All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College

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to educate students in ethical approaches
to the repurposing, creation and sharing
of content.
VI. Epilogue
On February 11, 2011, I sat next to our
colleague, Nazik Roufaiel, a native of Egypt,
at the New Mentor Orientation in Latham,
N.Y. We watched Arabic broadcasts on the
Al Jazeera Network in real time as historical
events unfolded in Cairo. As we viewed the
live video stream of protesters demanding
the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak,
ongoing updates popped up on my iPhone
from The New York Times, CNN, BBC,
Reuters, Le Monde, and other news sources.
Colleagues from all over the world were
commenting on the events on Facebook, and
my Twitter feed filled with instantaneous
accounts of the live happenings. Social and
mobile media were not only purveyors of
news to those of us watching from afar. In a
mashable article titled “Egyptian President
Steps Down Amidst Groundbreaking
Digital Revolution,” Emily Banks (2011)
commented on the role of social media in
the revolution:
From the beginning, the revolution
in Egypt was propelled by the use of
social media. It at least partly began
on Facebook with the creation of
Facebook groups that gained hundreds
of thousands of members and promoted
the early protests in Cairo. Subsequently,
the government blocked Facebook and
Twitter and eventually shut down Internet
access completely. And with the outside
world following the unfolding revolution
online, political leaders and others,
including Twitter, spoke out against the
violence and freedom of expression issues
at risk. (p. 1)
Later that day, a colleague commented that
he was a little perturbed that one of his
new mentees had delivered the first draft
of his degree program rationale via iPhone.
Meanwhile, a student taking mobile media
studies shared his new blog, with an analysis
of several mobile applications, before
even completing his first reflection for the
study. It seems that some of our students
are already embracing the tools underlying
digital and social media literacy.
The college’s Vision 2015 includes the
following social mandate:
Our mission is to provide education
to people who are actively engaged in
sustaining and seeking to improve a
challenging, diverse and problematic
world. Our role as a public institution
is not separate from our citizenship
in the same world that challenges our
learners. We must endeavor to provide
the education they need to thrive as
individuals, as members of communities,
as active citizens and as agents for change.
(p. 4)
I invite you to consider this statement in
alignment with Hobbs’s (2010) comment
on the role of digital and media literacy in
education:
Digital and media literacy education
offers the potential to maximize what
we value most about the empowering
characteristics of media and technology,
while minimizing its negative dimensions.
As the Knight Commission report,
Informing Communities: Sustaining
Democracy in the Digital Age, explains,
informed and engaged communities need
citizens who appreciate the values of
transparency, inclusion, participation,
empowerment, and the common pursuit
of the public interest. (p. xi)
I propose that educating ourselves and our
students for digital and media literacy is an
important aspect of effective teaching and
mentoring for 21st century citizenship.
Notes
1
Leads by total June to November
2010. Internal data report on potential
applicant inquiries by center and by
discipline. This information is based
on an analysis of prospective student
inquiries, for the period from June 1,
2010 through November 30, 2010. It
was generated by the college’s office
of Admissions, SUNY Empire State
College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 2011
2
University of Houston, Digital
Storytelling Rubric, retrieved April
5, 2011. http://digitalstorytelling.coe.
uh.edu/DS-Project-Guidelines-2010.
html
3
Linden Lab, “Second Life Community
Standards,” http://secondlife.com/
corporate/cs.php. San Francisco, CA:
Accessed April 1, 2011.
4
Assets include data provided,
photographs and other images,
documents and written content, and
any media or digital artifact created and
uploaded by the user.
References
Banks, E. (2011, February 11). Egyptian
president steps down amidst
groundbreaking digital revolution.
CNN. Mashable. Retrieved from http://
www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.
media/02/11/egyptian.president.digital.
mashable/index.html
Brodkin, J. (2009, December 8). Facebook
halts Beacon: Gives $9.5 million to
settle lawsuit. PC World. Retrieved
from http://www.pcworld.com/
article/184029/facebook_halts_beacon_
gives_95m_to_settle_lawsuit.html
Goggin, G. (2008). Mobile Technologies:
From Telecommunication to Media.
London: Routledge.
Hobbs, R. (2010). Digital and Media
Literacy: A Plan of Action. In The
Aspen Institute (Eds.), The Aspen
Institute Communications and Society
Program. Washington, DC: The Aspen
Institute.
Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., &
Stone, S. (2010). The 2010 Horizon
Report. Austin, TX: The New Media
Consortium.
Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine,
A., & Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011
Horizon Report. Austin, TX: The New
Media Consortium.
Linden Lab. (n.d.). Second Life Community
Standards. Retrieved from http://
secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php
Lyotard, J.F. (1984). The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
Theory and History of Literature (V.
10). Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011