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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31 News Projects funded to Cover the South and West Sides

On April 4, 2011, the Chicago Community Trust announced that it will award $110,000 for reporting projects on local issues affecting the residents of Chicago’s South and West Sides. The Community News Matters program which aims to foster impactful and relevant coverage of, by and for Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods that will shape current and future decision-making.

The awards are a direct response to the findings of 2010 Community News Matters research, which found that people in the Chicago area feel they don’t know enough about the region’s challenges, and that residents in the city’s South and West Sides feel that there is a lack of relevant coverage in their neighborhoods.

Awards winners include; individuals, nonprofits, and for-profit companies with expertise in journalism or Chicago’s community issues including, Strategic Human Services, Beyond Media Education, Loyola University and Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council.

For more information, please click here.

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Hats off to Chicago’s Best Student Journalists

We were very excited to host the McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards this past Friday, where the best high school journalism in the Chicago area was recognized. The luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center honored 12 schools in 24 categories. Lane Tech College Prep High School won the most awards, and Mike Stanton of Whitney Young Magnet High School was named High School Journalist of the Year. For the first time in the event’s 19-year history, two principals were acknowledged for their leadership in protecting and defending press freedoms. Prior to the awards luncheon, the morning featured dozens of workshops for the HS journalists, with presenters from a variety of media and topics ranging from "hunting for good stories" to "making your blog buzz."

The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago, which is based at Roosevelt University, coordinated the event.

For a list of all the winners, click here.

Check out an interview with one of the 2011 principals of the year, Juan Carlos Ocon, principal of Benito Juarez Community Academy.

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