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1/31/12
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.10/13/11
By Barbara Ray
Q&A: Cathy Davidson on the Brain Science of Attention and Transforming Schools and Workplaces in the Digital Age
In “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn,” Cathy Davidson has offered an antidote to the anxieties about the effects of digital media on kids—and on all of us.2/17/11
Teens At FabLab San Diego Experiment with Creative Computing
In 2010, San Diego teens learned how to code in an open source programming language called Processing. Watch them demonstrate their interactive designs in these videos from Fab Lab San Diego in partnership with UCSD Extension.9/30/10
By Ben Wolff
Kids Engage Through Tinkering
In this short podcast, Miquela Craytor, executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, talks about how in the process of making things and tinkering, students get a glimpse of the systems and processes that go into producing something.9/30/10
By Matt Haber
Teens Build, Tinker and Demo Digital Games and Inventions at World Maker Faire in New York
At the World Maker Faire held earlier this month at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, N.Y., fish swam on dry land, a squid and a raven competed in a chariot race, and a larger-than-life version of the board game Mouse Trap, complete with a real claw-foot tub, made observers feel like extras in a remake of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” (Either that, or the giant mouse problem in New York City has gotten out of control.)8/02/10
By Ben Wolff
New “Spore” Platform “DIASTEM” Teaches Kids to Think Like Game Developers
Spotlight talks with gamer Patrick Keller about why gaming should be an integral part of classroom learning and about the new platform he created for the popular video game “Spore.”7/15/10
By Ben Wolff
“Your Limitation is Your Imagination”: Stem Cell Sackboy Brings Science to Life
Spotlight talks with gamer David Dino about games-based learning and the new adventure level he created for the popular video game “LittleBigPlanet” that teaches young people about stem cell technology.6/04/10
By Ben Wolff
Click!Online: Girls Solve STEM Mysteries at Spy School
Spotlight talks with Emily Sturman of the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh about Click!Online, a web-based augmented reality game for adolescent girls that teaches science, math and technology.5/28/10
By Ben Wolff
Media Makers: Training Tomorrow’s Computer Scientists at Youth AppLab
Spotlight talks with Leshell Hatley, executive director of Uplift, Inc., about Youth AppLab, a new after-school program in Washington, D.C. that teaches software and mobile application design.5/20/10
By Ben Wolff
“Teaching People How to Work Together”: Digital Media and Learning Competition Winners
Ten projects received awards for innovation in digital media and learning last week as part of the third annual HASTAC/ MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition. Winners in the competition’s 21st Century Learning Lab Designers category gathered in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with National Lab Day. Spotlight was there to talk with winners about their projects.2/15/10
Views from the Vanguard of Using Mobile Media for Learning
Game designers talk about the future of mobile technologies for learning and how they are creating the kinds of personalized, active learning experiences educators used to only dream of.2/15/10
Mad City Mystery: An Augmented Reality Game for Handhelds
“Ivan Illych is dead. Police claimed he drowned while fishing in Lake Mendota. You think it might have been something else.” Watch three earth science students race against the clock in this augmented reality game from Local Games Lab.2/15/10
Mobile for Learning—Technically We’re Close; Culturally, Not so Much
GPS-enabled smartphones and better broadband have opened up a new world of possibilities for game designers. Now they need to convince the public, and educators, that cell phones can be important social platforms for learning.2/15/10
By Josh Karp
The Chicago Public Library Helps Teens “Find History”
Armed with mobile GPS devices, Chicago teens race around the city looking for facts—and learn a little something about Daniel Burnham’s plan for the city as they go.1/11/10
By Josh Karp
