The ubiquity of mobile media devices have shifted the structures of how we work and communicate in nearly every avenue of society except for schools. Despite the fact that nearly all of the nation’s students are wirelessly connected, schools and teachers have done little to engender mobile devices into classroom learning experiences. Instead, the persistent use of mobile devices by students for texting, social networking, and gameplay means student mobile devices are seen as an insidious problem to be rooted out, filtered, and confiscated. Professor Antero Garcia will share research findings on ways students are socializing and mediating relationships through mobile devices on high school campuses, examples of student civic engagement with mobile devices, and opportunities for how schools can better respond to the “always connected” generation of students filtering into schools today. Antero will be joined by current South Central teacher, Mark Gomez, for part of this discussion.
Antero Garcia is an assistant professor in English at Colorado State University. Prior to this year, Antero was a high school English teacher in South Central Los Angeles for eight years. Antero’s research focuses on the role of mobile media and gameplay in school settings. Currently, Antero is conducting research on a makerspace in Northern Colorado and the possibilities of computer programming in English Language Arts classrooms..