The Digital Media and Learning Initiative

Convenings   |   News and Resources

About the Initiative

Photo: Peg Skorpinski/UC-Berkeley

As the Woodrow Wilson Foundation works to strengthen current practices in education, it also looks ahead to tomorrow’s schools and learning environments. Increasingly, young people's reliance on digital media is breaking down traditional boundaries between classrooms, social interactions, and the larger world. These shifts have far-reaching implications for teaching and learning—implications still too little understood.

Through its Digital Media and Learning Initiative, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Woodrow Wilson hosted a series of convenings to explore this growing field and develop applications that improve learning. Participants included MacArthur Fellows who are leading researchers and project developers in this area, as well as other key experts in digital learning and new media.

Convening participants envisioned learning environments that embrace, rather than forbid, new technologies, and contemplated the effect of such changes on teaching and learning both in and beyond the classroom. Outcomes included new research directions, collaborations, and projects that apply the insights gained.

 

Convenings

 

News and Resources

Digital Media and Learning in the News

    

Published Resources on
Digital Media and Learning

                      

Related Websites
  • South Dakota Mandates Statewide Testing
    in 21st Century Skills
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  • Teens, Videogames and Civics
    A a new look at videogames from the the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests social gaming may correlate with increased civic engagement. Other relevant reports reports also available.
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  • The MacArthur Foundation
    Digital Media and Learning
    Explains the goals and direction of their grantmaking program and includes recent news on their grantees.
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  • Administrators See Potential, But Limit
    Use of Web 2.0 Tools
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  • The MIT Press, in coordination with the MacArthur Foundation, has released a series of free reports on digital media and learning. Themes include civics, gaming, race, creativity, and more.
    		•                       
  • The MacArthur Spotlight Blog discusses events, milestones, and findings for MacArthur grantees’ projects. Updated frequently, the blog makes use of many Web2.0 features.
    		•
  • In A Digital Future, Textbooks Are History
    		•     
  • The International Journal of Learning and Media
    An online-only academic journal, published by the MIT Press, offers a more technical take on the latest thinking in the field, and also demonstrates alternative publishing methods for academic journals.
    		•                       
  • The Carnegie Foundation, with a MacArthur program parallel to Woodrow Wilson’s, has posted podcasts of interviews with convening participants about what’s new and interesting in their work.
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  • The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is publishing a series of public policy briefs on digital media and learning among younger children. These excellent resources, which draw on the work of leading scholars, include thorough lists of current projects, nationally and internationally, on digital media and learning.
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