Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

12.9.08 | We summarize the coverage of new findings from a three-year ethnographic study of young people’s digital media use, which was released by Mizuko Ito and her colleagues last month.

Contrary to popular myths, the study found that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.

Living and Learning with New Media is available as an executive summary, a white paper, or a full research report, now available online and forthcoming as a book from MIT Press. Press release, video interviews, and additional information about the study can be found on MacArthur’s website.

See press coverage in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more results from google news.

From the blogosphere -

• Henry Jenkins has just posted a two-part interview with the book’s authors. Part One. Part Two.
• John Palfrey says the study is “required reading” for those interested in the field.
• Cory Doctorow, in a post on Boing Boing, points out that this research is an important antidote to adult fears about the supposed dangers of teens spending too much time online.
• Rafi Santo, posting on the Global Kids’ blog, highlights the researchers’ attention to kids self-directed learning online.
• We also saw additional coverage on Smart Mobs, Connect with Your Teens Through Pop Culture and Technology on blogher, and Mike Gruss.

You can hear the book’s authors talk about their work in a forum we sponsored last spring, now on available youtube thanks to Global Kids. Part One. Part Two. We’re also in the middle of running a Spotlight series from the book’s authors who detail findings from each chapter. Please check back on Spotlight or see Mimi Ito’s introduction and series index here.