DEJ 6

Collaboration seemed to be a critical component in the media arts practices at this design studio. Youth not only learned about computer programming from their social participation but they also became motivated by collaborating with peers and mentors to create and share work.

I agree that students gain a great deal from their peers.  Everyone likes to be successful and when a student creates something they want to have the project accepted by their peers and receive ownership of their work and pride in their accomplishments.  Brandy was proud of her projects and although could not explain how she accomplished the task she was able to demonstrate how to do it so others could try.

Creativity in this context can take on a variety of forms. Most importantly we feel that youth were able to creatively insert themselves and their interests into their media artwork.

I think expression of oneself is very important.  Expression is how we make others understand who we are.  Media arts in this case gave these urban youths a means of showing who they were without some of the pressures they have in their daily lives.  I have seen urban youths excel at fabric design when allowed to use technology and create designs that meant something to them.

Computation is also a learned skill that becomes useful as youth, even those like Brandy that are unable to read, can use for creative production. Although further study is needed, Brandy seemed to have navigated the programming environment by memorizing a subset of commands to find them visually on the screen.

 I think this proves that technology use is important in demonstrating new skills because the learner can try many different approaches to achieve the desired outcome.  In Brandy's case she could not read the commands but was able to use them by memorizing what commands achieved what action.