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June 30, 2005
Deneen Frazier-Bowen's Funky NECC Keynote
I had to leave at the crack of dawn yesterday morning to catch my train to New York, which meant I didn't get to see Deneen Frazier-Bowen's NECC keynote at its scheduled time. But since she's my long-time edtech homegirl, she was sweet enough to let me sit in on one of her rehearsals this Tuesday.
Deneen's keynote wasn't your usual Powerpoint-Slides-and-a-Longwinded-Speech kinda keynote. Far from it. Instead, she basically pulled an Anna Deveare Smith and performed a series of characters to help paint a portrait of what it's like for today's kids to be growing up as digital natives. The keynote began with a stiff, know-nothing school administrator fumbling her way through a Powerpoint, talking about educating kids the old fashioned way and knowing what's best for today's kids. Eventually, she gets so flummoxed with her Powerpoint that she runs off the stage to argue with tech support.
While Old Miss Frumpmeister is doing her thing back stage, Deneen comes back on stage dressed as a young hip-hop lovin' teen. Her name is Eddy, and she's a smart, tough kid who loves technology but isn't trusted by her teachers. She tells a story about how she brought a palm pilot to class but gets busted for supposedly using it to cheat on a test, which wasn't the case. The school principal makes a capital case out of it and refuses to listen to Eddy's side of the story. So what does Eddy do? She posts it on her blog, which, of course, eventually gets back around to the principal. The principal orders her to remove the criticism of him from the blog, even though it's spot-on accurate, and Eddy refuses. She's then suspended from school, as people all over the world comment on her blog and rally to her cause.
Once Eddy exits the stage, we get to meet Maria. Maria's in late elementary school, and she's a bit hyper, but she's got great ideas about math and science. She likes to find science websites and hopes to use them in class, but not all her teachers seem to care about her opinion. But thanks to one teacher who values her opinion, Maria gets to talk about her idea about participating in Net Day Speak Up Day during a meeting of the school's teachers. She's never spoken in public before, so she uses the voice recorder on her smart phone to practice before giving her big speech, then puts it on her audio blog. Eventually, the school gets involved in the project, and she talks about the results.
Some of Maria's new-found courage comes from her older friend Joanna, an above average 11th grade student who likes to spend her free time playing online multiplayer games. At first her mother worries about the time she spends gaming, but then starts to notice how she takes charge whenever she's interacting with others online. Her mother talks to her about how she's learning leadership skills, a concept pretty much alien to Joanna, but eventually she decides to learn about youth leadership activities to see if she can channel her interests in a positive way. Enter TakingITGlobal: Joanna discovers the network and starts chatting with a girl in Egypt. She gets the idea of setting up a computer recycling program for African kids, approaching the company her mom works for in order to get the computers. Before she knows it, she's an active TIG member, getting lots of media attention in her community as she mobilizes local businesses to help bridge the digital divide.
Eventually, the obnoxious administrator returns to the stage. While trying to sort out her Powerpoint, she apparently overheard the kids' monologues. She's forced to rethink her attitudes towards kids and learning, while recognizing the way technology can be used to inspire and invigorate young people.
Following the performance, Deneen returns to the stage, no longer in character. She describes how she's spent time over the last few years interview countless young people, trying to get a handle on what it's like to be a digital native. The characters she introduced during her performance are not verbatim re-enactments of actual people a la Anna Deveare Smith, but are composites and creations inspired by the students she's interviewed. It was a whole new way to tell the story of education and youth media; I'm really glad I had the chance to see Deneen's performance before leaving the conference.
For those of you who missed it, here are some podcasts of her characters. Not all the performances are complete, but they'll give you a feel for what she did on stage at NECC. Special thanks to Deneen for letting me record them. -andy
Eddy
Maria
Joanna
The Administrator
Posted by acarvin at June 30, 2005 7:03 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
