K-12: Digital Learning Programs and Research
This page is part of a bibliography/appendix for ‘The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age’ project. It is a work in progress. It is not meant to be an exhaustive or all-inclusive list but is instead a resource for educators and learners striving to make a difference in a digital age. It is also a collaborative effort and will constantly evolve to take into consideration suggestions and feedback. Please let us know what you think by using the comment tool located at the bottom of the page. For more information about this document please see the introductory page.
K-12: DIGITAL LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH
Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) – http://www.cosn.org/
• CoSN is a consortium of K-12 education leaders who are committed improving the quality of teaching and learning through the strategic use of technology. One of their primary aims is to enable and empower K-12 leaders and policy makers to increase their knowledge and to find innovative ways of incorporating emerging technologies into their curricula. Towards this end CoSN works to develop programs and activities such as reports, analysis tools, and professional development resources. They also are deeply committed supporting member advocacy efforts in order to ensure that law and policy changes serve the interests of students, not businesses or the government.
Digital Youth Research: Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media – http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/
• Digital Youth Research is a research project headed administered by the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley, with assistance from investigators at other schools in the UC system. This project seeks to address the gap between a young person’s experience with digital media (e.g. social networks and gaming) outside of schoolwork and their engagement with those same technologies in an in-school setting. Emergent modes of informal learning, such as communication and play, will be examined through a targeted set of ethnographic investigations in local neighborhoods in Northern and Southern California and in virtual spaces, such as online games, blogs, messaging and social networks. The objectives of the project are to describe a young person’s role as an active innovator (rather than a passive consumer) in digital media, to think about implications of this for K-12 and higher education, and to advise software designers and educators about how to build better learning environments to take advantage of these new skill sets. This project is sponsored by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
FOCUS: Teen Voices on Digital Media and Society – http://www.focusondigitalmedia.org/
• Global Kids, a New York non-profit, started an online focus group in April 2007 devoted to the topic of teens, digital media, and society. This short-term project (lasting only four weeks) was conceived as a way to make sure youth perspectives were being heard by policy makers, teachers and researchers. The discussion, in which 48 official participants participated, covered a range of topics that reflected the role that digital media plays in the lives of today’s youth. Initial discussion topics were provided by Global Kids in conjunction with their partner institutions and grantees, the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative and the NewsHour EXTRA (the online youth forum for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) in the form of Digital Media NewzFlashes (articles paired with thought-provoking questions). Further content and discussion threads were created throughout the dialogue by the participants themselves. Although educators did not take part in the online dialogue, the FOCUS website provided information and suggestions for a digital media curriculum in the Teachers’ Lounge forum.
From Lunch Boxes to Laptops: State of Maine School System
• In the year 2000 the former governor of Maine, Angus King, persuaded his state to launch the first large-scale distribution of laptop computers in the history of the US. That year laptops were distributed to every seventh-grade student in the state—42,000 computers in total. King believed that only by reaching a student/laptop ratio of 1:1 would a technology program such as this have the power to make a true difference. King hoped that the laptops would become the personal property of each student, but this idea was met with skepticism. When the plan was implemented the computers remained the property of the school. Furthermore, it was left up to each school to decide if the students would be allowed to take the laptops home with them; about 50% of schools allowed this to happen. The program involved more than just distributing the laptops; there was also a concerted effort made to transform the classroom in order to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the new hardware. Teachers were organized into teams and given comprehensive training on how to use the laptops and also how transform their teaching styles to give their students more independence and initiative. In other words, the teachers took on the role of a coach/facilitator and worked with students toward the common pursuit of knowledge. The program was largely a success; student engagement with course material was heightened and test scores increased. The program is now being expanded into high schools and a private fund has been set up to help low-income families to apply for internet access at home.
Games and Professional Practice Simulations (GAPPS) Group – http://www.academiccolab.org/initiatives/gapps.html
• The GAPPS Group is a digital learning and research initiative supported by the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in partnership with a variety of educational institutions and funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation. GAPPS studies the manner in which digital technology has been (or has not been) incorporated into primary education and seeks to find ways to improve this relationship. One of the primary interests of the program is how video game technologies (both playing and creating games) can be used to effectively teach complex technical and problem-solving skills. These skills can then be applied to any number of real-life situations, both in and out of the school environment. As a development program, the ultimate goal of GAPPS is to address the nation’s poor performance in science and technology and to ensure the future success of the next generation in a global job market. GAPPS believes that the only way to do this is to give students the opportunity to become comfortable with the ever-changing field of technology and the creative application of media skills from an early age.
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing – http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gacomputes
• In the summer of 2007 Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing implemented a pilot program called ‘Introduction to Technology Design for Teenagers.’ The goal of the program was to facilitate active learning and skill acquisition through the creation individually tailored projects that are both fun and instructive. These projects were designed by the students themselves and included activities such as redesigning a “Google interface for teens”, writing a Facebook application, or prototyping a new multiplayer game. It is the hope of the program that courses like this will help prepare today’s teenagers for future careers in high-tech industries.
Level Playing Field Institute – http://www.lpfi.org/
• The Level Playing Field Institute is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization committed to promoting fairness in education, the workplace and society-at-large. Founded in 2001 by Freada Kapor Klein, Ph.D. the Institute seeks to reveal and remove barriers that are threatening underrepresented groups in the realms of higher education and business. They believe that everyone should have equal access to all opportunities regardless of racial, cultural or economic differences. This ‘leveling’ would start in the early stages of education when all talented students would receive quality preparation for higher education and future careers. Educational projects such as the SMASH (Summer Math and Science Honors Academy) program for high school students and the IDEAL (the Initiative for Diversity in Education and Leadership) scholarship program for undergraduates are helping the Institute achieve its goal. Through these programs and others, the Level Playing Field Institute hopes to create an open dialogue about the sometimes subtle modes of discrimination at work in today’s society and then work collaboratively to remove these hidden barriers.
New Media Literacies – http://www.projectnml.org/node/540
• The New Media Literacies project (NML) is a new initiative headed by Dr. Henry Jenkins of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program that intends to develop a theoretical framework and hands-on curriculum for K-12 students that integrates new media tools into broader educational, expressive and cultural frameworks. NML believes that the most successful learning environments are student-driven, creative and collaborative, all characteristics that can be enhanced by digital media and new network technologies. Through participation in this project students will not only learn technical skills but will also develop a critical framework for thinking about the role of media in their lives. This project is funded by the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation.
One Laptop Per Child – http://laptop.org/en/index.shtml
• The One Laptop Per Child project was the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory. In 2005 he launched a non-profit organization whose goal was to provide $100 laptops to every child on earth. He reasoned that it was possible to stimulate a child’s innate capacity to learn, share, and create by providing them with the material means to explore their own potential. This in turn would result in a new generation of free thinkers and empowered youth. While the initiative has gone forward, sending a $200 model to market at the end of last year, it has also met with much criticism for a substandard product, insufficient testing, and poor marketing. However, despite these setbacks the One Laptop Per Child initiative has been a revolutionary first step in lowering the cost and increasing access to technology throughout the world.
Open Education Resources (OER) – http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/OER/openEdResources.htm
• OER was founded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as a way to make high quality educational content and tools freely available to anyone with access to the internet. This project is global in nature and aims to offer equal access to knowledge and educational opportunities regardless of geographical and cultural constraints (although the majority of the materials are in English). Resources offered on the website include entire course plans, modules, textbooks, videos, exams and evaluation materials, software and much more. All materials reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license.
ThinkeringSpaces – http://www.thinkeringspace.org/
• ThinkeringSpaces is a research project that installs innovative and networked learning spaces in existing library environments. These spaces will draw on the collections and resources of each library and seek to encourage a hands-on tinkering with materials, objects, messages and images (both physical and virtual). Rather than imposing a particular structure onto a child’s desire to learn, ThinkeringSpaces aims to tailor its environment to the way children actually perceive, interpret and use learning opportunities, promoting open-ended and unfettered thinking. The goal of the program is to help facilitate the expansion of a wide range of interests and sets of skills and to allow children to move beyond conventionally defined projects. These learning environments take the shape of free-standing platforms that can be used individually or collaboratively. This project was designed by the IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) Institute of Design and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The results of the research will be used to establish design principles, criteria and specifications for the development of full scale installations.
University of Chicago Center for Urban School Improvement – http://usi.uchicago.edu/
• The Center for Urban School Improvement has teamed together with Woodlawn High School and the North Kenwood/Oakland campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School to develop after-school media literacy programs for high school students. The goal of this program, funded in part by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, is to allow inner-city students access to digital media resources and instruction. Through an emphasis on creative design work students learn skills used by media professionals and work collaboratively to produce video documentaries, podcasts, video games and music videos.
Words Without Borders – http://www.wordswithoutborders.org
• Words Without Borders is an online literary magazine where volunteers post free translations of shorts stories from around the globe. The organization also advocates literature in translation through the planning of events (often virtual) that connects non-English speaking writers to students and academic institutions. The ultimate goal of Words Without Borders is to introduce international writers and writing to the general public and thus foster a global exchange of voices and ideas. Their website also contains units and lesson plans for high school readers/teachers which are organized around the themes used in AP classes (Justice, Exile, Self-Sacrifice). Words Without Borders is a partner of PEN American Center and the Center for Literary Translation at Columbia University. The website is hosted by Bard College.
