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Here are two items we noticed that may be of interest to educators and others working in the field of digital media and learning:

Digital Culture & Education, an international interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal, has issued a call for papers for a special themed issue, “Beyond ‘New’ Literacies,” to be published in May 2010.

Specifically, the special issue seeks to expand the new literacies’ theoretical paradigm by asking:

• How might we expand the idea of new literacies through fine-grained examinations of specific literacy practices with particular tools or technologies, like social networking, digital games, and multimodal design through different frames?
• How can new perspectives, practices and/or theories (i.e. discourse analysis, feminism, Queer, gaming, literary theory, or post-structuralist) provide additional insights around the congruencies and/or tensions between literacies and digital technologies across institutional and non-institutional contexts? 

DCE encourages submissions from scholars, researchers and practitioners from around the globe, working in areas such as literacy and education, gaming, new media, sociocultural studies of technologies, literary theory and technology, fan studies, adolescents and digital media, and media and identity. Submissions from research groups working in projects like video games research, digital storytelling, and mobile learning are encouraged.

Interested authors should send their manuscripts to Dana J. Wilber: wilberd [at] mail.montclair.edu or the editor of Digital Culture & Education: editor [at] digitalcultureandeducation.com by March 1, 2010.

The inaugural issue of DCE is available at http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com.

In separate news, the Risky Behaviors and Online Safety track of Harvard University Berkman Center’s Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative is creating a compendium of youth-based internet safety programs and interventions. From the call for descriptions:

We are requesting organizations, institutions, and individuals working in online youth safety to share descriptions of their effective programs and interventions that address risky behavior by youth online. We are particularly interested in endeavors that involve educators, social services, mentors and coaches, youth workers, religious leaders, law enforcement, mental health professionals, and those working in the field of public or adolescent health.

Deadline: December 21, 2009
Submission Length: 2-5 pages
Send Submission to: ymps-submissions [at] cyber.law.harvard.edu

Submissions should be documentations of solutions, projects, or initiatives that address at least one of the following four areas being addressed:

• Sexual solicitation of and sex crimes involving minors
• Bullying or harassment of minors
• Access to problematic or illegal content (including pornographic and violent content)
• Youth-generated problematic or illegal content (including sexting and self-harm sites) 

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A new report released today by Global Kids, Harvard’s GoodPlay Project and Common Sense Media finds that young people need guidance from adults in navigating ethical issues of online behavior.

The report, “Meeting of the Minds,” (PDF) is the result of a series of cross-generational online dialogues about digital ethics involving more than 250 adults and teens around the world. Participants discussed how to behave in a digital world, from illegal downloading and the creativity associated with remixing, to the factors that go into deciding whether to meet an online connection face-to-face.

“Youth are largely navigating these new online spaces on their own, without any real adult guidance,” says Rafi Santo, senior program associate in Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program.

“We wanted to facilitate genuine conversation between generations about real-life issues kids are facing, such as how to present themselves online and how to relate to intellectual property,” Santo adds. “Adults often feel like they’re in the dark about new technologies, and teens need guidance navigating the ethical issues associated with them. We hope the report will help to bridge this gap.”

The report found that teens were more concerned about how online behavior affected their own lives, rather than the implications of their actions for the larger community. Adults, on the other hand, were more concerned with responsibility to others when discussing digital dilemmas.

For example, a teen who makes a fake profile page about her teacher might think it’s funny, while adults are more likely to point out how such an act might hurt or damage the teacher’s reputation.

“Both adults and teens have important points to bring to conversations about digital literacy and citizenship,” says Linda Burch, chief program and strategy officer at Common Sense Media. “Adults bring their wisdom about the world, while teens bring their comfort and understanding of technology.”

“It’s our hope that other groups will follow our lead and facilitate their own conversations between adults and teens on these online ethical issues over the Internet,” Birch adds. “In classrooms, at dinner tables, through community forums, and even at the policy level so that young people are empowered to be good digital citizens.”

The dialogues led to 2,500 online posts by participants, all of which are available to read at Focus on Digital Media. The conversations are here, here and here.

Plus: For more on ethical decision-making in the digital realm, read Spotlight’s story At Home in the Digital Age.

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Project New Media Literacies, a research initiative based at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, has a community site for educators that is hosting a live chat on Tuesday, Dec. 8, from 3 to 4 p.m.

The discussion will focus on forming groups, forum topics and future chats. See more details and RSVP at http://projectnml.ning.com. Sign-up is required.

The community site already has more than 1,000 members. Members have access to a Learning Library and teachers’ strategy guides (examples of which can be found here and here on the New Media Literacies website; Spotlight also previewed some of the library videos earlier this year). Members can also join groups and discussions, create their own media and blogs, and take part in monthly webinars that focus on building new media literacy skills.

The partners in Project New Media Literacies include education, technology and arts groups and individuals. Its purpose is to explore “how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world.”

Principal investigator Henry Jenkins, a professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts at USC, has identified new literacies that students must master. You can read a summary of the new skills at Spotlight, or download a white paper on new frameworks and models for media literacy.

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Innovative in both its focus and approach, the K12 Online Conference brings together a diverse set of voices from around the world in a unique setting: It’s completely online, and it’s free.

More than 50 presentations will be posted to the conference blog and Ning community between Dec. 7-17 for participants to view, download and discuss. Live events are also scheduled, and events will continue in 2010 with twice-monthly “K-12 Online Echo” webcasts on EdTechTalk. First-timers can get an overview of the conference at this wiki site.

Patrick Woessner, a middle school instructional technology coordinator and one of the conference chairs, calls the conference a unique and valuable professional development opportunity.

Because it’s entirely online, the conference can bring educators together from around the world and create a global community of learners. Spreading the conference out over a period of time increases opportunities for participation, and there’s no cost barrier.

This year’s theme, Bridging the Divide, underscores one of the greatest challenges facing educators—getting educators involved who otherwise would not gravitate toward online learning, says Woessner. His website, Technology in the Middle, is a resource for innovative curricula ideas and digital learning tools.

“Spreading the word to teachers who may not be ‘plugged in’ and making them aware of the conference and its depth has been a focus for us.”

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Global Kids is leading a Games-Based Education Training for educators on Friday, Dec. 4, at its New York City headquarters. The training is open to school teachers, librarians, youth workers and other educational professionals interested in Global Kids’ innovative approach to learning using digital games. 

Participants will learn how to use online games that directly or indirectly address core literacy and content areas, and how to use free, web-based tools to support students in designing their own games. Future trainings include Creating a Safe Space: Cultural Diversity (Thursday, Dec. 10) and Incorporating Digital Media into Your Curriculum (Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010). More information is available at Holy Meatballs, the Global Kids blog.

Since 2002, Global Kids has been a leader in the use of online games to promote global awareness, engaged citizenship and 21st-Century learning skills. For more information or to register, please call: 212-226-0130 or e-mail pdtrainings [at] globalkids.org.

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From Users to Citizens: Anne Collier at Net Family News discusses how digital citizenship might be made more relevant to youth—and why it’s so essential, particularly in the context of online safety.

“In a participatory media environment, focusing on citizenship helps everybody understand that: 1) they’re stakeholders in their own well-being online, 2) they’re stakeholders in their community’s well-being as well as that of fellow participants (because in a user-driven environment safety can’t logically be the sole responsibility of the community’s host), and 3) they have rights and responsibilities online,” writes Collier.

Also read Collier’s thoughts on a set of online rights for children.

Libraries Excel at National Gaming Day: School Library Journal reports that 1,365 libraries across the country registered to participate in this year’s National Gaming Day (Nov. 14), sponsored by the American Library Association. That’s more than double the 617 libraries that signed on for the first NGD in 2008.

In this its second year, NGD had 1,364 libraries registered to participate, according to the event’s Twitter feed, while 617 signed on for the 2008 event.

“I have been excited to see how many libraries registered for NGD this year, and it was great to follow the wonderful reports of successful programs unfolding on Twitter and elsewhere,” says Liz Danforth, gaming expert and Library Journal blogger. “People of all ages came into libraries around the country to play on the Wii or to play Rock Band, they played board games and chess and roleplaying games. Eli Neuberger’s GT System saw over 40 libraries competing head to head in a Brawl tournament, and win or lose, that means libraries coast to coast were doing something awesome with their customers and patrons!”

21st-Century Educators Don’t Say, “Hand It In.” They say, “Publish It!”: So says Lisa Nielsen, who blogs at The Innovative Educator. Nielsen provides six examples of how educators in various disciplines can move to a “publish it” culture.

Will Students Use iPods for Reading Books?: Mark Milian, writing at the L.A. Times Technology blog, poses the question after learning about Questia, an online research portal that recently released an app for reading books, articles and periodicals on an iPhone or iPod Touch. The cost is 99 cents for 5,000 public-domain books and a week of unlimited access. Then a two-week subscription costs $9.99.

Citing price and limited appeal of reading substantial amounts of text on a tiny screen, Milian doesn’t see the app as a viable option.

Texting While Driving: In case you missed this news—one in four American teens of driving age say they’ve texted while driving, and half of all teens age 12 to 17 say they’ve been a passenger while the driver has texted behind the wheel, according to a new report, “Teens and Distracted Driving,” by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

“Many teens understand the risks of texting behind the wheel,” said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at the Internet & American Life Project and co-author of the report, “but the desire to stay connected is so strong for teens and their parents that safety sometimes takes a backseat to staying in touch with friends and family.”

The study found no gender difference between the behavior of boys and girls; they are equally likely to report texting behind the wheel and riding with texting drivers.

Photo by: readabook.today

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Social media expert danah boyd delivered a keynote address earlier this month at the American Association of School Librarians’ 14th National Conference in Charlotte, N.C.

Prior to the address, boyd sat down with School Library Journal to answer a few questions about social media and youth. The result is a very succinct interview that provides an overview of some of the most often-discussed issues surrounding the use of social media in the classroom and at home.

On the subject of how to convince schools to incorporate social media in the curriculum, boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, says it requires “accepting that social media is a part of kids’ lives and stop blocking it.”

Curriculum is often thought of in “formalistic” ways, while there’s a great deal of “informal learning” that goes on in social media that we don’t take into account, says boyd. (Read more about informal learning.)

One of the first changes schools can make is to incorporate Wikipedia in the classroom, because of the role it plays in getting students to think about the content creation process.

Watch the interview below, and read about the conference and its focus on 21st century learning at School Library Journal.

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More than 200 educators, parents and nonprofit and civic leaders attended The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media forum in Philadelphia on Nov. 18. Another 200 people took part in a live webcast and simulcast in Second Life. The forum was presented by the MacArthur Foundation, the National Writing Project and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

In the video below, Connie Yowell, director of education at the MacArthur Foundation, introduces a panel of experts, including Nichole Pinkard, founder of the Digital Youth Network in Chicago; Renee Hobbs, founder of the Media Education Lab at Temple University; and Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, co-director of the National Writing Project. The panelists share their experiences using digital media for learning and discuss the future of the classroom.

Plus: Michael Gallagher, an educator and trainer for JSTOR, attended the Power of Youth Voice Forum and came away impressed by the work of Global Kids. He shares his impressions of the event at his blog.

In a post published prior to the event, Gallagher argues for the need to “move beyond the shiny new object syndrome and start applying rigor to our technology and content selections.” He adds: “To do that, we need to know what works and what doesn’t, what technology is appropriate for what age ranges, and how interaction with digital media and the technology that supports it augments/diminishes both traditional learning paradigms and new facets of information literacy.”

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StudentSpeak Sneak Preview by Spotlight. View more videos at Spotlight on Vimeo.

This preview features Shani, 17, a senior at University of Chicago Charter School, Woodlawn Campus, and Terrence, 17, a senior at Whitney Young High School. You’ll see more of them in the first webisode airing in December.

“Media has a lot to do with who I am today,” says Shani, speaking for many of her peers. “Not that I let it define me, but rather I define it, with my cell phone, iPod, laptop, TV, video games, video camera and my favorite, the internet.”

Watch Shani and Terrence share their digital media journey—the first of many to come.

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The L.A. Times profiles University of Southern California professor Henry Jenkins, who recently joined USC after 20 years of teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directed the Comparative Media Studies program.

“I spent the first 20 years of my academic life at MIT in the midst of the digital revolution, and I thought it would be fascinating to spend the second 20 years in Hollywood, observing the other side of the equation,” Jenkins, now officially the provost’s professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts, tells the Times.

Larry Gross, director of the school of communication at USC, says that media studies scholars often have “a kind of contempt for the audience,” but Jenkins “is someone who views the audience as active participants and creative participants, who don’t simply accept what is happening to them.”

Times writer Zachary Pincus-Roth describes Jenkins’ work on how audiences engage with media through the Internet, fan fiction and video games, and the reach of his scholarship is other areas:

Jenkins’ study of audiences goes beyond pop culture. His other class this semester is on new media literacy, an area where he applies what he knows about audiences to improving education.

“A kid learns 200 Pokemon characters and their relationship to each other, and the schools are saying kids can’t possibly learn the pantheon of Greek gods,” Jenkins says. “Many kids in America have a richer intellectual life outside of school than they have inside.”

Jenkins is working with the MacArthur Foundation to create curricula that would improve new-media literacy. In one of his pilot programs, for instance, students studied “Moby-Dick” by updating the novel’s Wikipedia page.

Spotlight recently wrote about the new literacies Jenkins has identified that children must learn to master in addition to the traditional literacy skills. Learn more about Jenkins’ project at NewMediaLiteracies.org. You can also check out his blog at HenryJenkins.org.

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The link to join the live stream is http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

You can also join the live web-chat with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren today at 1 p.m. EST at this link: http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/

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The Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP) this week announced the launch of its Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a new pro bono initiative that connects lawyers and law school clinics from across the country with online journalists and digital media creators who need legal help on issues ranging from copyright and fair use to access to government information and representation in litigation.

From the press release (pdf):

“Unlike established media organizations that have the resources to pursue important reporting in the face of legal challenges, many online ventures lack the expertise and financial resources to protect themselves and thrive in an uncertain legal environment,” said David Ardia, director and co-founder of the CMLP. “In order for these new media ventures to survive and flourish, they need a legal safety net, and OMLN aims to provide that safety net with the help of lawyers interested in promoting a vibrant online media environment,” Ardia added.

Jay Rosen, a blogger, professor of journalism at New York University, and CMLP advisory board member, concurs: “This network is trying to level the playing field for independent online producers. That’s why it matters. That’s why I support it.”

Here’s how it will work:

OMLN will make it as easy as possible for participating lawyers and law school clinics to identify appropriate clients. OMLN staff will pre-screen prospective clients and prepare matter summaries so that network lawyers can quickly decide whether they are interested in taking on a question, case, or transaction. These summaries will be sent out to network lawyers via a bi-weekly email newsletter and will be available at any time on the password-protected OMLN website (beta), where members can search and filter client and case information based on client location, type of assistance needed, and legal expertise required. For more information on how the network matches lawyers and clients, see the How OMLN Works page.

Continue reading here (pdf). The Citizen Media Law Project is a joint project of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media at Arizona State University.

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The National Council of Teachers of English kicks off its annual conference today in Philadelphia. This year’s theme is Once and Future Classics: Reading Between the Lines. A look at the full program is available here.

Educators interested in learning more about blogs, wikis and Ning community sites can visit the New Media Gallery all day on Friday. Sponsored by NCTE’s Commission on Media, the gallery will showcase teachers and students who are working with new media in innovative ways. Sessions are ongoing throughout the day, while presentations and installations will spotlight “teachers who are promoting critical literacy, while also expanding their repertoire of texts to include such new media as podcasting, blogging, videomaking, web publishing, and text messaging.”

Anyone interested in the conference discussions can follow along on Twitter (hashtag #ncte), or check in at the NCTE Ning community.

Documents at the NCTE website that may be of particular interest to educators using digital media in the classroom include a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education and Beliefs about Technology and the Preparation of English Teachers.

The conference comes on the heels of the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Washington, D.C., which featured dozens of digital media sessions, including Creative Commons and the Future of Sharing on the Web, Social Media and Sports Reporting and The Media World You Will Inherit. The conference blog includes all the student awards.

Jeff Stern and Jordan Michnoff, students at Ward Melville High School in New York, turned a camera on conference participants and produced this time lapse video, which was shot entirely in the elevator at the convention hotel. It’s a unique way to introduce some of the students and their hopes for the conference.

NSPA Elevator Video from Jeff Stern on Vimeo.

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A public forum, The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media, is taking place in Philadelphia on Nov. 18. But if you’re not in Philadelphia, not to worry. The event will be simulcast on the Internet and in Second Life from 6 to 8 p.m. EST.

Get answers to the many questions around what it means for young people to be widely involved in digital media today—whether they’re playing video games, using the Internet for research or social networks, or using mobile devices. 

Experts from the Media Education Lab, the Digital Youth Network and the National Writing Project are scheduled to speak. Program information is available here.

The event is presented by the National Writing Project, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. 

You can register online.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a public notice (pdf) earlier this month seeking comment on broadband needs in education.

The agency is asking for data on various issues related to broadband access in education and the E-rate program, which provides discounts to eligible schools and libraries for telecommunications services, Internet access and internal connections.

From the notice: “We are specifically seeking data, reports, and case studies regarding pre-kindergarten through graduate school students and schools working with broadband connectivity and online, application service provider (ASP)  and cloud-based solutions. We welcome data and case studies from public, private, charter, and religious schools.”

Comments are due to the FCC by Nov. 20. Reply comments are due Dec. 11. Learn more from reading the detailed public notice.

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Global Kids, the New York City-based nonprofit organization, is hosting a Roundtable on Virtual Worlds and Nonprofits on Thursday, Nov. 12, from 12-1:30 p.m. PST. The roundtable will take place on MacArthur Island in Second Life. Here’s the teleport link.

From Holy Meatballs, the Global Kids’ blog:

“Representatives of five leading nonprofit organizations will give brief presentations on their initial explorations of Second Life and other virtual worlds, and how they are thinking of integrating these virtual tools into their organizations’ respective missions. Afterward, there will be an open discussion about the applications of virtual worlds for various public good purposes. The event will close with a casual mixer / dance party!”

Who would want to miss that?

The event will feature presentations by organizations who have recently completed the Global Kids’ Virtual World Capacity Building Program, a four-week intensive exposure to virtual worlds for nonprofits.

Learn more at Holy Meatballs.

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“When you think about what the teenagers are doing on ‘World of Warcraft,’ they are building worldwide virtual teams,” a vice president at IBM said in a recent “Frontline” interview. “Very sophisticated teams with very sophisticated skill levels in a very complex teaming environment. …That’s exactly what we try to do when we work with our colleagues in India and China.” 

Constance Steinkuehler, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been making this very same argument in her work - that participating in these virtual communities can help kids learn how to collaborate, ask critical questions, make arguments, build social skills and even learn math.

The IBM interview is part of Frontline’s Digital Nation, an open-source PBS project that explores what it means to be human in a digital world. Scheduled for broadcast in winter 2010, the Digital Nation team has been posting rough cuts online. Watch great interviews with authors Henry Jenkins and James Paul Gee. In another video, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan talks about cell phones in the classroom.

Plus: More evidence kids are picking up skills online they’ll need to be competent citizens can be found in a book out this week from the Digital Youth Project. “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out” reports on how young people are living and learning with new media and finds that through self-directed learning, young people are picking up the social and technical skills they need in the digital age. (Download the free online version [pdf].) Authors, including danah boyd and Mimi Ito, blogged about the project’s findings on Spotlight last year.

Photo by: king2009_12

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Change in Perspective: Technology journalist Larry Magid describes a “watershed moment” that occured last week in online safety education.

The third annual conference of the Family Online Safety Institute, writes Magid, “was different from previous years in that young people were viewed less as potential victims of online crimes and more as participants in a global online community.

“That’s not to say that participants didn’t worry aloud about youth safety, but instead of focusing on real and imagined dangers, we focused on how adults can work with young people to encourage both ethical and self-protective behavior. It’s all about media literacy, digital citizenship and critical thinking.”

Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org with Anne Collier (read her take on online safety) and founder of SafeKids.com. Continue reading Magid’s conference assessment at Mercury News.

Organizing or attending a conference?: Consider how you might provide coverage for people who can’t attend. Christopher Harris, coordinator of the school library system of the Genesee Valley (N.Y.) BOCES, explains how the recent School Library Journal Leadership Summit took the conference online using free technology tools, including Twitter, Flickr and CoverItLive.

Picture This: Özge Karaoğlu, an EFL teacher from Istanbul,Turkey, presents 25 digital storytelling tools that you can use in the classroom or to tell your digital story.

New Education Technology Leader: Karen Cator has been named director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. The announcement was made earlier this month at the 2009 Leadership Summit and Ed Forum, hosted by the State Educational Technology Directors Association in Washington, D.C. The office is responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of the Department’s educational technology policies, research projects and national technology summits.

Cator was previously director of education leadership and advocacy at Apple. In this video, produced as part of a 2008 PBS series on America’s schools, Cator discusses the stakes involved if the U.S. doesn’t raise the bar.

Photo by: ryanocerosk

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You’re invited to spend an interactive hour with Henry Jenkins and Steve Hargadon discussing popular and participatory culture on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m. EST.

The event is part of the Conversations.net series—live conversations on the impact of internet culture and society. Recordings of past events are available on the website.

Hargadon is the social learning consultant for Elluminate, which provides learning collaboration solutions, and founder of the Classroom 2.0 social network. A regular columnist at School Library Journal, you can also find him blogging at SteveHargadon.com.

Jenkins (pictured) was until recently the director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He is the author and/or editor of nine books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including his most recent, “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.” You can read Jenkins’ blog and learn more about his work at HenryJenkins.org.

The next conversation—“Howard’s Brainstorms!” with Howard Rheingold—is scheduled for Nov. 19. Rheingold is author of “Smart Mobs,” among other books, and creator of SocialMediaClassroom.com.

It’s a busy week for Hargadon, who also hosts discussions through the Future of Education.

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Richard Halverson and Allan Collins will join Hargadon to talk about their book, “Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America.” Learn more about how to join in here.

And on Thursday, Nov. 12, educator and researcher Larry Cuban will discuss school reform and classroom practice. Cuban’s blog on the subject is LarryCuban.wordpress.com.

Jenkins, Halverson and Rheingold have received support from the MacArthur Foundation.

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Pocket Guide to Social Media & Kids: “To adults, cell phones are a communications device. To children, they are a lifeline.” That statement, from a Nielsen article on teens’ use of social media and technology, should come as no surprise to anyone within sight of a teenager. The article, however, is filled with numbers on usage that may impress you. Consider these stats:

“By age 10, roughly half of children own a mobile phone. By age 11, six in ten own a mobile phone. By age 12, fully three-fourths of all children have their own mobile phone. [...] Two-thirds of tween mobile phone owners took pictures with their camera phones in the last year. Half spent time playing the pre-installed games. Four in ten activated the speakerphone feature. Twenty-eight percent filmed a video clip, and 24% listened to the MP3 capability.”

Read on for more information about kids’ use of technology and parental controls.

Think Globally, Learn Locally: Students around the world are using virtual education programs alongside books that promote social justice, reports School Library Journal.

In one example, students are logging in to Google Earth to follow the trek of Greg Mortenson, author of the adult bestseller, “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time” (Viking 2006), which has been adapted for younger audiences.

“These Google Lit Trips, as they’re called, allow students to map Mortenson’s travels, build wikis to share what they’ve learned about the countries the author has visited, and discuss his work as a virtual book group using Skype,” writes SLJ’s Lauren Barack.

Google Promotes Online Safety: To help parents and educators become more involved in kids’ online activities, Google and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition have teamed up for a safety tour, writes Google policy analyst Dorothy Chou.

Kicking off the tour, Google sponsored a panel discussion on Capitol Hill this week “to address some of the key issues around digital media literacy, including how to talk to kids about maintaining their online reputations.” Google has also posted instructional videos about how to stay safe on the web.

Plus: At a conference on online safety, National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow said digital media literacy should be a focus of broadband stimulus funding.

“Congress should direct that the agencies managing distribution of broadband stimulus funding allocate $500 million during the next two years for the development of digital media education tools,” McSlarrow said in a speech to the 2009 Annual Conference of the Family Online Safety Institute. “With a substantial portion of stimulus funding yet to be allocated, and with the broadband adoption rate continuing to increase from coast to coast, we must vigorously renew this call to acknowledge as a national priority digital literacy for children and families.”

Behind the Scenes at Breakthrough: Nafiza Akter, one of nine students who attended last month’s Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age forum at Google headquarters in California, writes about her experience. Besides the wonder of Google snacks and the campus T-Rex, Akter offers her impressions of Google co-founder Sergey Brin (he’s smart) and describes a skit in which “Misunderstood Media Teens” talk about adults not understanding how teens use technology in their lives.

It’s a very detailed post, and Akter, who takes part in the New York Cityafter-school program Global Kids, delivers a great behind-the-scenes account. Unfortunately, one of her souvenirs didn’t make it back home, but Akter keeps it all in perspective:

“The only sad part of the entire thing was that we got Lava Lamps that we couldn’t bring back to New York City due to airport restrictions on carry-on luggage. But hey, physical things can’t compensate for experience and knowledge [...] The experiences we came back with definitely outweigh the ‘stuff’ we came back with, since stuff will eventually get thrown out or lost, but the experiences contribute to who we are and have/will become.”

Previously at Spotlight: Read Akter’s blog post about her work in Global Kids’ virtual video project, and watch her in action in her Digital Generation Youth Video Portrait.