By Chris A. Heidelberg III, PhD., Publisher & Producer

Kara-sidebar-picture-1

As I was reading All Things Digital on The Wall Street Journal online portal, I noticed that my Facebook friend Rafat Ali had sold the popular digital news site paidContent for approximately $25-$30 million dollars to English publishing conglomerate Guardian Media. Under the terms of the deal Guardian will take a hands off approach and let Ali and his team do what they do best: keep us informed on the latest technology news. What a concept! Guardian Media is a UK firm and they appear to get it: if it is not broke, don't fix it, buy it and get paid. Here is the link to the interview with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital  and I also added a snipet of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates together at  the D6 Conference before Gates retired from Microsoft, but you have to read further down to get to it. Speaking of getting it, I have to give  to give credit to The Wall Street Journal for a similar approach to All Things Digital and this is why Swisher and Walt Moss produce such great work and are not afraid to be transparent about their industry ties and investments. Great job Kara and Walt!

Normally, I am not a fan of media consolidation; however, my concerns are usually when big companies merge. I actually am more of a fan of deals like this when social media pioneers and gurus like Ali are financially rewarded. Why? First, it will encourage more blogging teams to produce quality content that draws eyeballs if they want the same financial rewards. Second, it brings new players into the media game with new ideas and approaches to reporting that is sorely needed. Third, it demonstrates that the big companies are willing to pay real dollars to become real players in the digital media world.

Media consolidation is not always evil; however, it has to be regulated. Now I know that this may not be popular with

D6: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Condensed Chat 2

To be sure, the media conglomerates are finally beginning to understand that social media is different and cannot be controlled and manipulated as easily as traditional media because of the democratizing effect of the Internet and social media. Politicians and big business are just beginning to learn these lessons, but the Google mantra of "do no evil" is a start. Even though, Google and these companies are far from perfect, the idea of dealing with the public in a forthright and transparent manner is what is driving the web. I guess the moral of the story is don't hate, congratulate and one day your day will come to get paid. I sure would not turn down $25-$30 million for this family of publications right now LOL!

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By  Chris A. Heidelberg, III, Ph.D., Publisher & Producer

I was sitting around enjoying the holiday when I realized that because of convergence technology like my cell phone,

Marshall McLuhan on YouTube

Facebook Mini-Feeds with Steve!

As I sat here for a moment after being busted by Facebook for unknowingly adding too many friends too fast. Hey, I am a popular guy with a huge family and friends and they ought to set a limit and make it transparent. Yet I digress!
My good friend Jack Yan in New Zealand and I may live worlds apart physically, but we are definitely of the same mind. Jack recently wrote a scathing post about the practices of large bank in New Zealand. After reading Jack's post on Facebook, I was instantly re-routed to Vox where we are also friends and wrote a comment.

Facebook Sucks

Think about that, I sent a message across the globe to comment on an article by a person who has become a friend all through the global village of the Internet as McLuhan (1968) predicted. Yes, the medium is the message, but I also believe that people are increasingly becoming the message. Jack's stance against the bank, and my current problem with Facebook, illustrates the power of the web for one to voice one's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with goods and services. While I have an issue with Facebook's policy, I wish when you receive a warning that it told you what the limit is. This is what I like about Apple, they give you the limits for computers upfront so that you can make an informed decision. Microsoft has a similar policy, so does Google, and so does Amazon.

BOOTED FROM COMCAST

Where am I going with this argument? The point that I am making is that ordinary people, even those of us with PhDs,  do not fully understand all the agreements that we have to sign in order to use online services. I am a Facebook fan and they are by far not the biggest offender when it comes to being transparent, listening to your customers, and communicating with customer in non-legal language. What bothers me is that the law is supposed to interpret against the drafter of an agreement when there is a dispute according to my old contracts teacher Professor Korzack. The rationale is that when you draft an agreement, you know exactly what you want, but the other side may not understand the totality of this want.            

Cell phones suck AT&T cingular verizon nextel sprint

So I guess I will serve out my punishment like a good cyber bad boy, but I want you to consider how the magic of the Internet has enabled us to literally have a freedom that was totally unimagined, yet hoped for by the Founding Fathers as we celebrate the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The Internet has provided us with wonderful freedoms, but if we are not careful to insist that the companies that we do business with are held to a high standard of transparency.

SPRINT SUCKS ASS I WANT MY 200 BUCKS BACK

Facebook Sucks A LOT...

If we do not make our voices heard through cyberspace, we risk becoming victims of the same type of tyranny that the Founding Fathers did anticipate that is why we have a Bill of Rights. Even though the Constitution has been diminished in recent years by both corporate and government interests, often acting in concert together, we still have the right to question authority en masse to protect our privacy, our sense of fairness and our basic sense of human dignity. Which is why the embedded videos on this post are all people questioning authority and the policies of big companies. Some of these videos are classic! This will become a regular feature on Edutainment & Convergence so send me links or your video protest here or on my Facebook page.

vista sucks

In final analysis, when you deal with online companies it is a lot like the large bug trying to talk its way into your home  from the extermination company ad: you never know what you are letting into your life and how much pain they can you once you let them into your life. Remember, freedom is not free, and it is not for free or for wimps! So while I am serving digital timeout based on no due process, you just remember that freedom is not free. Enjoy your holiday and never give up the right to protest or peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances! Fight back! Unless you love Facebook like me! If you like this post make it viral and send it out!

Now that's edutainment!

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By Chris A. Heidelberg III, Ph.D.

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented the new iPhone yesterday in San Francisco, I had a "eureka moment" where the impact of the iPhone has really impacted two of my favorite things higher education and entertainment. For the purposes of being contrarian I will deliberately start with the field of entertainment.

New Apple iPhone 2.0 - user interface, camera, 3G. GPS

Despite the fact that there is a real fight between Apple and NBC, the iPhone and the iPod Touch have enabled television viewers to view NBC, MSNBC, and USA Networks programming for free. NBC willingly gave up $15 million dollars in iTunes revenues from Apple because they wanted variable pricing from Apple which insisted on the old $1.99 download model (Apple, 2008; NBC, 2008). Ironically, Apple has begun offering variable pricing to the movie industry now, so maybe the two companies should mend fences for the sake of consumers. For NBC, this is really a lose-lose proposition because NBC and Fox just started the HULU network online to distribute their television and cable shows online (Apple, 2008; Hulu, 2008; Fox, 2008; NBC, 2008; Newscorp, 2008).

Hulu - Lionsgate - iTunes - Disney - AFTRA - MediaBytes Marc

iPhone 2.0 includes enterprise features, to launch in June.

The iPhone changed the debate in favor of Apple because even iPodTouch owners can view NBC content for free rather than downloading. NBC may have created more iPhone and iPodTouch owners who can view NBC content and save money during tough economic times. The fact that many young viewers of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann are becoming very politically active and are tech savvy has benefited the Obama Campaign which has relied heavily on podcasts, blogs, YouTube and the Internet to campaign and to raise record campaign donations from ordinary Americans. The fact that the new iPhone will operate on AT&T's 3G network which will make the device a fully functional convergence device with less problems than its predecessor which operated on the notoriously slow EDGE network.

The iPhone and competing devices will make it possible for new entertainment content that can air on iTunes,

WWDC 2008 News: iPhone 3G makes its debut

However, the iPhone and the iPodTouch has already impacted the biggest entertainment business of them all: higher education. If higher education can extend the best parts of its NCAA model to the academic side, it will create a business that will rival the major networks, publishers, and music content providers. Furthermore, this organization would also be a major online player too, since most of the people from the tech world have higher edudational roots.

American InterContinental University Online ...

iPhone SDK Roadmap Event: Short Version

Finally, the most important reason that higher education will change higher education is the delivery of content. Apple delivers more digital content than anyone in the world, and the company has created a future gold mine with its free podcasts which inevitably will be branded with ads from NCAA corporate sponsors on the academic side. The day will come when Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon will all benefit from residuals of ads placed strategically within podcasts. Apple's new iTunesU has been extremely successful in its first full year of operation.

PHL017: Death Penalty, Violence, Culture

UC Davis on iTunesU

Prof. Weiss-Lambrou: Podcasts for teaching & learning

Did you hear that sucking sound? That is the sound of big media publishers screaming when colleges begin to create their own digital publishing outlets that will enable professors to teach and publish online simultaneously.
Administrators are going to have problems with the whole tenure process since they love hiring adjuncts on the cheap! The real question becomes this: what will they do when the first academic rockstar professors are born! Even if they win the intellectual property war, which is not a given, many professors will simply jump ship and sign better deals with universities because of the new crop of intellectual property attorneys. Stay tuned because I hear a storm coming!

Now that's edutainment!

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Dr. Barbara McCombs, Director The Center For Human Motivation, Learning And Development

By Chris A. Heidelberg, III, PhD

For the past five years I have been researching, writing about and speaking about edutainment and convergence. Somewhere around 2005, I began to find that edutainment and convergence is all about creating a learner-centered environment (Heidelberg, 2007, 2008; McCombs, 2003, 2005). I may sound like my colleagues Dr. Bill Spady (2001), Dr. Barbara McCombs (2003, 2005) and Dr. Reid Cornwell (2008) but they are absolutely correct in their assessments that the currrent educational system from K-20 is n ot learner-centered. 

Dr. William "Bill" Spady

As a point of fact, I would suggest that the current education is primarily based on a top-down model that has been a teacher-centered model and is gradually becoming a political, corporate and administrative model. McCombs (2003, 2005) made the case to me for the learner-centered environment during my dissertation research when I read her books. However, it was when I met Dr. McCombs that her message resonated with total clarity. Dr. McCombs has spent an academic lifetime in the field demonstrating the effectiveness of her theories in some of the most challenging urban academic environments. 

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall

One would think that the learner centered principles advocated by her and others (Stark & Lattuca, 1997) would have been adopted by most of the great teaching institutions of higher education. However, the Academy is still wedded to 13th and 14th century traditions while young people are entering adult life and the digital economy ill-equipped in too many cases to compete against our competitors despite having the best system and resources.

Stand For Children - A Day on the Hill

This is a form of educational malpractice. When administrators and faculty have access to the tools that make education relevant and create a relationship with the knowledge so that the built in rigor can occur in a learner-centered environment, and there is no fundamental change in the learning environment en masse this is a form of negligence known as educational malpractice. However, this nation has been fallen under the seductive spell of high stakes standardized tests as assessment tools (Spady, 2001). The four obvious culprits are the corporate testing companies, pandering politicians who should know better, the educational community that should have objected to high stakes testing and began teaching the test to survive, and the American public. The one group that has not been called to task is the corporate media that has simply parroted industry and political spin with little public resistance. As a media professional, a researcher and an educator, I feel ashamed about what has happened; however, I am optimistic about the future for learning because of my research on edutainment and convergence.

James Gee on games and learning

  Personally, I would take the military option! What I mean by the military option is that I would utilize tools such as video games as one of my assessment tools of choice. Why utilize video games? Video games have been effectively utilized for more than thirty years by the military for defense purposes and space exploration (Halter, 2006; Wisher, 2000). Video games  are a form of simulation that is blurring the line between reality and fantasy because of tools like Nintendo's Wii and its Wii Fit program which may provide health and fitness benefits for millions and is being used by medical professionals for rehabilitation purposes.

Wii Fit

Why does the military utilize gaming? Because they are relevant to young people and they work! Video games are relevant to young people because the y are interactive, exploratory, competitive and fun. Young people are digital natives with a natural affinity for all things digital (Gee, 2004, 2005; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Video games create relationships between the players, the game and the knowledge embedded in the game (Gee, 2004, 2005, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Finally, video games are full of the rigor that increases as the learner advances through the game, and video games can be played online and updated for the gifted students (Gee, 2001, 2006; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Video games of every stripe have the ability to digitally access students (Wisher, 2000).
There are other convergence tools with edutainment capabilities that can also be utilized by learners. For example, i

UC Davis on iTunesU

iTunesU is now being used by Ivy League, flagship institutions, honors colleges and other institutions of higher learning. What makes iTunesU effective for students is that it is asynchronous and it enables students to download automatically or on demand once the instructor loads the podcast recording of the class  to iTunes. This enables any student with a computer, laptop, iPod or cell phone to download the course and even burn copies of the lecture with a

Henry Jenkins on digital media and learning

personal computer. This is learner-centered activity in the world of edutainment and convergence is the Twenty-first century learning and economic environment. So the question becomes this: will learning become student centered or become a political and industry centered tool that fails to teach critical thinking that may sometimes run counter to status quo. In the final analysis, education and learners will have their liberty through learner-centered principles and edutainment and convergence, or education and learners will gradually experience a death due to learning through the status quo.  Remember, the learner is the reason  for education and edutainment makes it fun! Learning should be fun and challenging too!

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A View Of The Rocky Mountains From My Shuttle

By Chris A. Heidelberg, III, PhD.
If you have never been to the wonderful state of Colorado, you may not understand why many people who see the greater Denver - Breckenridge area call it God's country. Viewing the Rocky Mountains for the first time up close is simply a breathtaking and awe-inspiring sight! I also had the opportunity to travel to the Continental Divide in the snow for the first time and it made me think about edutainment and convergence.

While scheduled as a speaker at any event is an honor, I was simply happy just attending the conference as a member of the board of directors of The Center for Internet Research and the Focus On Education Foundation.

Dennis Streeter & Dr. Reid Cornwell Viewing Video And Solving A Techical Glitch

Jonathan and Dr. Reid Cornwell Of Focus On Education Foundation And The Center For Internet Research

Since I am at Denver International Airport and preparing to leave for Baltimore, I cannot finish this post in my usual style. However, I would like to state for the record that Innovation 2008 was one of the finest gatherings of intellectual energy that I have ever been privileged to experience. The unique mix of academia, government and private industry in the fields of education and technology shed light on importance of technology in the field of education.

Dr. William Husson, VP Regis University & Dr. Phillip Farley, IBM Academic Initiative (Ret.)

The critical message that Innovation 2008 was able to promote is the notion that educational reform is a micro-effort rather than a macro-effort that can be mandated by government. Individual professors, administrators, businessmen, government leaders and students will be crucial to the adoption of edutainment and convergence on a massive level. At the end of the day, educators, politicians and businessmen must stop blaming the students, and look in the mirror! If students are not learning it is a problem of the education system which has failed to massively update the current system to meet the needs of a digital economy.

Geoffrey Caine LLM. & Renate Caine, PhD. Of The Natural Learning Research Institute

If we are committed to really educating our students, we will need to learn about our students, their skill sets, their preferences, and their learning styles.

Jeremy Hall - Churchill Fellow Managing Partner & Hall Marketing and UK Simulation Expert

Dr. Barbara McCombs, Director The Center For Human Motivation, Learning And Development

Educators need to commit to becoming great communicators if we are going to become great educators, and communicators need to be open to the concerns of educators. This conference further cemented my desire to continue the discourse in this area. Professors and teachers from K-20 will be compelled to utilize, learn and include technology, especially new media, as part of the curricula, the classroom and outside of the classroom experience for learners.

Dr. Chris A. Heidelberg III

Gone are the days where the professor is the star and the sage of the classroom. The future of education requires that professors become the producers and directors of the learning experience, so that the students become the stars, sages and future directors. Often teaching a given topic or subject is an excellent way to learning a subject. Finally, the fact that the Pentagon and NASA have utilized simulation and gaming for approximately forty years for learning purposes should be taken seriously by higher education and integrated into the learning environment.

One of the best things that I heard from one of the speakers was that curricula should include rigor, relationship and relevance. Educators have to connect the dots with these three r's by placing relevance first when educating learners. Once relevance has been established learners can develop a relationship with the content that  they are learning. Then and only then can learner emulate the video gaming model of increasing the rigor as the gamer, or in this case the learner, proceeds through the embedded learning within the game. If educators grasp this model we will all be able to exclaim three of my favorite words, "Now that's edutainment!"

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Dr. Chris A. Heidelberg III

It is all over but the shout on graduation day on May 21st, and my final formatting and other edits that I will be making over the next two weeks. It was a great challenge and a wonderful opportunity. This publication is the result of my research that began in the fall of 2001 on convergence and transformed into my research on both edutainment and convergence as I pursued a doctorate in higher education.

I saw an opportunity to connect my entertainment, journalism, filmmaking, government policy, history, techology, political and education background by pursuing how to utilize these disciplines in the field of higher education. Some people really did laugh when I initially suggested what I intended to study from day one to quote Hillary Clinton.  But I joined the straight talk express and stayed on message like John McCain. I always tried to be gracious and did it on a shoe string budget just like Mike Huckabee. At the end of the day, the last four years and the creation of this publication and several other sister publications last year was the point at which hope, met opportunity and desire and today I am Dr. Chris A. Heidelberg III.  You can use this link to the sister research site to see the photos and what I talked about during my presentation at http://edutainmentconvergenceresearch.vox.com

For those of you who read this publication, all of my family, and my friends, I say thank you and may you have the opportunity to realize a dream as I have. I kept a promise to my dying grandmother that I made to her in 2003 while she was still alive and I know that there is power in words because words create thoughts, and thoughts create ideas which in turn create actions. I am literally the hope of all of the people in my family and my community who believed in me, helped me and nurtured me whether I was integrating a private school with my cousin Rolando in 1969 or being part of a group that helped to truly integrate one of the best private college prep schools in Baltimore in 1977. We were truly the first children of real integration, and now you are seeing the Audacity of Hope in action in the form of my classmates and leaders like Barack Obama. I am sure that every day of slavery and Jim Crow and straight up discrimination their were some old church folk hoping and praying that their children and grandchildren would have a real opportunity in America. Thank God they kept hoping and praying and believing because every day that reality is coming true and America is becoming an even greater country.

Thank you, and God bless each of you!

Chris

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Specific Findings

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By Chris A. Heidelberg, III

    The official report of findings for my dissertation has been released today. The study was a eleven month national qualitative study of eight entertainment professionals from New York City, Hollywood, and the San Antonio/Austin, Texas, area. The study was conducted entirely through the Internet and with new media on location throughout the country. It was open-sourced research, and all eight media professionals agreed to reveal their identities and they fully collaborated with me on this study and the electronic web sites that were created as a result of this research with the guidance and support of the participants.The research obtained was utilized in the design of this site and the official research site at http://edutainmentconvergenceresearch.vox.com is the official study site.

    The participants found that edutainment and convergence can be utilized in higher education through a variety of sensory-based entertainment techniques such as the following: role playing, drama, music, art, dance, song, spoken word, poetry, rap, the Internet, iPods, iPhones, Blackberry’s, Treos, cell phones, blogs, websites, social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, online software; video sharing sites, podcasting, vlogging, and video games.

The Platform: A Single Truth

James Gee on games and learning

The literature supported this finding by participants (Apple, 2007; Blackboard, 2007; Bonk & Dennen, 2005; Bonk & Wisher, 2000; Farkas, 2006, 2007; Gates, 1995, 1998; Gee, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005; Microsoft, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006; Tapscott & Williams, 2006; Vise & Malseed, 2005; YouTube, 2007).  They were prone to use the word, socialization in many of their conversations: the meaning of this word was face-to-face interaction.

How to Subscribe to a Podcast Using UIS on iTunes U

iPodTouch

The research also has supported this finding, and several elite universities such as Duke University, MIT, Stanford, and Cal-Berkeley are now utilizing iTunesU, iPods, iPhones, Blackboard, blogs, websites, podcasting, cell phones, and YouTube to distribute classes and other educational content on-demand via streaming, downloading, surfing the web, or direct viewing (Apple, 2007; Blackboard, 2007; Bonk & Dennen, 2005; Bonk & Wisher, 2000; Duke University, 2007; Farkas, 2006, 2007; Gates, 1995, 1998; Gee, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005; Microsoft, 2007; MIT, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006; Stanford, 2007; Tapscott & Williams, 2006; University of California at Berkeley, 2007; Vise & Malseed, 2005; YouTube, 2007).

Gee Melbourne Part 3

The participants focused many of their comments on the military, which has spent billions of dollars in research dollars on video gaming and simulation technology to transform military and civilian government agencies into digital entities.  They contended these technologies are effective learning and training tools that have worked on the battlefield, civilian agencies, and government and corporate classrooms.

wii

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