Blog - Page 20 of 20 - Connected Learning Research Network

StarCraft – Where Geeks, Digital Media, and Sports Collide

July 17, 2012

On October 22, 2011, I found myself in a full capacity crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. We eagerly awaited the appearance of two superstars. The stars, with aliases MVP and NesTea, were professional gamers–among the very best in the world. They have team coaches, impressive skills, and fans. About 10,000 fans attended, and 200,000 more watched from home. Most of the crowd was male, white or Asian, dressed in T-shirts and jeans, and short-haired; some sported goatee beards. I sat on the floor in the aisle; the seats were filled.

Rachel Cody Pfister

Knitting Up Hogwarts: A Harry Potter Fiber Craft Community

July 12, 2012

Figure 1. Fiber crafts meet Harry Potter: jen2291, a Hogwarts at Ravelry member, has crocheted the main characters of the Harry Potter stories.

Adam Ingram-Goble

A Brief Introduction to the Games and Modding Tools Studied by the Leveling Up Team

July 10, 2012

“[T]here is something huge about that [moment] in education where the most powerful person is the student, where they just suddenly realize that, ‘even if I don’t get this fancy course, nobody is going to stop me being [what I desire to be].’”
— Kareem Ettouney, Media Molecule, Art Director

Mimi Ito

Greetings and Welcome from the Leveling Up Team

July 6, 2012

We are delighted to announce the opening of our new blog for our Leveling Up project team. We’ve been hard at work for the past academic year, launching new fieldwork on games and online communities that can teach us a thing or two about how young people learn in highly networked and interest-driven settings. As we start to analyze our data and reflect on what we’ve learned, we’d like to share our work in progress in hopes that we might invite engagement and formative feedback from a broader community of researchers, designers, educators, and learners.

S. Craig Watkins

Why Critical Design Literacy is Needed Now More Than Ever

May 1, 2012

One thing is clear in our work at Texas City High School (TCHS) this year: students like to create their own media. Students at TCHS create their own YouTube channels, compose original music, comics, games, Tumblr pages, art work, and fashion designs. As young people’s use of social and digital media applications continues to evolve they are developing what I call a “design disposition.” This is a reference to a distinct generational view that they expect to not o

Mimi Ito

Reflections on DML2012 and Visions of Educational Change

March 8, 2012

A few days back home after DML2012, I’ve been browsing through the blogosphere and tweet streams and reflecting on the various conversations I had at the event. One unfortunate side-effect of being part of the organizing is that I can’t get to many sessions, so I’m grateful for the after-party happening online. I wanted to pull one thread of my own learning related to this year’s theme, which centered on innovation, technology, and educational reform.

S. Craig Watkins

What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media

February 2, 2012

The debates about schools and social media are a subject of great public and policy interests. In reality, the debate has been shaped by one key fact: the almost universal decision by school administrators to block social media. Because social media is such a big part of many students social lives, cultural identities, and informal learning networks schools actually find themselves grappling with social media everyday but often from a defensive posture—reacting to student disputes that play out over social media or policing rather than engaging student’s social media behaviors.

Juliet Schor

Economic Fallacies: Wrong-headed Ideas About Worktime

February 2, 2012

I’m just back from four days of workshops and public lectures in London, Paris and Brussels. There is tremendous interest in issues of worktime there. The London event was organized by the new economics foundation (nef), and a research center at the London School of Economics (CASE). In 2010, nef did a very popular report called 21 hours calling for a 21 hour workweek. I debated a conservative economist on the BBC World Service who called the idea “totalitarian” and “Draconian.” I think it’s a lot more interesting than that. We had overflow lectures and lots of interesting debate.

Mimi Ito

Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World

January 2, 2012

I’m proud to announce the publication of a new book that I edited together with my longtime collaborator Daisuke Okabe and a new editorial collaborator Tsuji Izumi, Read More...

CLRN Blog

StarCraft – Where Geeks, Digital Media, and Sports Collide

Knitting Up Hogwarts: A Harry Potter Fiber Craft Community

A Brief Introduction to the Games and Modding Tools Studied by the Leveling Up Team

Greetings and Welcome from the Leveling Up Team

Why Critical Design Literacy is Needed Now More Than Ever

Reflections on DML2012 and Visions of Educational Change

Economic Fallacies: Wrong-headed Ideas About Worktime

Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World

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