Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

For the Oh Family, Back to School Involves Changing Time Zones - and Planets

Getting on a school schedule can be a tough adjustment for any kid. But what if you’ve spent the past month living on Mars time?

Meet Makers in Vermont; Go Inside Quest to Learn School; Help a Robot Come to Life

Spotlight is going on summer break, returning Aug. 27. But first we look at maker culture in Vermont and CNN’s report on gaming and Quest to Learn. We also check in with a group of sixth-grade girls who hoped to launch an object into the stratosphere, and meet a team seeking funding to build one very large robot.

PLAYBACK: Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom

S. Craig Watkins implements connected learning principles on a digital media project with high school students; Howard Rheingold talks with Alec Couros about making learning visible; and Caine Monroy turns 10 with a celebration at his DIY cardboard arcade. 

Covering the London Olympics as a Student Journalist

College students are reporting from London, tweeting, blogging and producing audio and video segments about the Olympics for school-sponsored media and professional news outlets. It’s an opportunity to work as a backpack journalist, traveling with the latest multimedia tools.

Design Thinking Workshop for Educators: Applying Creative Problem Solving to Classrooms

Edutopia today launched a free online workshop, “Design Thinking for Educators,” to help educators consider how design thinking—a problem-solving process built around five stages—might be applied in the classroom and in their professional lives.

Craftsmanship is Dead. Long Live Maker Culture.

Journalist and author Louis Uchitelle laments the decline of American craftsmanship along with its cultural influence. Here’s why a visit with DIY makers in Detroit or a spin through Caine’s Arcade (with a fun pass, of course) might change his opinion about the future of manufacturing and the American self-image.

Call for Proposals: Digital Media and Learning Badge Development Research Competition

The Digital Media and Learning Competition on Badges for Lifelong Learning is seeking research proposals that support and inform the design, development and deployment of digital badges and badge systems.

Remembering Sally Ride’s Advocacy for STEM and Gender Equity

The news that Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, had died at age 61 inspired a flood of stories about Ride’s role as a leader in STEM education. Plus, a short video captures the historical complexities of women, science, space and pop culture.

PLAYBACK: Universities Move Quickly to Embrace MOOCs, Course Credit is More Complicated

As more universities join Coursera, still unknown is the effect on higher education itself—including whether students will eventually receive credit or accreditation that satisfies employers and their own educational needs without driving up the costs of MOOCs to the point where they, too, become financially out of reach.

Putting Youth Voices Front and Center Online

Digital communication has greatly expanded and influenced writing styles and, by extension, classroom writing assignments. One of the earliest projects to take advantage of this shift is Youth Voices, which engages students around personal interests and inquiry-based research.

New Report Puts in Perspective “21st Century Skills” and Other Education Terms You May Have Heard

A new National Research Council report aims to unpack the meaning of educational buzzwords such as “21st-century learning” and “deeper learning” and determine where education reform should target efforts to prepare students for success.

Can One Laptop (or One Kindle) Per Child Boost Literacy and Learning?

Five years into an ambitious technology experiment, education experts and government officials are debating whether the more than $200 million spent to distribute laptops to 800,000 school children in Peru has been worth the cost. Plus: Could e-readers be the next One Laptop Per Child?

PLAYBACK: School is Out, Learning is In

Concerns over the level of academic preparedness in the United States are reflected in numerous stories about how to stem the “summer slide”—the loss of math and reading skills that can occur when the school year ends. In this week’s PLAYBACK, we’ve pulled together a number of recommended activities, most with a digital component, to keep skills sharp while having fun.