Bronx Museum of the Arts

Digital participatory media offer urban social studies teachers a unique opportunity to foster students' civic skills and public voice while enhancing their understanding of social justice within a democratic society. This article addresses the continuation of a New York City 8th grade U.S. history teacher's journey to use digital tools to foster his students' collaborative and communication skills and to help them learn social justice oriented content. While doing so, he overcame challenges related to technology integration, curricular alignment, selection of appropriate digital tools, and the need to cultivate his students' online academic norms. In doing so, he confronted Livingston's query about whether the use of technology necessitates a “fundamental transformation in learning infrastructure” and the need “to rethink the relations between pedagogy and society, teacher and pupil, and knowledge and participation” (2012, p. 8). He ended this part of his journey with these new challenges: how to enable his students to become navigators of their learning; ways to align the curriculum with his students' thinking; and, managing a dynamic instructional support system guided by his students' learning. His goal is “to forge a bridge between [his students'] media production and civic engagement' (Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2012).

Portrait of Maria Taylor by Branwell Bronte, oil on canvas, c. 1838–1839 This portrait, along with a Charlotte Bronte letter to Maria Taylor, was purchased on 13 November 2007 at a sale at Bonhams, London. Maria Taylor (1808–1875) was the daughter of Stephen and Mary Taylor of the Manor House, Stanbury. The Brontes were on friendly terms with the Taylors and Branwell also painted a portrait of Maria’s brother, Robert. Maria married James Ingham, a Bradford woolstapler, and the painting remained within the family until its acquisition by the Bronte Society. The portrait is catalogued in Alexander & Sellars, The Art of the Brontes (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), no. 256, p. 330. The Bronte Society would like to acknowledge the support of the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and The Art Fund in the acquisition of this painting.