$2-Million in Grants Will Foster Work on Digital Technologies in Student Life

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August 14, 2007

$2-Million in Grants Will Foster Work on Digital Technologies in Student Life

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today that it would award $2-million in grants to new leaders in digital media and learning. The competition, part of the foundation’s $50-million Digital Media and Learning project, aims to further work on how digital technology is changing student life, including how young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. The open competition will be administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, a network of educators and digital innovators that operates primarily out of Duke University and the University of California. Cathy N. Davidson, a Duke professor and co-founder of the Collaboratory, said in a news release issued by the foundation that today’s students “bring an urgent need for critical thinking about the digital world they have inherited and are shaping” — a view that echoes her call last spring, in an article in The Chronicle Review, for academe not to ignore the influence of digital technologies. —Andrew Mytelk