October 29, 2007
Nichole Pinkard: Girl Power, Encouraging Sixth Grade Girls to Give Video Games a Try: Digital Youth Network Director Nichole Pinkard talks about using traditional classroom context to introduce girls to game design.
Category: UnexpectedGlobal Warming,

October 25, 2007
Barry Joseph: Staffing the Virtual World: Global Kids’ Director of Online Leadership asks: “How do you hire staff for a medium that most do not know even exists?”
Category: Comments: Jim Hayden, Barry Joseph,

October 25, 2007
Josh Fouts: The “ROI” on Virtual Worlds, The Importance of Understanding Culture: Josh Fouts debriefs his recent experience at the Virtual Worlds conference in San Jose. He discusses concern for return on investment and the rise of the Immersive Web in China.
Category: Ecology-of-GamesJohn Sweeney, J.Sweeney, Evonne Heyning,

October 25, 2007
Akili Lee: Designing a Social Networking Site: The Digital Youth Network’s program director talks about the creation of the program’s new media driven social networking website, Remix World, that allows youth to share and critique each other’s work.
Category: Unexpected

October 23, 2007
Mike Hawkins: The Remix Renaissance: Brother Mike teaches multi-media literacy, radio, and spoken word/hip hop for the Digital Youth Network. In this post he discusses his work with students in Chicago in a multi-media arts class. His students created their…
Category: UnexpectedElizabeth Whittaker,

October 22, 2007
Nichole Pinkard: Preparing Urban Youth to be Multiliterate: A researcher with the University of Chicago’s Center for Urban School Improvement asks how we prepare young people for the multiliterate world of the future.  This begins a two-week long series on the Digital Youth…
Category: UnexpectedElizabeth Whittaker,

October 18, 2007
Competition Closes with Over 1000 Entries: The application deadline for the Digital Media and Learning Competition closed this week with an unprecedented response. In this post Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg report in on…
Category: UnexpectedBarry Joseph, Kitty Pope,

October 2, 2007
Josh Fouts on Virtual Worlds: Interdependently Yours (Melting Pot or Diasporic Divide?): Here’s what caused the USC Center on Public Diplomacy to travel to Mexico for a migration conference— and to host a session there where all the panelists were simultaneously in Second Life.
Category: Civic-Engagement

September 20, 2007
Laura Wray-Lake: Exploring Values in Virtual Worlds: Laura studies how individuals explore values and here she raises two key questions.
Category: Civic-Engagement

September 18, 2007
G. Dirk Mateer: Beyond the Marketplace, Building the Virtual Social Contract: Economist G. Dirk Mateer asks whether the social contract in virtual worlds is particularly driven by legal and market forces.
Category: Civic-Engagement

September 13, 2007
Connie Flanagan: Framing the Virtual Social Contract: Leading expert in civic engagement and service learning Connie Flanagan discusses the role of youth in shaping new virtual communities.  Virtual worlds offer powerful opportunities for young people to reimagine society, our values and institutions. …
Category: Civic-EngagementDonavan Vicha,

September 10, 2007
Middaugh /Kahne/Evans: Civic Engagement in Virtual Worlds: Do civic activities in virtual worlds translate beyond those contexts?  Researchers from the Civic Engagement Research Group ask how participation in online games might help young people develop capacity for active citizenship. 
Category: Civic-EngagementDave H. Crusoe,

September 7, 2007
Joe Kahne: Is Digital Media Good for Democracy?: Will digital media transform the nature of civic and political engagement? Joe Kahne and his colleagues are studying the impact of high school student’s use of the internet and other digital media on their civic…
Category: Civic-EngagementDave H. Crusoe, Joe Kahne, Rafi Santo, Ann Thomas, J. Kahne,

September 7, 2007
Cathy Davidson: Digital Learning Is Not I.T.: Feedback from the Competition in Digital Media and Learning launch prompts this HASTAC leader to analyze “digital learning” versus “instructional technology.”
Category: UnexpectedLeshell Hatley, Nichole Pinkard, Kim Gomez, Cathy Davidson,

September 4, 2007
Rafi Santo: Digital Youth discuss the Digital World: What do today’s teens have to say about the way digital media affects their lives? Three different youth media experts take turns highlighting the recent FOCUS dialogues organized by Global Kids. 
Category: Civic-EngagementJoe Beckmann, Rafi Santo, Joe Beckmann,

August 29, 2007
Josh Fouts: State of Play 5 (It’s a Small World After All): Just back from Singapore, where he attended the State of Play V conference, Josh Fouts shares his thoughts on global collaboration and giving kids worldwide the freedom to innovate.
Category: Ecology-of-Games

August 27, 2007
Early Days of Competition Draw Crowd: Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg of HASTAC (www.hastac.org) report in on the interest generated by the launch of the Digital Media and Learning Competition last week. The Competition will award…
Category: Civic-Engagement, Credibility, Ecology-of-Games, Identity, Race-Ethnicity, UnexpectedDK,

August 22, 2007
Group Discussion on “Virtual Success”—will you know it when you see it?: Lucy Bernholz hosts a discussion with the funding community on what will philanthropy accomplish in virtual worlds, and how will we know?
Category: Civic-Engagement, Credibility, Ecology-of-Games, Identity, Race-Ethnicity, Unexpected B. Lewis, Rik Panganiban, Radhika Gajjala, Alanagh Recreant, Lorri Mon, Radhika Gajjala, Radhika Gajjala, Barry Joseph,

August 22, 2007
This Week’s Theme: Virtual World Events in Chicago and Singapore: The 3rd annual SLCC is in Chicago this week and MacArthur is sponsoring a track on non-profits and philanthropy in order to spark discussion about the use of virtual worlds for the public…
Category: Civic-Engagement, Ecology-of-Games

August 21, 2007
Matteo Bittanti meets the “Angry Gamer.” Smack-talk ensues.: Or “How I stopped worrying and learned to love Xbox live.” Matteo Bittanti discusses the “Angry Gamer” as staged masculine performance. 
Category: Ecology-of-Games