TTP 2007: Popular Culture in the Classroom

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TTP 2007: Popular Culture in the Classroom
March 24, 25 and April 14, 2007
Teachers College Columbia University, New York CIty

Featuring rapper, Law & Order actor and star of the VH1 reality show Ice T’s Rap School Ice-T, Pulitzer Prize winning comic book artist of Maus and creator of The Garbage Pail Kids Art Spiegelman, four-time National Poetry Slam champion and star of the film Slam, Taylor Mali, The New Yorker Art Editor of and co-creator of Little Lit comic series Françoise Mouly, mental_floss magazine President and co-founder Will Pearson, author (Youth Fantasies) and Professor of Education at University of Alberta jan jagodzinski and author, Temple University Professor and Director of Temple’s Media Education Lab Renee Hobbs

Teach, Think, Play 2007 was the inauguration of a new kind of Cultural Studies conference at Teachers College. This new conference built on 3 previous years of cultural studies conferences but reoriented the event toward practicing k-12 educators. Thus, the "Teach, Think, Play" philiosphy was created to give practicing educators a multi-layered understanding of the use (and sometimes abuse) of popular culture in classrooms across the globe. In addition to the seven keynote speakers, the event did have a competitive call for papers and presentations that filled 30 break out presentations, a film festival and educational game lab. With hundreds in attendance, students, teachers and academics presented and explored new ways to "make curriculum pop!"

While many came to enjoy TTP as a conference others participated in the event as students. Students that enrolled in TTP as a course were required to master "21st Century Literacies" by creating projects that used media litacy and popular culture in ways that informed their educational practices. If you want to capture the TTP experience we recommend you begin your journey by browsing the program, and biographies below.

      • Call for Papers
      • Conference Program/Schedule
      • "Play" Speaker Biographies
      • Course Schedule
      • Syllabus/Readings
      •"Project Is Right" Assignment Sheet 2007
      • Thank Yous & Credits
      • Video (coming soon)

Every conference participant was given a "swag bag" that included the conference program, poster & binder, Mindblue learning expirence guides (LEOs) for Maus and Ice-T, issues of mental_floss magazine, a preview copy of DefinedMind's Hip-Hop, Rock and R&B SAT vocabulary accelerator & free downloads from Audible.com.