Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

7.8.11 | Early learning and new media; games and the new learning “grit”; and the library 2.011 conference calls for papers.

Technology, the Environment, and Social/ Emotional Learning: Digital technology use is headlining conferences all over the country this summer. Lisa Guernsey, director of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, emphasized some crucial points in her talk, “Put the Kids’ Needs First” at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Professional Development Institute last month.

Guernsey is the author of “Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age 5.” I spoke with her at length earlier this year about how we unpack the myriad of new technology being marketed to very young children and how to ensure developmentally appropriate uses of technology in early childhood classrooms.

In this latest talk, she really cuts to the crux of the issue. Here’s her summary of the talk:

Research tells us that children’s development is strongly influenced by the environment they grow up in—the language they hear as adults talk to and care for them, the books and stories they are exposed to, the social and emotional moments they experience. Today, that environment increasingly includes digital technology, especially screen media. How should early educators ensure that it is harnessed to help and not harm?

Guernsey has posted both the full text of her remarks (pdf) as well as the slides (pdf) and is asking for comments from educators about whether this framework is helpful for pre-k, kindergarten and early-grades classrooms. Comment here.

Plus: NAEYC is working with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media to revise its position statement on Technology and Young Children. You can read the latest draft statement here.

Gaming Ed Reform: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center posted slides from Executive Director Michael Levine’s closing keynote address at last month’s Games, Learning and Society conference in Madison, Wisc. In a talk on “Gaming Education Reform: Starting Points for a Digital Revolution,” Levine presented the Cooney Center’s research on intergenerational game play and ended with a reform agenda for President Barack Obama. One of the most interesting pieces was his call to modernize early childhood education.

Levine says we need to break down barriers to early technology use and normalize a child’s first digital experiences. His suggestions include the use of transmedia, digitizing the “play and learn curricula,” and bringing early childhood staff into a digital learning network. View the slides here.

Plus: For more on transmedia, see our post on the new transmedia resources now available at the National Writing Project’s Digital Is website.

Games & Grit: Christine posted about S. Craig Watkins’ work earlier this week and his insightful interview on NPR. Watkins is the author of “The Young and the Digital.” I also liked this post on Watkins’ blog this week (also posted at DMLCentral) about the opportunity games offer for learning through intrinsic motivation.

In “Games, Grit, and a ‘Need to Know’,” Watkins describes his observations of Austin, Texas high school students taking part in a summer workshop on game design. The students were tasked with creating a video game for AMD, a computer technology company, about the company’s green building design. A local game development company was recruited to evaluate the games and select one to be featured on AMD’s website.

Most of the students used “GameSalad,” authoring software that allows non-programmers to produce their own games. But the interesting piece, writes Watkins, was watching the way the students turned the classroom into an open and collaborative work space—sharing ideas, learning from one another, and learning to teach themselves the new software.

Watkins notes that these experiences show how grit—a term used in this study (pdf) to describe perseverance and passion for long-term goals—is just as important for learning as more traditional academic skills.

Education scholars have known for some time that students learn best when they want to learn. Typically the motivation in school is extrinsic or determined by an external force. Maybe it’s to score high on a standards test, please a teacher, or do better than the student sitting next to you. The best source of motivation is intrinsic, that is, students learning because they are internally driven, curious, and passionate about what they are doing. Grit is more likely to be sustained in learning environments that figure out how to foster intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation by tapping into passions and allowing students to find their voice and place as learners.

From Players to Creators: Also at the Cooney Center, Ingrid Erickson reports on her research about how teaching young people the principles of game design can affect how they use mobile devices for creative ends. She has a smart discussion of how to get kids moving from game players to game creators and says “we should celebrate not merely learning through play, but learning through design.” Read the full post here.

The Future of Libraries: Ed tech guru Steve Hargadon interviewed Sandy Hirsh this week as part of the Future of Education interview series. Hirsh is the director of the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University (SLIS), and in addition to an engaging discussion about the state of the field of library science and the role of librarians in digital literacy education, the two detailed their plans for Library 2.011, a worldwide virtual conference scheduled for Nov. 2-3. The conference issued a call for proposals this week.

From the conference website:

The Library 2.011 conference will be a unique chance to participate in a global conversation on the current and future state of libraries. Subject strands will include the changing roles of libraries and librarians, the increasing impact of digital media and the e-book revolution, open educational resources, digital literacy, shifts from information consumption to production (Web 2.0), multimedia and gaming spaces, libraries as community centers, the growth of individualized and self-paced learning, the library as the center of new learning models, understanding users in the digital age, assessing service delivery, and defining leadership and information professional careers in a networked and changing world.

Hargadon, the social learning consultant for Elluminate/Blackboard Collaborate and the founder of the Web 2.0 Labs, recently launched Teacher 2.0, an independent Ning community for educators to explore their interests and passions and to build a network of support. Read more at Spotlight.