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Using digital technology to help kids with physical disabilities develop social skills.

This article discusses the importance of fashion and physical appearance to society.

From the authors' abstract: "The purpose of this study was to examine the practices of two teachers who had chosen to use the social network site (SNS) Ning to create online classrooms as supplements to their physical classrooms in order to bridge the self and school-selected literacies of adolescents. The study further aimed to identify whether the ways in which the teachers were using the SNS constituted a new literacy practice and if so in what ways. It supports and adds to the new literacies theory in four ways: 1. by revisiting the notion of what constitutes literacy, 2. by identifying attributes that do and do not constitute new literacies, 3. by supporting the view that new technologies do not automatically correspond to new literacies, and 4. by showing that new technologies may end up devaluing other modes of learning."

In the chapter "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" from Marina Umaschi Bers book, Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, the author claims that online games, such as Zora, help our youth engage in community and civics. Zora allows it's players to create their own individual avatar, with physical, mental, and emotional traits that the players choose. Bers argues that Zora is a great way for children to think about their identity and civic life by making choices that will show them how to acquire certain sills and attitudes to become good citizens. Like many other researchers, Bers agrees that it is easiest to learn by doing, and games like Zora are helping to improve the youths social awareness. This chapter describes engagement in society not only by voting and being political, but by forming communities and volunteering.

In "Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences" by Marina Umaschi Bers, Bers discusses a scenario that is being used all across the country. Zora is a three dimensional multiuser environment that students use to think about identity and civic life. Students make avatars and are in charge of everything going on in the city or summer camp. This came to life after identity construction environments (ICEs) were found that creative things to do on the computer make children learn better. The students work mostly with different civic identities like police, Jewish people, etc. along with real life, controversial community related issues which the students try to solve. Many of the tools used in Zora can then beused in real life and the moral values can be used both on the computer and in real life. Zora is different than traditional learning because "Children are put in the role of producers, instead of consumers, of information, knowledge, and habits of mind."

In the article Mobile Identity: Youth, Identity, and Mobile Communication Media, by Gitte Stald, the author states how the mobile phone is a source of identity for the youth. The focus of the article is on the meaning of the mobile phone in young people's lives and how it somehow shapes their identity as a person. Most young people's identities are influenced by the media they use. The idea that the youth's identity is mobile means it is always changing every moment, and changing relations between friends and family. The mobile allows the youth to communicate within physical and virtual spaces always in transition. This tool (mobile phone) has become such an important part in the young people's lives and it is almost impossible for it to not be a part of their identity.

This is a whole website on 21st Century education, but i focused on this part of the website. In this part it describes how technology is needed in today's classrooms and how this class would be structured. The way they will be physically structured as well as the material and how this material would be taught.