Spotlight MacArthur Foundation

“Open the Door”: How An Afterschool Program is Changing Teens - And Neighborhoods

Produced by Ben Wolff

StudentSpeak Webisode 11/ View more Spotlight videos

In this StudentSpeak webisode, Spotlight talks with Shaondell, 17, a participant in the YOUmedia aftershool program at Harold Washington Library in Chicago.

Shaondell created a short video, “The Myriad,” about violence in his community as part of YOUMedia’s collaboration with the Cure Violence project (learn more about the collaboration and the students’ work here).

“YOUmedia is a great space to get out your ideas and be creative,” said Shaondell who comes to the program from Chicago’s Corliss/Roseland neighborhood. “I wouldn’t be the person who I am today without YOUmedia. I never would have learned to make videos or play the piano, or do these great things that I’m doing now. YOUmedia really opened the door. And I think that’s really vital to curing violence.

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Reimagining Education and Learning in America

Filed by Sarah J. • August 31, 2010

The MacArthur Foundation’s director of education says we don’t have to wait to create a new vision of learning for America’s schools. The time is now.

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Back to School, Part 2: Strategies for the Digital Classroom

Filed by Christine C. • August 30, 2010

As Holden Caulfield reminds us in “The Catcher in the Rye”: “You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.”

While that enthusiasm annoys Holden, we think it’s pretty cool. In honor of the new school year, we’re looking at creative ideas for using digital literacy in the classroom. If you missed the first post, check out “Back to School, Looking Forward” for great suggestions from Patrick Woesnner and Ewan McIntosh.

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Hiding in Plain Sight: Teens Say What They Mean to Reach Multiple Audiences

Filed by Christine C. • August 27, 2010

As more companies enter the fray to monitor teens’ words and activities online, teens are managing their privacy by engaging in age-old practices.

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Teach, Invent, Hack: Register Now for Mozilla’s Drumbeat Festival

Filed by Sarah J. • August 26, 2010

Registration is now open for Mozilla’s first annual Drumbeat Festival: Learning, Freedom and the Web, Nov. 3 - 5 in Barcelona.

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The Digital Landscape –What’s Next for News?

Filed by Sarah J. • August 24, 2010

Harvards’s Nieman Reports weighs in on the future of journalism, including how young people are using technology as consumers and producers of information and how news organizations are looking to gaming as a way to engage audiences. Plus: evidence that journalism is not dying.

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A Story Worth Reading: Learning About Flash Mobs and Digital and Media Literacy

Filed by Christine C. • August 23, 2010

Renee Hobbs, founder of the Media Education Lab at Temple University in Philadelphia, has a fascinating story to tell about the power of media literacy, but she needs your help to tell it.

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PLAYBACK: Technology & Higher Learning

Filed by Christine C. • August 20, 2010

The connection between Facebook and college retention; professors embracing Twitter, in and out of the classroom; five neuroscientists take a vacation without technology and debate the significance; and David Theo Goldberg responds to the “growing concern that computers have failed to live up to the promise of improving learning for school kids.” Plus, the e-book—pros and cons.

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Back to School, Looking Forward: New Digital Ideas for the Classroom

Filed by Christine C. • August 19, 2010

August is a teacher’s time for Big Thinking. There’s still breathing space to imagine innovative approaches before September arrives - and with it the pressure of day-to-day classroom realities. This month, Spotlight will look at how educators are thinking about tapping into the power of digital literacy. First up: pairing expression styles with digital media tools, and an argument for setting the ePortfolio default to “social.”

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“A Giant Impact”: Chicago Teens Use Digital Media to Respond to Neighborhood Violence

Produced by Ben Wolff

StudentSpeak Webisode 10 / View more Spotlight videos

Previously on StudentSpeak, we met Chicago teenagers who use social media to promote their weekly open-mic night at the YOUmedia digital space at Harold Washington Library.

In this webisode, we check out how they’re using their digital media skills to report on and respond to violence in their neighborhoods.

YOUmedia got involved in anti-violence efforts as part of a collaboration with the Cure Violence project - a partnership between CeaseFire, an initiative of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, and Lincoln Schatz, a Chicago video and sculpture artist.

Cure Violence invites participants to use digital media and mobile technologies to create and share anti-violence messages. Initially conceived as a video portrait project based on interviews with Chicago residents, Cure Violence is currently working with youth and community organizations in the Chicago area and in Brooklyn. The website, which is still in beta, will eventually be open to anyone who wants to share stories, responses and strategies for violence prevention.

Many of the YOUmedia teens are from neighborhoods where violence is all too common, and they jumped at the chance to produce 3-minute videos showing how their communities could be made safer.

“We approached the project as a digital journalism project, where students can jump in in a multiplicity of ways, from video to spoken word to design to music,” said Mike Hawkins, YOUmedia’s lead mentor.

Dimress, 17, said the invitation to participate was the first “sign ... that someone wanted something different.”

“I got kind of used to the violence,” she said.

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