in obstacles to participation, and new communities and identities youth are forming because of the combination of new media and social and cultural differences.
One of the sessions I enjoyed the most was James Gee and others talking about ‘worked examples’. The concept is that an online space will be created for people to share their work with others. There might not be any articles written about that particular work yet and there doesn’t have to be. The online space will be used to create conversations with others about work that might be similar. Shared collectively with input from scholars and practitioners alike, the examples may take on new meanings and understandings. A worked example about Quest Atlantis can be found here.
The implications of libraries contributing their work with youth to this soon-to-be-available space could be great, especially to open up collaborations with others outside of the library field.
