Often working in collaboration with adult allies, they leverage digital media and emerging modes of connectivity to achieve voice and influence in public spheres.

“cultural acupuncture,”

Recent researchhas found that the game promotes civic outcomes such as ecological stewardship, an understanding and appreciation of community action, and social responsibility.34

many youth are in “empty chambers” where they are not exposed to any perspectives on societal issues.

In addition, platforms are increasingly designed to focus users on information and contacts consistent with preferences revealed by prior behaviors.

Political theorists have long extolled exposure to a wide range of perspectives as an essential support for a free and democratic society.20

More than two hundred such guildscan be categorized as “political” in focus.

Participation in online communities oftenfunctions much like offline, extracurricular activities, which have been found to foster later civic engagement by teaching skills, by developing a sense of agency and productive group norms, and by fostering an appreciation of the potential of collective action.

Recent survey findings suggest that youth under twenty-five are more oftenrecruitedfor civic or political activities online than through other methods and when compared to their older counterparts.9

Three out of five (61 percent) voters aged 18!29 who get their election news from the Internet reporting going online because it is more convenient than other methods of accessing political information.4

“They are still relatively untainted by the social pressures and inhibitions that set in with growing older and they are also less entrenched/acclimated to the traditional school model.”

“Mechanics” are what game designers call the collection of rules and structures that produce the actual gameplay.

There’s nothing wrong with cool, but if it’s our primary criterion, we are catering to our students instead of challenging them.

“low-performing students,” for “students with emotional/behavioral issues,” and for “students with cognitive or developmental issues.

hey “gamify” learning by replacing grades with levels and merit badges;

One study, published in Nature, showed that playing fast-paced “action based” video games improves “attentional processing” and also “induces long-lasting improvements in contrast sensitivity, a basic visual function that commonly deteriorates with age.”

62 percent of online gamers hold a favorable view of people from different cultures compared to 50 percent of non-gamers. Unlike school, where the diversity of the institution is rarely reflected by individuals’ peer groups, interactive online gaming correlates with a more diverse group of friends

Social benefit: Gamers are able to translate the prosocial skills that they learn from co-playing or multi-player gameplay to “peer and family relations outside the gaming environment.”

This is one reason games have such potential as tools for learning: they are really nothing more than complex problems waiting to be solved by players in a way that is both fun and challenging.

Such an approach to education doesn’t so much discount engagement as a condition of learning as erase it altogether.

“networked”

We are fluid creatures in the making, since we make our-selves socially through participation with others in various groups.

Theirdifferent contexts, social practices, and purposes shape their thinking (andreading) in different ways. Neither way is “right” or “wrong”in general.

For example, you can think about people who kill themselves to set off abomb, in pursuit of some cause they believe in, as suicide bombers, murder-ers, terrorists, freedom fighters, heroes, psychotics, or in many other differ-ent ways.

preferred collaborative decision-making toindependent problem-solving.

lone men in theirbasement, hunched over their keyboards.

m a fetishizing of whatBransford and Schwartz (1999) called “sequestered problem-solving”:one’s ability to solve problems while (usually) sitting alone, with a penciland perhaps a piece of scratch pa

ecent news headlines tell of studentsusing cameras to digitize tests and send them via

t was pure play.

18not prove him wrong in his ·assumptions about the feasibility of flying machines.

(p. 3).

School has an inherent tendency to infantilize children by placing them in a position of having to do as they are told, to occupy themselves with work dictated by someone else and that, moreover, has no intrinsic value—schoolwork is done only because the designer of a curriculum decided that doing the work would shape the doer into a desirable form. (p. 24)

It has taken two previous destabilizing innovations—the computer and the internet—and has put them in the pockets of most everyone.6 At this moment in history, so many ideas are suddenly possible, or so much easier as to feel newly possible, because of mobile.

It was quite a while before

the active interpretation of mobile technologies to enact the ideals of progressive education: learning as a meaning-making activity, self-determination as a goal and value, learning that is co-constructed among its participants, and learning that happens through making new connections

the many manifestations of handheld, networked computers and data collection devices (e.g. smartphones, digital cameras, GPS devices, and tablets).

These are all Augmented Reality games designed for public audiences.

: Games such as SimLife teach players to think in an active way about complex phenomena (some of them “real life,” some of them not) as dynamic, evolving systems. But they also encourage people to get used to manipulating a system whose core assumptions they do not see and which may or may not be “true.”25

pick up a variety of experiences (e.g., the “right” sort of summer camps, travel, and special activities), skills (not just school-based skills, but a wide variety of interactional, aesthetic, and technological skills), and achievements (honors, awards, projects) in terms of which they can help to define themselves as worthy of admission to elite educational institu-tions and worthy of professional success later in life.24

His interest in computing originally was sparked by playing the popular video gam

She debated her opponent on National Public Radio and found herself in the center of a debate about the nature of citizenship, how to ensure honest elections, and the future of democracy in a digital age. Alphaville is the largest city in a popular multiplayer game, The Sims Online

describe differing levels of investments in new media activities in a way that integrates an understanding of technical, social, and cultural patterns.

where insiders and outsiders are defi ned by their participation in a particular semiotic domain.

As we suggest in the case of interest-driven and friendship-driven participation, these are not unique social and cultural worlds oper-ating with their own internal logic, but rather these forms of participation are defi ned in relation and in opposition to one another.

At the same time, the close attention Luis’s mother paid to his work at the clubhouse allowed her to recognize the importance of capitalizing on his outside interests to motivate his production. She does not seem to have the same detailed level of understanding about what is going on in school.Mother : “I think if ... if they did have this kind of project in school, it would probably keep a lot of children out of trouble from going into the street and trying to fi nd some-thing bad to do. All they have in school is just work, do your homework and recess time. Sometimes I think that during recess they should, you know, the kids that are interested in doing this, give them reasons ... if they want to do something in the computer, let them go do it instead of wasting their time outside fi ghting and arguing like other little kids. They don’t let them go into the computer only when he’s in class. I don’t think they ... they don’t let them use the computers to do fun projects.”

His parents attributed some of this to his spending too much time on his extracurricular computer projects, like the computer animation, and sought to limit his work.

C o m m u n i t y t e c h n o l o g y c e n t e r s c a n p r o v i d e a n i m p o r t a n t s p a c e f o r y o u t h w i t h l e s s home access, offering multiple opportunities to learn through mentors and material resources (Kafai, Peppler, & Chapman, 2010 ; P e n u e l , e t a l . , 2000 )

Other studies show that youth who live in communities in areas of lower socio-economic status (SES) like Luis’s often are not using technology at home or at school to do much beyond basic Internet searching, social networking, or typing out a report using Microsoft Word

Parents also played instrumental roles when they shared their technical expertise through informal teaching processes or provided their children with learning resources such as books or new media tools.

Design activities, including information gathering, creative thinking, prototyping, improvisation, and tinkering, are thought to provide potential pathways to these crucial twenty- fi rst-century capacities (Balsamo, 2010 )

Intel Digital Blue stop-animation camera. He is producing his latest movie.

Two weeks later, they were meeting with editors, Tersigni said, and struck a deal with Chronicle Books

Kenji Kawakami demonstrates two of his inventions: A “Hayfever Hat” that dispenses toilet paper, and an alarm clock designed to keep users awake. (Photo by YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP via Getty Images)

A crucial aspect of Benedetto’s inventions is that they’re typically not for sale.He makes a full-time living primarily through brand partnerships with the likes of Call of Duty, DoorDash, and the Almond Board of California, who pay him to create custom unnecessary inventions. Recently, Bud Light requested an iPhone case with a fold-out cup holder.

At 15, he gathered up his savings from a summer lifeguard job, formed an LLC, and built a website.