Digital...?

I'm in my forties and I'm not a digital native but a semi-proficient digital immigrant and subversive resister. I use TED talks that help students explore the depth of their own dignity and humanity and that of others. Let me illustrate my self understanding with some of the resources I use. As I want my students to have this reflection on dignity I use digital media such as these talks by Abbot Martin Werlen and Gary Wilson to wrestle with difficult topics in communication and relationships.


 

 I also enjoy really stretching my students by showing them, without introduction, the Radi-Aid "commercial" and then discussing and debriefing it.  This usually helps them realize their digital native status but also their media illiteracy.
 

I believe my students are best served by asking questions about whatever media or message they encounter so I have them read the "Questions and Power" portion of Andrea Batista Schlesinger's book The Death of Why. I believe gaining new "answers" can be an addictive process that reinforces an ego need to be right/and or justified and that a life with good and deepening questions are the constitutive element of a liberating recovery from that dead ended pursuit of information addiction. This site  After my students read this portion of the book I invite them to write out the most challenging question they can pose to our dominant American culture.

 As much as I am into both the video dimension and the interrogative dimension of media literacy and use digital resources to access greater knowledge I use simpler images that make subversive points like the work of Komar and Melamid This site In my work department I am the median age in my department and I like to take risks so I see myself less apt to do somethings younger colleagues will do but generally a bit more than my older colleagues.