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Posting this to test Diigo...also because it was a GREAT find - a current study that provides information for both my digital storytelling project AND my group project on ethics....Here's a summary of what it's about. Also was wondering if "Sribd" is another sort of Diigo? The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, published by the MIT Press, present Findings From current research on how young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. The Reports result from research projects funded by the MacArthur Foundation as part of its $50 million initiative in digital media and learning. They are published openly online (as well as in print) in order to support broad dissemination and to stimulate further research in the Field.

Just came across these fairly recent article on Danna boyd. (yes, that's lower case 'b.') She's been involved with some pretty interesting online studies that focus on teen and young adults. Some of her research has included topics such as, "Online White Flight," "Digital Self-Harm," and Privacy Techniques." I found it particularly interesting that on the topic of Digital Self-Harm, she discovered that vicious anonymous questions on a teen's profile weren't examples of cyberbullying but were posted by the teen herself!

Thanks for bringing her into the conversation, Mary Beth! danah boyd is definitely one of my favorite researchers. I read large portions of her dissertation as part of HIB my first semester in the program here at Rutgers, and a lot of what she's said has stuck with me since. You can read it here: http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf. I also recently attended a webinar from the Berkman Center, where she's a fellow, in which she summarizes nicely a lot of her work under the broader theme of "Embracing the Culture of Connectivity." You can watch it here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2011/05/academicSM.

This article raises an interesting parallel to our discussion this week on communities and gaming. It considers the idea that young people are experts at how to use computers, games and programs, but not how to make, develop and craft those games and programs: "It's the difference between reading and writing. We're teaching them how to read, we're not teaching them how to write. The narrowness of how we teach children about computers risks creating a generation of digital illiterates." Potentially raises a new line of questioning into the issue of educating millennials and being born into the digital age.

These are some fun games to be used with young students. Civics (formerly Our Courts) is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy.