Critical Play or Digital Distraction? Mobile Media, Critical Pedagogy, and the “New Culture of Learning”

• In Event: What Makes Pedagogy “Critical,” Anyhow? Translating Social Theory Into Practice in Urban Learning Contexts

Abstract

More than ever before, mobile devices are changing the ways young people are socializing, learning, consuming, and producing media products (Watkins, 2009; Livingstone, 2009; Lenhart, 2009; Lenhart, 2010). New media and phones are offering significant opportunities for authentic learning experiences and ways to engender young people into opportunities for civic participation; these tools are used not only to engage students in meaningful learning experiences, but also to shape ways people participate and interact with the world (Lievrouw, 2011). At the same time, the "new culture of learning" (Thomas and Brown, 2011) poses significant policy and pedagogical challenges for educators (Frey and Fisher, 2008).

Critical Pedagogy’s potential to transform the classroom learning opportunity and to foster powerful youth agency is threatened by the way current school policies and teacher practices are mired by youth mobile phone use. This paper provides a case study analysis of one urban high school classroom’s attempt to extend critical pedagogy into an age of participatory media.

In addition to examining basic tenets of critical pedagogy (Morrell and Duncan-Andrade, 2008), this research draws upon traditional notions of critical literacy (Freire, 1970), sociocultural literacy (Moje and Lewis, 2007), and civic engagement (Dewey, 1916; Wesheimer and Kahne, 2004). This paper looks at the ways these theories are informing learning within the media-rich environments in which students are immersed.

By combining elements of a critical pedagogy with new media practices youth engage in, including media production, social networking, and utilizing mobile media apps, this pedagogical case study expands the way teachers incorporate and adapt a pedagogy that promotes responsible mobile media use.

Through qualitative analysis of a class of ninth grade students in South Central Los Angeles participating in an alternate reality game (ARG; McGonigal, 2008), this work looks at the role that critical pedagogy and technology can play in shaping community inquiry, advocacy, and civic identity. Students engaged in in-class practices that mimic larger shifts in cultural practices afforded by participatory media. These students utilized mobile media to investigate, challenge, and begin reframing school & community norms. Examining the impacts of violence, graffiti, pollution, and love within their South Central community, students incorporated location data, QR codes, and participatory social media into their research methods and practices. They utilized existing technical literacies and critical literacy development to amplify their voices within the school and larger public sphere. Some of the tools students utilized included folksonomy tagging – collaborative & social classification, Wikipedia authorship, and popular media production. These activities illustrate a redefinition of youth civic engagement in the 21st century and signal challenges for refining a pedagogy for social change.

Author

• Antero Garcia, Colorado State University