Spotlight On Digital Learning

Last month, we attended the MacArthur Foundation’s event on Reimagining Learning, which featured innovative pilot projects and advancements in digital learning. About 250 educators, members of the nonprofit community and community leaders, including incoming mayor Rahm Emanuel attended the event. We were especially intrigued by the applications of digital media in the classroom. Here are some of the highlights from the event: 

One of the main ideas posed was educators need to teach and prepare students for jobs that don’t even exist yet, using tools that aren’t even invented yet. Digital Youth Network’s success in partnering with Chicago Public Library’s You Media was highlighted as a promising model. This collaboration allows students access to You Media where they can use technology and media to develop skills and share and critique each other’s work in a unique space online community.

Video game design as an effective teaching tool was also highlighted. Quest to Learn, a school for “digital kids,” is a model of this kind of learning. Quest to Learn uses games as rules-based systems, where students have to use critical thinking skills, create new worlds, make complex decisions and receive feedback. A Quest to Learn charter school will open in Chicago this fall.Read more about Chicago’s Quest to Learn school here.

To learn more about digital learning, click here to watch a PBS documentary on new leaders of 21^st century learning.

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Who we are: Innovative Evaluators and Map Makers

At a recent Donor’s Forum workshop called Beyond the Narrative: Visually Mapping the and Measuring the Impact of Grants , program officer Janet Liao showcased several mapping tools that foundations can use to highlight your organization’s work , partnerships, scope and more.

Here are some interesting tools that any organization can try:

• Many Eyes : This is a data visualization tool from IBM. The site allows users to upload data and then produce graphic representations for other to view and comment on.

• Prezi: Prezi (a zooming presentation editor) lets you bring your ideas into one space and see how they relate, helping you and your audience connect. Zoom out to see the big picture, zoom in to see the details.

• GIS (graphic information systems) mapping: A geographical information system (GIS) allows the user to understand, question and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns and trends in the form of maps, reports and charts.

If your organization is deciding whether to develop an online mapping project, a good place to start might be a tour of other nonprofit mapping projects.

• A basic map of locations and directions: If your organization is the kind of place people turn to for services, maps easily direct them to your centers. For example, Chicago Public School's map of school locations.

• A map of services and resources: Create maps to help residents locate nearby social services or food banks. For example, Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap feature.

• Maps that aggregate and display statistics: Create charts and graphs to track key indicators and statistics around important issue areas, such as civic involvement and education. For example, MetroPulse's resource site.

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Grantee Spotlight: Do Young Female Athletes Have a Fair Shot?

We are really excited to support the Open Youth Network’s upcoming Fair Shot New Media Institute, hosted by Columbia College.

The initiative, produced by Columbia’s Mindy Faber, will work like this: Fifteen girls from Chicago-area high schools will participate in a four-week summer training institute where they will learn investigative journalism skills. Then, during the fall, they will conduct research and interviews to learn about gender inequity in sports in Chicago Public Schools. Finally, in the spring they will report their findings. This work will be followed by 2012 release of In the Game, a major documentary exploring the same issue, by Maria Finitzo of Kartemquin Films.

Check out the great thank you message from the team at Columbia College/Open Youth Networks. It made our day to have a thank you come from an avatar!

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Washington State Hosts Specialized Reporting Institute on Second Life

Word was that the questions from the Avatars were tougher than those that came from the real world audience.

WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication has just wrapped up a two-day, MF-funded conference for reporters on covering virtual reality, with real-life and 2nd Life speakers Helen Thomas and Bob Schieffer converging on stage at the same time. There was, as you’d expect, a good amount of new media coverage of this one as it unfolded.

To follow some of this fascinating event, visit links below.

Some great coverage can be found at:
http://nwn.blogs.com
http://eurekadejavu.blogspot.com/2009/04/launch-of-journalistic-experiment.html

Live photo stream at:
http://www.koinup.com/sim/WSU+II

Twitter round up at:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22virtual+journalism+summit%22

A humorous read at:
http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2009/04/virtual-journalism-heavyweights-gather-in-virtual-journalism-summit.html

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Knight Funds Facebook News Apps

The Knight Foundation’s grant to News Cloud to develop Facebook applications has just launched. The goal was to see how social networking sites can be used to spread news, particularly among young people.

One is general news, provided by the University of Minnesota Daily newspaper; the other is concerned solely with environmental news, provided by www.grist.org. A University of Minnesota researcher will study the effects of each of these apps.

The links are:
http://apps.facebook.com/mndaily

http://apps.facebook.com/hotdish

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NWME: Looking for Women Media Innovators

The MF-funded J-LAB initiative New Media Women Entrepreneurs has once again put out the call for creative new Web sites, mobile news services or other ‘entrepreneurial initiatives that offer interactive opportunities to engage, inspire and improve news and information in a geographic community of a community of interest.’

What do the three winning women-led projects get? They each receive one-time funding of $10,000 to help them launch their new venture. Last year’s contest attracted nearly 200 innovative proposals. The three winners were:

Echo, a system of public storytelling installations in Atlanta. Led by Lila King and Karyn Lu, movers behind CNN’s user-generated site iReport.com.

Latina Voices, a news site for and by Latinas. Led by Teresa Puente, a journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago and member of the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board.

Northwest Navy News, a networking site for Puget Sound’s military community. Led by Elaine Helm Norton, new media editor at The Daily Herald in Everett, Wash., and a former military beat reporter.

The deadline is March 31, 2009. For more information on guidelines, FAQs, etc:
http://www.newmediawomen.org/index.php/site/proposal_guidelines

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Knight Foundation Announces Top News Challenge Proposals

The Knight Foundation has just released a list of the finalists' proposals for the second year of the Knight News Challenge. These projects aim at – in Knight words - informing, empowering and engaging citizens and helping them in the decision-making process of their neighborhoods, communities and countries. The 17 projects chosen for funding, not named in the list, will be released May 14, 2008 at the E&P Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas. To see the other top proposals click here: Top Proposals 2008.

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Listening Across Borders

We all know that young people are the so-called "early adopters" of new technologies, but the question remains in student media circles about how to best harness these innovations to enhance youth communication efforts. The answer also might shed some light on how to attract bright young people in the professional news media.

A recent MTF-funded proejct tackled the issue head-on with YouthLAB, an intense two-week summer program that gathered 20 teens from Barbados and Chicago "together in a virtual space to create global exchange using peer-to-peer networks and other tools of participatory media." The project hatched dozens of youth-produced videos, Skype chats and mash-ups.

You can read all about the project and lessons learned for the youth media field in a new Youth Media Reporter piece by Open Youth Networks director Mindy Faber (http://www.youthmediareporter.org/2007/11/listening_across_borders_creat.html). Better yet, you can check-out the teens work yourself at the Youth Lab Web site (http://youthlab.net/).

Interested in youth media? You can sign up for a free subcription to Youth Media Reporter on its site, http://www.youthmediareporter.org/.

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