(cross-posted from John Palfrey’s blog)
The first book that I read in the series of MacArthur/MIT Press’s Digital Media and Learning series was “The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning”, edited by game designer and educator Katie Salen (open access version here). As with the other books in the series, it’s a very important [...]

As more Digital Natives arrive at colleges and universities, professors and instructors of all subjects are trying to use digital technologies to better connect with students. In my personal experience as a sophomore at Harvard, some professors have been quite adept at using online resources – like watching music videos on YouTube during a foreign [...]

Whenever I get those personal statements asking me to “Indicate a something that has had a significant influence on you and describe that influence,” I’m always tempted to pick — at the risk of sounding like a maladjusted nerd — the Internet.
Amy Goldwasser’s Salon article about the Internet and and its impact youth culture [...]

(cross posted from John Palfrey’s blog)
One of the big questions in the digital world is whether the way people use the Internet will lead to stronger democracies — or, in fact, have the opposite effect. This debate is playing out in the United States and around the world. In China, activists use online bulletin [...]

Diana had a great post last week about Ben Chun’s use of Moodle in his classroom. While there has been a lot of talk about teachers finding innovative ways to use technology, the conversation seems to often focus on motivating teachers rather than students. The prevailing attitude seems to be that students will automatically flock [...]

There’s been so many great videos this weekend – hats off to the DIY curatorial team for really putting together a great show!  It’s been great fun to see the videos usually seen in tiny little windows on the big screen.  A few videos particularly stood out to me, and not too surprisingly, many of [...]

We’ve spent much of the past 150 years working to achieve full literacy across the globe.  Information has historically been widely disseminated via the written word:  so, much knowledge required the ability to read,  or have someone who’s judgment you trust relay that information to you.  More important still, if you wanted to produce information, [...]

I’m at the DIY video summit at USC, watching some fantastic videos and listening to some great people speak. Today’s panels have discussed state of research, state of art, and the intellectual property dilemma.
The first day  centered around two sets of questions. This post deals with the first set:
what is DIY video? [...]

(Cross posted from Dr. Palfrey’s blog.
Last month, the MacArthur Foundation, along with MIT Press, announced the release of a series of new books on youth and new media. The series is a treasure trove.
I have been working my way through the six books over the past several weeks as I’m simultaneously working on late [...]

When we talk about Digital Natives, are we just talking about privileged kids with access to technology? Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of an upcoming book on Google, thinks so:
Invoking generations invariably demands an exclusive focus on people of wealth and means, because they get to express their preferences (for music, clothes, electronics, etc.) in ways that [...]