Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

8.31.10 | “The case for rethinking and reimagining learning in America for 21st century schoolchildren is as compelling as it gets,” writes Connie Yowell, MacArthur Foundation’s director of education, at The Huffington Post.

With its roots in 19th-century models of industrialization and efficiency, America’s educational system has become outdated in today’s tech-based global economy. Educators, Yowell argues, must look to the Internet and digital media, which “offer the promise of an extraordinary new model for America’s education system.”

“It’s a model that harnesses the emerging learning potential of the Internet and digital media, and maximizes individual talents, skills, and interests in the pursuit of producing engaged citizens equipped to take on 21st century problems and opportunities,” she writes.

Yowell identifies four ways kids learn that sets them apart from pre-digital era students:

1.)They can pursue interest-driven learning at a tantalizing pace and to fascinating degrees;
2) They readily collaborate and learn from their peers, across geography and cultures;
3) They are participating and producing in learning, skill-building, and knowledge-sharing, as opposed to just being receptacles for information;
4) They can communicate directly with knowledge-giving institutions and individuals all over the world.

Research shows that young people participating in these activities show greater engagement in their communities, are more self-directed and are better problem solvers and collaborators.

Yowell points to several “beacons” or current models of this new vision of learning, including the Quest to Learn school in New York City. 

Spotlight has written about Quest to Learn and its application of video game design theory to classroom learning, as well as the Chicago Public Library’s YOUMedia afterschool program, which helps kids to develop digital literacy skills. Watch YOUmedia students master digital recording tools at their popular weekly open mic night.

And you can read lots more on Spotlight about how kids are collaborating, producing and tinkering with digital media:

• Learn how 4th- and 5th-graders in Wisconsin use an augmented reality game on their mobile phones to learn about pollution of a local lake.

• Or watch “Grasping Math and Science, Literally” to see how 9th-graders in Arizona learn in a mixed reality game lab.

• Or check out kids in Detroit who are using a new workshop space to combine digital and physical tools to make their own inventions, from robots to bird houses.