Early Childhood Learning, Cultural Play, and Open License Children’s Music with Songchild.org

Presented by Jason Nolan and Danny Bakan

Date: Monday March 03, 2008
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Location: bitHeads, Inc.

Sponsored by Design Interpretive!

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Abstract

Songchild is a wiki-based collaboration between a scholar and a professional musician (Danny Bakan) that seeks to re-infuse the folk element back into children’s music. We want to use the creative, artistic, authentic voices of the child, parent and teacher to expand the sharing of cultural narratives, and we want to leverage the web 2.0 infrastructure to enhance community and connectivity between multilingual, multi-age, and multicultural communities.

Web 2.0 technologies such as Youtube, Google Earth, Facebook and Myspace represent a resurgence of folk culture” “The everyday and intimate creativity that all of us share and pass on to the next…” (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/whatisfolklife.html). With this resugence we experience the blurring of the boundaries of producer and consumer, the questioning of ownership of content and the commodification of cultural experience. Though access to these forms of communication are mediated by corporations, content is user driven. We are looking to integrate Songchild with One Laptop Per Child project, Jhai PC and other related initiatives that work to put tools in the hands of children for constructionist learning.

Children learn about technology from their parents and teachers before they are influenced by peers and advertising. With their families children are taking digital photos before they are three and “mucking about with mom’s linux box.” We see computers as tools for putting people in touch with people and the products they create, and we hope to integrate this perspective with the notion that learning is primarily a socially and culturally situated act.

This presentation will start by situating the collaborators in the creation of technology based learning environments and include an overview of the issues surrounding songchild and a interactive workshop component, facilitated by Danny via shared workspaces from Toronto, relating to songs and lyrics as they relate to technology and early learning environments. Other issues include the OLPC, sharing of cultural information, first language maintenance (learning your parents’ language), music and early childhood education, the power of song as a whole brain activity.

Bio

Jason Nolan (http://lemmingworks.org) is an assistant professor of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University where he teaches courses in children and technology and science education in the early years. He has spent 20 years teaching and learning with technology with a particular interest in learning in non-formal environments. He is founding co-editor of the journal Learning Inquiry (Springer), and the book series Transdisciplinary Studies (Sense Publishing). In 2005 he co-edited “Less of You, More of Us: The Political Economy of Power in Virtual Communities.” which was published as a special issue of the ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, and in 2006 co-edited The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments (Springer). Research interests children and technology, children’s conceptualisation of space, learning in the margins, virtual learning environments from MOOs to Second Life, blogs, wikis and all the little bits inbetween.

Danny Bakan (http://dannybakan.com) is a professional musician and songwriter, as well as a sessional instructor with the school of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson University where he teaches arts-based education.

Where and When?

This event will take place on Monday, March 3, 2008, 7-9 PM at bitHeads, Inc. (http://www.bitheads.com/), located at 1309 Carling Avenue (in the Westgate Shopping Centre), Ottawa, ON K1Z 7L3 Canada.

bitHeads is located on the east side of the shopping centre, facing Island Park Drive and the Royal Ottawa Hospital. The bitHeads entrance is on the outside of the building next door to Pet Smart and Blockbusters.

Note: Please arrive 5-10 minutes earlier to allow for registering.

The meeting fee is $5 for non-members and free for CapCHI members ($20/year). Membership is for the session period (September 2007-August 2008) - anyone can join!