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Building OneVille: Understanding and Improving a Communication Ecosystem in Education

Building OneVille: Understanding and Improving a Communication Ecosystem in Education

Mica Pollock, Associate Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education; The OneVille Project

Tuesday, November 30, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor

RSVP required for those attending in person (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu)
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.

The talk will share what’s being learned as partners of all ages in the diverse community of Somerville, MA, explore the role of commonplace technology in improving communications about and with young people. In the OneVille Project, students, teachers, parents, mentors, techies, and researchers are co-designing and pilot-testing a toolbox of open source “community communication tools” supporting students individually, across schools, and citywide. Who needs to communicate what information to whom, through which media, in order to support youth in a community? Which barriers are in the way of such communication, and how might these barriers be overcome? And what are the devil(s) in the details of just “adding tech”? Mica Pollock, an anthropologist of education and Somerville parent, will share her early thoughts on this collective effort to understand and improve a city’s ecosystem of communications.

About Mica

Mica Pollock, an anthropologist of education, has long studied how youth and adults discuss and address everyday issues of diversity and opportunity in schools. Pollock is now examining the full range of communications — including electronic communications — necessary to support young people in diverse communities. Pollock’s first three books offer readers concrete recommendations for engaging issues of race and equality in education. Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School helped readers navigate six core American struggles over talking (and not talking) in racial terms in schools. Because of Race: How Americans Debate Harm and Opportunity in Our Schools, examined the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights as the background for analyzing pervasive disputes over improving the everyday experiences of students and families of color in U.S. schools. Pollock next organized 70 scholars to write Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real about Race in School. “EAR” is being used to spark educator inquiry in schools and districts across the country. Currently, with the support of the Ford Foundation, Pollock is collaborating with educators, families, young people, and technology experts in The OneVille Project in Somerville, MA, to consider how commonplace technology can support people in diverse communities to share ideas, information, resources, and efforts for young people's success. She previously taught high school in California.

Links

Download media from this event here.

Past Event
Nov 30, 2010
Time
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM