Informed citizens sometimes forget that the reason why negative, tragic or just plain-old bad news is news is because it's the exception to the rule. That's why it's newsworthy. And this is true whether we're hearing about airplane crashes or online bullying. Sometimes the news is unspeakably tragic, but it's still the exception, not the rule. It's not an event from which we can extrapolate what … [Read more...] about Factors in good policymaking about youth & digital media
Youth
Youth Voices & Outer Voices: 2 fine participatory media projects
Two youth-serving, youth-participating projects were the highlights of last week's Digital Media & Learning Conference (#DML2014) for me: Youth Voices, by educators, for students and educators, and the Outer Voices Podcast, a student-guided digital radio program. There are never enough young people participating in conferences about media and education, youth risk and wellness or safety, … [Read more...] about Youth Voices & Outer Voices: 2 fine participatory media projects
Google’s new learning tool that learns
This may be the next step beyond tutorials on YouTube, MOOCs (massively open online courses), Google Play for Education and YouTube EDU. It may even be signaling the next step for education. It's called "Oppia," and it's a learning teaching tool. It helps teachers customize what they're teaching, student by student – by asking the individual learner questions and, "based on how the learner … [Read more...] about Google’s new learning tool that learns
How technology will improve the well-being of young adults
Today a guest post about last week's Connect 2014 conference in Melbourne, Australia, by American researcher and sexual health educator Kris Gowen. The 2-day conference hosted by the Young & Well Cooperative Research Center brought together young people, researchers, practitioners and policymakers representing the YAWCRC's 75+ partners in the academic, commercial, nonprofit and government … [Read more...] about How technology will improve the well-being of young adults
Nothing complicated about this: Read ‘It’s Complicated’!
Why is the title of social media researcher danah boyd's new book "It's Complicated"? Not just because "the social lives of networked teens" are complicated (the book's subtitle), but growing up in a networked world is too. And I'd add that it's further complicated when the adults in a teen's life don't have any idea how complicated it is – when they reduce it to "too much screen time." What's not … [Read more...] about Nothing complicated about this: Read ‘It’s Complicated’!