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Thursday 10th January 2008 7:00 am

Jonathan Fanton:  Looking Forward to MacArthur’s Second Year in Digital Media and Learning

MacArthur’s President looks forward to an exciting second year of the program in Digital Media and Learning and announces support for new projects.

Happy New Year! We are enthused about the second year of our program in digital media and learning.  Look for an announcement of the winners of the inaugural Digital Media and Learning Competition, the extension of our work globally, a series of public conversations in Second Life exploring the topic of philanthropy and virtual worlds, and much more. 

We ended 2007 with support for a diverse set of projects that we expect to significantly advance research and the development of 21st century learning environments.  During the next two weeks posts will describe these projects in greater detail.  They include support to Peter Miller and Eszter Hargittai at Northwestern University for the exploration of a longitudinal quantitative survey of young people’s participation in digital media, and Miriam Metzger and Andrew Flanigan at University of California, Santa Barbara, who will conduct research on how young people assess the credibility of information.  Sasha Barab at Indiana University will be expanding his work on the virtual learning environment Quest Atlantis, Lance Bennett at the University of Washington will be conducting a new exploration into the civic engagement of youth, and Taking It Global, in collaboration with Global Kids will be developing new approaches to social networking with young people. 

Jim Gee at Arizona State University will lead a group to begin developing approaches to assessment that acknowledge learning in a digital context, and Patrick Whitney at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology will be developing a new approach to following learning called the Electronic Learning Record.  Bob Stein at the University of Southern California will advance the development of a 21st century multimedia reading and authoring tool, Sophie, to be used in schools, while support to Colleen Macklin at Parsons the New School for Design and Alex Quinn of Games for Change will advance the effective use of such digital media by nonprofit organizations through support of their newly created Prototyping Evaluation, Teaching and Learning Laboratory (PETLab). 

We also eagerly await the launch of an online knowledge network to help build the emerging field of digital media and learning by Suzanne Seggerman at the Digital Innovations Group, and Jim Steyer and Linda Burch of Commonsense Media will continue to expand their work in providing outreach to parents and teachers about digital media and learning.  Lastly, support to Global Kids complements the ongoing work of the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California to explore the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds.  Our first virtual worlds discussion, involving both the Main Grid and youth from the Teen Grid, will be held on January 28, 2008.  Event details will be available soon. 

Spotlight will feature posts from these projects over the next month. Additionally, you can browse our website to see the many other projects receiving support through the program. I look forward to hearing more from you as we continue our exploration of digital media and learning.

Category: Unexpected

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