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Creative Ways Teens Maintain Social Privacy with Social Media

August 29, 2012

I recently read an article about teens posting random photos to Instagram so they and their friends can chat “under the radar” via the comments feature. Based on the time I’ve spent working with teens this does not surprise me at all. Teens are accustomed to their parents reading their text messages or social media, therefore they utilize different spaces that are unlikely to be discovered by adults. This certainly is not new.

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The 2012 Ravellenic Games: Community, Challenges, and Competition

August 23, 2012

July 27, 2012. The countdown on the London 2012 website hit 0, the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies began, and I made a slipknot and slipped it onto my crochet hook. My daughters – sitting with me in their red, white, and blue outfits – curiously picked at the yarn that I’d strategically placed in their laps for this photo opportunity. My husband took a picture that would later be uploaded to my team’s group to document our official entrance into the 2012 Ravellenic Games. 

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Connecting Workspace Culture to Qualities of Player-Creator Communities

August 9, 2012

As a learning scientist one of the first things I was trained to consider is my underlying epistemology—the theory of knowledge, or what it means to know—and how that relates to the learning environment being studied. Seymor Papert (1980) discussed epistemology as what “reflects and reinforces a particular way of thinking and knowing that is aligned with the norms and principles of a particular community” (Hatfield, 2011).

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An innovative solution to addressing youth unemployment

August 8, 2012

With under 100 days to go until the November election in the US, we can expect to hear a lot more about jobs and employment. Both candidates claim they will “create jobs” but neither will go beyond anodyne discussions of how to get the economy growing faster.. They’re both devotees of the trickle down approach to employment – trying to expand production as rapidly as possible and hoping that the jobs appear.

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From Theory to Design: Exploring the Power & Potential of ‘Connected Learning’, Part One

August 2, 2012

This summer I attended summer school…well kind of.  For three weeks in June I worked with a great team to implement a digital media and design project with high school students.  We followed that project with a two-week game design camp in July at the University of Texas with middle school students.  Both projects are what you might call ‘connected learning’ design pilots.  What exactly is that?  The goal of each project was to put into action some

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When We Played Video Games With Kids

August 2, 2012

Most parents would agree that competitive sports like soccer and football are good for kids. How about competitive video games? In my research, I interviewed kids who not only share video game interests with family members and peers, but they also derive academic and social benefits from their gaming experiences.

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What do you know? Connected learning outcomes explored

July 26, 2012

When I was a kid my dad used to come home from work and greet me by asking, “So what do you know, kiddo?” It was his way of saying hello. But as an seven year-old obsessed with World Book Encyclopedia’s way of sorting knowledge into alphabetized volumes of varying thickness I missed the obvious and instead took up his query at face value: What did I know? Each day I worried over selection of the juicy new fact or strange invention I could share with him over dinner.

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