Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out

The title of my blog, Ed Tech Axis, came from the struggle I feel it is to help students & teachers integrate their personal use of technology with their educational uses. Students who have no idea how to format a Word document might have the most pimped-out My Space page on the planet, complete with CSS editing. Teachers who can't live without their Blackberry can't figure out how to use a wiki. So, it is with much excitement that I post about a book that has just been published. I read about it on Dana Boyd's "Apophenia" blog:

"Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networks sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youth's social and recreational use of digital media. "Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out" fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces."

You can even get it in downloadable PDF. Review to follow.