The MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media And Learning Initiative Aims .

Digital Media and LearningThe MacArthur Foundation’s digital media and learning initiativeaims to determine how digital media are changing the way youngpeople learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answersare critical to education and other social institutions that must meetthe needs of this and future generations.AT A GLANCE MacArthur launched the digital mediaand learning initiative in 2006 to explorehow digital media are changing the wayyoung people learn, socialize, commu nicate, and play.Since 2006, the Foundation hasawarded grants totaling more than 100 million for research, developmentof innovative new technologies, newlearning environments for youth,including a school model based ongame design principles, and effortsto build the new field of digital mediaand learning. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur FoundationThe goal of the grantmaking in digitalmedia and learning is to create moreopportunities for more young people toachieve the time-honored outcomes ofa good education—career, academic,and civic success—through theadoption and use of a simple set ofprinciples that re-imagines how youngpeople learn and how that learning issupported.evidence of what works best in thecontemporary context, and is designedfor the digital age. MacArthur supports demonstrationsites that put the connected learningapproach into action. They includeHive Learning Networks, Quest toLearn schools, and YOUmedia, aninnovative teen space for engagementand learning.A new framework for thinking aboutlearning—connected learning—hasemerged as a result of the grant making. It draws on successfulapproaches of the past, is based onSeptember 2012

Digital Media and LearningBACKGROUNDContemporary society is reinventing howknowledge is created, organized,accessed, and shared, with far-reachingimplications for institutions of learning—schools, libraries, museums, and more.Digital media may facilitate a new way ofthinking about learning that acknowledgesand nurtures individual talents, skills, andinterests. The initiative in digital mediaand learning aims to support positivechange in American education that buildson new modes of learning observedamong young people using digital mediaand related tools.The initiative is examining what may benew ways to think about learning foryoung people who are “growing up digital”that could be facilitated and supported.When it was launched in 2006, thehypothesis was that young people aredifferent because of their exposure todigital media and the Internet—differencesthat are reflected in their sense of self, inhow they express their independenceand creativity, and in their ability to learn,exercise judgment, make ethical decisions,and think systematically.Phase 1: Exploration, 2006-2011In Phase 1, we focused on inquiry andraising awareness, with the goal ofunderstanding how learning is changingas a result of digital media. We consideredquestions such as: How are young people changing as aresult of their use of digital media? How are learning environmentschanging? How should they changein the future? How are civic and social institutionschanging? How should they change inthe future?The first significant projects receivedsupport in March 2006. We fundedresearch on how young people use digitalmedia, new theoretical work, and experi mentation in the design of learning envi ronments. Grants explored how informallearning institutions, such as libraries,museums, and after-school programs,could support learning and providepathways to success in school and in life.All of this shaped the creation of newlearning environments, policies to supportlearning, and innovative practices.be adapted and applied in any context.It re-imagines the learning experience ofyoung people to connect the three spheresof their lives that matter most to them—peer culture, interests, and academics. Itensures that young people learn traditionalreading, writing, and numeracy skills,while enabling and inspiring them to becreative, analytical problem solvers. Itprovides for more engaging, relevant, andenduring learning experiences thatprepare them for college, the workforce,and citizenship in a democracy.A New Framework for Learning:Connected LearningPhase 2: Influence and Impact,2011-presentWhat emerged from this work was anew framework for thinking aboutlearning that, while drawing on successfulapproaches of the past, is based onevidence of what works best in thecontemporary context, and is designedfor the digital age. This framework, calledconnected learning, is a set of educationaland design values and principles that canIn Phase 2, the focus is on creating, atsufficient scale, the conditions to continuallytest, refine, and expand the ideas,practices, and policies that emerged fromPhase 1 and now constitute connectedlearning. The goal is to create moreopportunities for more young people toachieve the time-honored outcomes of agood education—career, academic, andJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundationpage 2

civic success—through the adoption anduse of a simple set of principles thatre-imagines how young people learn,and how that learning is supported.another on connected learning—andother projects are examining what youngpeople are doing online, their views onsuch activities, and the knowledge, skills,and competencies they are gaining.Grantmaking PrioritiesResearch. Foundation-funded researchis contributing to a growing body ofevidence about how young people learntoday. Ethnographic studies, surveys,interdisciplinary research networks—oneon youth and participatory politics andpage 3Practice. Grants also support efforts todevelop new learning environments tounderstand how schools, libraries,museums, and other formal and informalinstitutions need to adapt, change, andcollaborate to meet the needs of youth inthe 21st century. Projects are looking atlearning in virtual worlds, through gamedesign, with mobile devices, and throughthe interactions in social networks—inand out of school. Resources supportnew school design, including a model inoperation in Chicago and New Yorkbased on the principles of game designthat shapes and informs all aspects ofteaching and learning. We support Hivelearning networks in Chicago and NewYork City, in which collaborations of civicwww.macfound.org

Digital Media and Learningand cultural institutions are workingtogether to help young people integratelearning across formal and informal,virtual, and physical environments.Field Building. To help build theemerging digital media and learning field,the portfolio includes the MacArthurFoundation Series on Digital Media andLearning and the MacArthur FoundationReports on Digital Media and Learning. Awebsite with resources and researchrelated to connected learning—www.connectedlearning.tv—and the DigitalMedia and Learning Research Hub, aninternational research center at theUniversity of California, Irvine, are additionalresources for the field.Digital Media and LearningCompetition. To encourage innovationand provide resources for new learningenvironments, the Foundation funds theDigital Media and Learning Competition.John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur FoundationThis annual endeavor, administered byHASTAC, invites U.S. and internationalparticipants to compete for 2 million ingrant awards for domestic and internationalprojects that use digital or new media asplatforms for participatory learning. Themost recent competition is supporting 30teams of practitioners and designers todevelop digital badge systems, an alter native assessment and credentialingmechanism housed and managed online.More information at www.dmlcompetition.net.page 4

REPRESENTATIVE GRANTSDEMONSTRATION SITESMacArthur has supportedexperimentation in several types ofinstitutions—libraries, museums,schools, community centers,afterschool programs—todemonstrate what connectedlearning could look like in action.They include:YOUmedia and Learning Labswww.youmedia.orgYOUmedia—which first opened atthe Chicago Public Library’sdowntown Harold WashingtonLibrary Center in 2009—is aninnovative learning space for teens.Based on research supported byMacArthur, YOUmedia was designedto respond to the interests of youngpeople, while connecting them tobooks, media, and institutionsaround Chicago to encouragecollaboration and creativity.YOUmedia has since expanded tothree branch locations in Chicagoand has become the model for anumber of YOUmedia-like teenlearning spaces in other museumsand libraries. The MacArthurFoundation, in partnership with theInstitute for Museum and LibraryServices, also is supporting planninggrants for up to 30 additionalYOUmedia-inspired teen learninglabs across the country.Quest to LearnNew York City: www.q2l.orgChicago: www.chicagoquest.orgThe design and development of theQuest to Learn model wassupported by MacArthur and firstpage 5launched in 2009 in a public schoolin New York City. ChicagoQuest wasopened in the fall of 2011. The Questmodel was developed in response togrowing evidence that digital mediaand games offer powerful models forreconsidering how and where youngpeople learn. At Quest schools,educators partner with gamedesigners to develop curriculum thattruly engages young people inlearning through a series of queststhat simulate game play. In pursuit ofboth traditional skills in reading andmath as well as 21st century skills,students take on the identities andbehaviors of explorers, mathemati cians, historians, etc., as they workthrough the challenge-basedcurriculum.Hive Learning Networkswww.hivelearningnetwork.orgThe Hive Learning Network is acommunity of organizations thatserve youth in the out-of-schoolspace. The Hive is currently active inChicago and New York City, withother locations under development.Hive Learning Networks aredesigned to create connectedlearning experiences to not onlyengage youth and promote learningthat aligns with their interests, but tosupport them as they developnecessary 21st century skills.Through public-private partnershipsupport, Hive Learning Networksfund innovative youth programmingto connect learning across the threespheres that matter most to youth:peer culture, interests, andacademics.ResearchHARVARD LAW SCHOOL, BERKMANCENTER FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETYCambridge, MA 500,000 to research, evaluate, developcurriculum, and conduct youth outreachto address online meanness and bullying.HARVARD UNIVERSITY, GRADUATESCHOOL OF EDUCATIONCambridge, MA 900,000 in support for a study of theeffect of digital media on young people’sethical development and the creation ofcurricula for parents and teachers.MILLS COLLEGEOakland, CA 4,500,000 in support of the MacArthurResearch Network on Youth andParticipatory Politics.UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINEIrvine, CA 4,500,000 in support of the MacArthurResearch Network on ConnectedLearning.www.macfound.org