navigating virtual worlds they create (Second Life)

elements interact to offer players meaningful and lasting engagement.

ment; opportunities to make contributions and to have these contributions recognized and assessed;

I play games and reflect on my learning within them.

find ways to promote youth engagement with online interest-driven activities.

3productively requires increased attention to the civic and political dimensions of digital media. We say this for two reasons. First, civic and political life has moved online. If youth are to participate, educators must help youth learn to employ these online forms of activity. Second, there are many ways educators can take advantage of youth engagement with digital media to foster youth civic and political engagement and development. Below, we discuss these points. Then, in section two, we summarize several recently completed studies that highlight possible ways civic educators can take advantage of youth engagement with digital media to support civic engagement. The paper concludes with a discussion of ways policymakers can support these educational efforts.CIVIC AND POLITICAL LIFE HAS MOVED ONLINE The Internet is where young peopleget much of their political information.Half (50 percent) of 18!29 year-old Internet news consumers say their voting decisions are influenced by what they learn online and 37 percent of those ages 18!24 obtained 2008 campaign information from social networking sites, compared to only 4 percent of 30!39 year olds.3Online spaces are regarded as convenient spaces by American youth. 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.4The Internet is often where young peoplehear and voice perspectives

“not at all” interested in campaign news

Vloggers often struggle with how to weave political topics into community or conversation that is not explicitly political in nature.

They are also running a campaign for fair trade chocolate to be used in Harry Potter branded sweets under the banner, “Not In Harry's Name.”

through shared civic practices, young people lower barriers to entry and multiply opportunities for young people to engage in civic

can be a gateway to political engagement

hey leverage digital media and emerging modes of connectivity

Staaby also used the post-apocalyptic zombie survival game The Last of Us in his literature class

They might add vocabulary words to Angry Birds, or multiplication tables to Temple Run. It never works.

rather than delivering lectures and then testing for retention,

“attentional processing

social game Mafia

doing far outweigh

standardized test scores,

how games and technology affect learners of all ages.

many English language learners tohelp them learn and understand English better.

Yu-Gi-Oh,

a year of instability

got the jobdone more quickly,

Until recently, gamers havebeen depicted in popular media as either children or lone men in theirbasement, hunched over their keyboards.2

will students have the necessary problem-identificationskills, technological expertise, underlying conceptual understanding,creativity, and ability to communicate via multiple forms of media thatthey need to stay globally competitive

iPhone increase in popularity, educators face thereality that students will be coming to school with these technologies intheir pockets, whether we like it or not.

students use the Internet to exchange info

digitize tests and send them via e

current order of schools.

New methods of instruction are needed thatare suited to the digital age.

We are too often willing to stay in our silos or subjugate promises for substantial change to co-option by the status quo by interpreting them as mere instruments of instruction. R

“Put away your phones everybody!”

but somewhat disconnected from the technology in use at our school.

themselves to seeing our work as developing instruments to be applied to the existing problems of learning,

My hypothetical Schoolers said that progressive education has been tried and did not work. I agree that it hasn’t worked very well but in something like the sense in which Leonardo da Vinci failed in his attempts to invent an airplane.

We are people who see the mobile revolution as a chance to make instances of education more about what learning should really be about.

“Mobile media learning includes the instant and ongoing connection of handheld devices to online information and communication for personal growth and increased agency within professions and communities of practice

t is a wonderful thing to see so many people embracing the opportunity to play an important role in the development of their own intellectual destinies.

helped to connect others who were already involved with similar work.

opened up by mobile:

As a result of the mobile design workshops, students produced an AR place– based story called To Pave or Not to Pave

As evidenced through these quotes place– based mobile games and stories have become central media for engaging students in exploring and representing important people, places, and issues in their local community

However, she soon realizes that, as a single woman, the world is a dangerous place.

Through digital media, youth today have countless accessible opportunities to share, create, and expand their horizons.

e was proud enough of her work to use it in class assignments and in her college applications.

Why We Should Teach Media Literacy: Three Core Problems 25they were acquiring were well understood by the adults around them.33Now, consider how few of those qualities might be applied to the emerging participatory cultures. In a world in which the line between consumers and producers is blurring, young people are finding themselves in situations that no one would have anticipated a decade or two ago. Their writing is much more open to the public and can have more far-reaching consequences. Young people are creating new modes of expression that are poorly understood by adults, and as a result they receive little to no guidance or supervision. The ethical implications of these emerging practices are fuzzy and ill-defined. Young people are discovering that information they put online to share with their friends can bring unwelcome attention from strangers.In professional contexts, professional organizations are the watchdog of ethical norms.

Participatory culture is reworking the rules by which school, cultural expression, civic life, and work operate

changes the way youths think

contribute

While to adults the Internet primarily means the world wide web, for children it means email, chat, games

They developed much of their skill and knowledge through their participation in the informal learning communi

the Firefox Web browser was born

for the fictional school Hogwart

youth develop and discuss their taste in music

he describes how contemporary media mixes such as Pokémon enable kids to develop identities in peer culture in relation to customizable, interactive media forms.

Although in most cases they would prefer to hang out with their friends offl ine,

but they may also have a set of friends online focused on more specifi c interest

How does young people’s social and cultural participation shape new media engagement, interest, and expertise?

“media effects,”

shared culture where new social media, digital media distribution, and digital media production are com-monplace among their peers and in their everyday school contexts.

No technology there.

af fi nity groups

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

Informal collaborative relationships develop as learners share knowledge and codevelop interests.

Digital technologies offer children and adolescents rich opportunities to design and create artwork, movies, games, animations, interactive robots, and other artifacts.

purpose whatsoever, and were so dumb that I’d never dared to make them,

a mini-bed for an iPhone;

Buckets of screws, springs, nuts, and bolts line the shipping-container-sized room. In one corner, there are 5 3D printers and a Glowforge laser cutter; in another, an assortment of spray paint cans and filaments.

“The mansplainer explains things in a condescending way,”

“Maybe if I take my tit out they will stop explaining my own joke back to me.”

“and I see a dude explaining to a woman her own joke back to her — something that has happened to me many times.”