CLRN Blog

Sports for the Mind: How do you bring Connected Learning into the Classroom?

November 4, 2013

Ugochi Acholonu is a postdoctoral scholar for the Connected Learning Research Network looking at ways that formal learning environments can be adapted to support Connected Learning. Junaidullah Khan is a teacher at ChicagoQuest (a public charter school) implementing curriculum to support connected learning in his classroom. In this post they combine their perspectives to think about the theoretical and practical aspects of changing formal institutions to facilitate connected learning. Connected Learn Read More...

Ksenia Korobkova

Matt Rafalow

On Schools, Sackboys, and Sponsors: a Tale of Two Online Communities

October 21, 2013

Leveling Up is a research team focused on learning practices within interest-driven online and face-to-face contexts. Ksenia Korobkova and Matt Rafalow draw on their unique cases to compare and contrast literacy practices in online communities. Chris, a 10th grader, has passions for theater, English literature, and gaming. Although he describes himself as an average student, he’s definitely “more of an English/history person” and excels in those subjects. When not in school, he enjoys playing the Pla Read More...

Sonia Livingstone

The Latest on Children’s Media Literacy: New Trend Policymakers & Parents must Watch

October 4, 2013

Ofcom just published its 2013 Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report. As usual this is a wealth of information on how children are using the internet, their attitudes towards it, and their understanding of how it works and what the risks to them online might be. The data shows a decline in skills associated with online safety and signals several other unfolding trends on children’s media literacy that those interested in protection children online should pay close attention to…

Training with Purpose in the Junior Lifeguards

October 1, 2013

Every summer, in beaches across the Southern California coast, young swimmers aged 9 to 17 come together for five weeks to train, bond, and learn how to save lives. Under the warm but strict guidance of professional lifeguards, junior lifeguards engage in an intense program of open water swimming, beach runs, surfing, and lessons in ocean safety, rescue techniques, and CPR. In keeping with its reputation as a standout lifeguard service employing nearly 800 guards, the Los Angeles County lifeguards run an ex Read More...

Matt Rafalow

“Join Team Apple!”: Co-Creation and Openly Networked Design on Sackboy Planet

September 23, 2013

On Sackboy Planet, players take advantage of the level editor’s openly networked design to collaborate on projects together. Team projects provide opportunities for people with diverse design skill sets, including logic, design, art, and music, to experiment with creative production around a shared purpose. While players may use the level editor by themselves to design their own creations, Media Molecule, the creator of LittleBigPlanet 2, included a feature in the level editor that permits more than one p Read More...

Rachel Cody Pfister

Hogwarts at Ravelry and the Connected Learning Core Values

September 3, 2013

Figure 1. A crocheted mandrake, inspired by the Harry Potter movies. It’s been nearly two years since I began fieldwork with Hogwarts at Ravelry, and, as the fieldwork winds to a close, I’d like to take a moment to step back and reflect on how the core values of connected learning make up the foundation of the group and allow it to become a thriving learning and social environment. By looking at Hogwarts at Ravelry, we are able to see that the core values of connected learning - equity, fu Read More...

Timothy Young

HOMAGO: A web platform to hang out, mess around, and geek out

August 19, 2013

Over two years ago, the Teach Me Stuff experimental platform was launched in an effort to investigate how to best match individuals with coaches and mentors based on their interests. The lessons learned from the trials of Teach Me Stuff lead to the development of HOMAGO) which stands for Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. The design of HOMAGO was built from a number of lessons-learned during our coaching experiments with Teach Me Stuff. Through coaching trials done with the StarCraft 2 commun Read More...

Alexander Cho

Ethnography and the Geography of Learning

August 2, 2013

When our Austin research team was initially designing “The Digital Edge” as part of the Connected Learning Research Network, we wondered: what would be the best way for us to gain a picture that was as comprehensive as possible of the daily lives and digitally-mediated learning ecologies of youth—especially youth from under-resourced minority communities? We were intrigued, for example, by Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that showed that youth of color were more likely than their white Read More...

Crystle Martin

Connected Learning Environments and Common Core Standards

August 2, 2013

The Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy for grades 11 – 12 in the United States are meant to mark the readiness of youth to enter college, focusing on reading and writing benchmarks that are necessary to succeed in post-secondary educational contexts and non-academic careers. These standards focus on such crucial skills as writing an argument to support a claim; writing informative texts to convey complex ideas; writing narratives to develop imagined experiences; developing and st Read More...

Ugochi Acholonu

Encouraging Connected Learning Means It’s Okay for Students to Opt-out

July 23, 2013

One of the purposes of developing Connected Learning environments is to support the development of the Connected Learner. The Connected Learner can, and seeks to, effectively knit together his or her social networks, academic inclinations, and individual interests to form learning communities that develop his or her expertise in a particular domain [1]. However, for individuals to become Connected Learners, they must first value this approach to learning.

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