Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

Q&A: Mimi Ito on Connected Learning for All

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies technology use and young people’s changing relationships to media and communications. This post is part of a series of conversations with thought leaders on digital media and learning, then and now.

Q&A: Howard Rheingold on Using Technology to Take Learning into Our Own Hands

Critic and educator Howard Rheingold is author of Virtual Reality, The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs, and Net Smart. As he puts it he’s been “on the Web since the beginning, and long before.” This is the first in a series of conversations with thought leaders on digital media and learning, then and now.

Are Class Differences in Parenting Creating a New Digital Divide?

Research shows social class has a big effect on parenting style. Does it influence how kids use digital media too? Heather Chaplin examines what the digital divide means in 2012.

In Pittsburgh, A Modern-Day Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

How gamers, roboticists, technologists, and designers are working alongside educators in Pittsburgh to inspire new kinds of learning in and outside of school. We visit innovators at the city’s regional learning network that focuses on kids and creativity

YOUmedia Expansions Offer Teens Student-Centered Learning Opportunities with Digital Media

At YOUmedia at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, kids explore, express and create using digital media, and then hook what they learn there back into the classroom. The idea is spreading. As Heather Chaplin reports, YOUmedia spaces are popping up at community centers, museums and libraries around the country.

Welcoming Mobile: More Districts Are Rewriting Acceptable Use Policies, Embracing Smartphones and Social Media in Schools

No longer afraid of giving kids access to the internet and using mobile technologies for learning, a growing number of school districts across the country are developing digital media policies that emphasize responsibility over fear.

Q&A: John Seely Brown on Interest-Driven Learning, Mentors and the Importance of Play

As the leading thinkers and do-ers meet this week at the third annual Digital Media and Learning conference, Spotlight talked with DML2012’s keynote presenter John Seely Brown, self-proclaimed “chief of confusion,” and one of the most enlightening thinkers on nearly any topic.

Programming With Scratch Jr: When it Comes to Screen Time and Young Kids, Content and Context Are Important

Since MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group released Scratch in 2007, kids ages 8 to 13 have built more than 2.2 million animations, games, music, videos and stories using the kid-friendly programming language. Now with a grant from the National Foundation of Science, Lifelong Kindergarten is collaborating with Tufts University’s DevTech Research Group to make Scratch Jr, a new version aimed at kids in preschool to second grade.

The Future of Assessment, Accreditation & The Internet: Deconstructing Mozilla’s Open Badges Project

Heather Chaplin talks with Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, and HASTAC Co-founder Cathy Davidson on what this new model for assessment and accreditation may mean for learners, teachers and the future of the internet.

Digital Media in the Classroom Case Study: Gamestar Mechanic

Gamestar Mechanic is a video game that teaches kids how to design video games. With the first school year wrapping up in which Gamestar Mechanic was used, Spotlight takes a look at how teachers—and students—made progress with it in the classroom.

Prototyping Our Way to Reforming Education

With ARIS, a new application for creating place-based mobile games, developers experiment with new models to get digital tools into educators hands more quickly - rapid prototyping of an idea and tons of user testing.

The Future of Reading and Writing is Collaborative

A vanguard of educators, technologists, intellectuals and writers are reimagining the very meaning of writing and reading.

Making a (Social) Impact: Gaming Companies Encourage Kids to Design Games With a Purpose

Spotlight talks with game developers about their plans to help kids design video games based on important social issues such as energy, nutrition and eco systems.

Novel Public/Private Partnership Brings “Gamestar Mechanic” Video Game to Classrooms

After five years in the making “Gamestar Mechanic” is now available to educators via E-Line Media. Spotlight tells the story of how unique game-based learning platform came to be.