Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

5.14.10 | Research on Cyberbullying: Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Internet Project put together this presentation, available on SlideShare, featuring research from Pew, the UNH’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, Internet Solutions for Kids and professors Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin. The presentation covers differences between cyberbullying and internet harassment and notes that bullying still happens more offline - at school - than online.

Over at ReadWriteWeb, Sarah Perez looks at the data in the context of Facebook’s new privacy changes, which have greatly reduced the privacy options once available to users:

For teens and tweens who clicked through on the network’s “recommendations” without understanding what they meant, the impact to their online social lives will be broad. All of a sudden, they can read others’ Facebook Wall posts and browse through their photos; they can see who friended who and who said what. They’ve essentially been given an all-access pass to the fodder needed for rumor-mongering, gossip and slam-book-style attacks re-imagined for an Internet age.

Plus: Marshall Kirkpatrick identifies his three favorite (and still operable) Facebook privacy settings.

Tips for Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom: Writing at Mashable, Medill School of Journalism student Tanveer Ali offers four tips for educators on how to develop a technology policy that incorporates social networking as a learning tool and teaches children how to use it responsibly.

School Library Winners: School Library Journal describes how New Canaan (Conn.) High School library has thoroughly incorporated digital media into all aspects of learning:

With 1,296 students in grades 9–10, New Canaan’s school library’s mission statement says that it “aspires to help each student excel and achieve maximum potential by providing a 21st century learning environment, fostering a love of reading and promoting the effective use of information and communications technology.”

And the school has surpassed its mission statement, offering an online book discussion forum, open-source online course management software, and video tutorials on various social networking sites, all of which make the media center a place for gaining essential 21st century skills. The library website, which has seen a 380 percent increase in page views since its creation in 2005, offers on-demand access to resources, instruction, and real-time help.

New Canaan High School and Perry Meridian Middle School in Indianapolis, Ind., are this year’s winners of the National School Library Program of the Year (NSLPY) Award, given by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

Plus: Buffy Hamilton, aka The Unquiet Librarian, critiques the traditional model of school librarianship and envisions a more collaborative role. Howard Rheingold recently interviewed Hamilton about her work, including the inventive veteran’s issues research project.

How Arizona State Teaches Digital Media Entrepreneurs: MediaShift’s Craig Silverman talks with Dan Gillmor, director of Arizona State University’s digital media entrepreneurship class that’s part of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at ASU, and CJ Cornell, the Center’s entrepreneur-in-residence.

“Every semester, and every time I give a talk to students in other places, I make one point, and I mean it completely, which is that I’m jealous of these people starting their careers at a time where there’s never been more possibility,” said Gillmor. “The career path that I got on that was lovely—and more financially rewarding than I could ever have imagined—is gone. And if it’s not gone, it’s going. But, my God, they really can invent their own jobs. I’m jealous.”