Projects
Leveraging Horizontal Expertise
Principal Investigators:
This CLRN project at the University of Colorado at Boulder examines how the social organization of activity settings, forms of mediation, and tool use can be employed to leverage both horizontal (everyday) and vertical (scientific or school-based) kinds of expertise (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010) in children and young adults. Too often, especially in school or formal learning environments, everyday expertise and knowledge are in tension with school-based knowledge.
Blogs
Leveling Up
Principal Investigators:
The Leveling Up project investigates the learning dynamics of interest-driven online groups that support academically-relevant knowledge seeking and expertise development. How do online groups and platforms support feedback, publicity, and reputation development that fosters skills and expertise? What kinds of learning resources are in the environment, such as teachers, coaches, and instructional materials? What kinds of social and technological supports encourage young people to participate, persist, and achieve? What are the learning and social outcomes of participation?
Blogs
- Connecting Youth Interests Via Libraries
- Support the n00bs: Community Design for Inclusivity
- The Powerful Combination of Interests and Peer Culture
- Supports for Help and Feedback in Peer-Supported Communities
- Tracking “Interests” in Interest-Driven Learning Communities
- A new year and a new book
- *This* is Learning: How Perceptions of Learning Relevance Matter for Student Success
- On-ramps, Leveling Up and Recognition: How the StarCraft 2 Community Deepens their Interests
- Self-Directed Learning in Online Connected Learning Environments
- Sports for the Mind: How do you bring Connected Learning into the Classroom?
- On Schools, Sackboys, and Sponsors: a Tale of Two Online Communities
- Training with Purpose in the Junior Lifeguards
- “Join Team Apple!”: Co-Creation and Openly Networked Design on Sackboy Planet
- Hogwarts at Ravelry and the Connected Learning Core Values
- HOMAGO: A web platform to hang out, mess around, and geek out
- Connected Learning Environments and Common Core Standards
- Encouraging Connected Learning Means It’s Okay for Students to Opt-out
- A Fandom of One’s Own: Fangirling and Learning in a Boyband Fandom
- Nerf Gun Modding, Parenting, and Winding Pathways of Interest Development
- To Geekdom! What Can StarCraft II Tell Us About Attaining Geek-hood?
- Feedback and Help as Key Ingredients for an Active Peer-Supported Community
- Becoming a Knitting Pattern Author: A Teenager’s Story
- Red Stone Circuit Workshop
- Exploring interest-powered learning in informal game design clubs
- Design Thinking: New Directions for the One Direction Fandom
- Connecting Youth to Online Resources through Mentorship
- Boss Level: A School’s Experiment with Connected Learning
- Fantasy to Reality: One Fan’s Journey from Interest to Career
- An Issue Full of Knots: Ownership and Sharing in Crochet
- No One Edits Alone: Connected Learning in Game-Based Wikis
- Widow Mine Math
- A Guide to Connected Learning Sessions At DML2013
- Will the real fan please stand up?
- What We Can Learn From the StarCraft II Elites
- Connected Parents: Sharing Classroom Practices through Social Media
- A Delicate Tension: Where Gaming and Education Intersect
- The Tension between Convention and Innovation: What is the Norm in a Blended Space?
- Creative Pursuits and Professional Wrestling: Connected Learning in WWE Fandom
- The House Unity Projects of Hogwarts
- Announcing the publication of our new report on connected learning
- Augmented Learning through Fashion Design
- Attitudes, Success, and Engagement: A Comparison of Game and School Contexts
- Learning to Learn: The StarCraft II Way
- The Tension between Convention and Innovation: Reflections on Toddlers in Foldable Shopping Carts
- Teach Me StarCraft: Seeking experts in a skill-oriented gaming community
- Changes are Coming to Hogwarts…
- #hashtagging and #learning in boyband fanfiction
- “I want everyone to know ;)”: Negotiating Online Publics for Learning, Production, and Self-Promotion
- Alt_Pub: Getting the Research Out
- Moving Towards an eSports Future
- Information Literacy, Connected Learning, and World of Warcraft
- Ravelympics: The Games That Must Not Be Named
- A Design to Broaden Creativity: Lessons Learned from LittleBigPlanet2
- Gender and Sexism in Online Gaming Communities
- A Female StarCraft Player’s Entry into the World of Competitive Gaming
- Otaku Learning
- The 2012 Ravellenic Games: Community, Challenges, and Competition
- Connecting Workspace Culture to Qualities of Player-Creator Communities
- n00bs, Trolls, and Idols: Status and Social Regulation in Online Communities
- When We Played Video Games With Kids
- What do you know? Connected learning outcomes explored
- Welcome to Sackboy Planet: Learning Among LittleBigPlanet2 Players
- 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
- Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World
The Class
Principal Investigators:
This research project examines the emerging mix of on- and offline experiences in teenagers’ daily learning lives. We focus on the fluctuating web of peer-to-peer networks that may cut across institutional boundaries, adult values and established practices of learning and leisure. Key research questions include:
Blogs
- Researching The Class: A multi-sited ethnographic exploration
- The Class: living and learning in the digital age
- Meet ‘The Class’
- Introducing new book series: ‘Connected youth and digital futures’
- As ever younger kids go online, how is the family responding?
- Are social networking sites doing enough to keep children safe?
- How parents make the future
- Young juries want a fair internet: deliberating over digital rights
- ‘Barbie’: the smart choice of toy?
- What foster and adoptive parents need to know about digital media PART 2: The risks
- Playing games together or hiding the tablet in the cupboard: What works when managing kids’ media use?
- Five tips for doing research with schools, charities and NGOs
- What foster and adoptive parents need to know about digital media PART 1: The benefits
- How do parents influence their children’s attitudes to life?
- Not just playing games: Moving on from hobbies to digital jobs
- iRights – advocating for children’s rights online
- Now that kids are diversifying away from Facebook, how can parents keep up?
- “The Parent App” is the anxious parent’s dream
- Explaining the Research of Connected Learning
- Changing the World with Media Literacy: the UNESCO Forum and Declaration
- Media Literacy in 2014: Forthcoming Research and Call to Action
- Media and Information Education in the UK: Recommendations to the European Union
- What Counts As Learning?
- The Latest on Children’s Media Literacy: New Trend Policymakers & Parents must Watch
- Towards the Value, Purpose, and Sustainability of Out-of-School Learning
- The Case for European Level Action on Child Safety Online
- ‘Making’ and Education Reform: Learning to Ride the Wave
- Media Literacy Update: What’s Changed and Why?
- National Curriculum Needs more Attention to Digital Skills
Longitudinal Study of Connected Learning
Principal Investigators:
Website
This project within the network is a survey-based research study that is examining children’s participation in connected learning environments in late elementary and middle school and the relationship of participation to valued outcomes. These outcomes include interest development, persistence in learning, civic participation, and development of a positive sense of the future. The CU-Boulder team will work with CLRN network members to develop and pilot the survey at different research sites. The team will oversee data collection and analysis of results.
Blogs
The Affinity Project
Principal Investigators:
UNDERSTANDING AND IMPROVING ADULT-YOUTH MATCHES
This project builds on findings from a recent meta-analysis of over 70 youth mentoring program evaluations, in which my colleagues and I discovered that, when youth and mentors were matched on the basis of shared interest, the effect size of mentoring doubled. Through a series of follow-up investigations, we are exploring the development of youth interests and the role of shared interest in forging close intergenerational relationships.
Blogs
Connected Consumption
Principal Investigators:
The 2008 economic downturn has undermined economic security for many, bringing in its wake increased levels of unemployment and under-employment—especially for youth—along with reductions in wealth and heightened economic fear and insecurity. Almost simultaneously, public attention to the looming environmental crisis of climate change has accelerated, inspiring everything from “green consumption” to government-led initiatives to combat environmental degradation.
Blogs
The Digital Edge
Principal Investigators:
Website
A greater diversity of young people in the U.S. are using digital media than ever before. So, why do issues related to technology, diversity, and equity continue to matter today? “The Digital Edge” is designed to explore how students, teachers, and families are engaging digital media in the face of significant social, financial, educational, and familial challenges.
Blogs
- Parenting in a World of Social and Technological Transformation
- Addressing Race, Inequity Issues Through Social Media Power
- Rapid Tech Change Requires Rebranding to Recruit Talent
- P-Tech Schools: The Remaking of Career, Technical Education
- Rethinking the ‘Race Between Education and Technology’ Thesis
- Ethnography and the Geography of Learning
- Gender and Connected (After-School) Learning: Understanding “Can-Do” Girlhood (Part 2)
- Gender and Connected (After-School) Learning: Understanding “Can-Do” Girlhood (Part 1)
- Poorly Educated and Poorly Connected: The Hidden Realities of Innovation Hubs
- A Guide to Connected Learning Sessions At DML2013
- Connected Learning: Unlocking the Potential of Every Child
- Dissonant Futures: The Importance of Aligning Digital Media and Learning Environments with Future Orientation in Schools
- Life after the Digital Club: Minority Students navigating their Creative Ambitions
- From Theory to Design: Exploring the Power & Potential of ‘Connected Learning,’ Part Two
- Creative Ways Teens Maintain Social Privacy with Social Media
- From Theory to Design: Exploring the Power & Potential of ‘Connected Learning’, Part One
- What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media
Preparing for a Digital Future
Principal Investigators:
Website
Researchers in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science are conducting a three-year research project on Preparing for a Digital Future, supported by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation from 2014-2017. The research team, led by Professor Sonia Livingstone working with Dr Julian Sefton-Green and Dr Alicia Blum-Ross, is undertaking a series of qualitative case studies to investigate how children and young people, along with their parents, carers, mentors and educators imagine and prepare for their personal and work futures in a digital age.
Blogs
- Seeking High-Quality Digital Content for Children in Turkey
- Understanding Fatherhood in the Digital Age
- Tiger Mom 2.0: (Over)parenting for a Digital Future?
- India: Digitising an Unequal World
- The Blue Whale Game Paradox, Digital Literacy and Fake News
- Young People Online: Encounters With Inappropriate Content
- Sharenting – in Whose Interests?
- Call for Regulation on Securing Children’s Data in Personalised Reading
- Book Review: American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
- Online Child Protection in Rural Kenya
- The ‘Joys’ of Digital Media in New Parenting
- Is There a ‘Family Factor’ in Mediation? A Jamaican Perspective
- Researching Childhood in a Digital Age: New Book Chapter
- BBC Interview Dad, and the Joys and Perils of Parenting on the Internet
- Creating the Future of Digital Learning in the US
- What Is ‘Play’ and ‘Playfulness’, and What Does It Mean to Join Either Term Together With Learning?
- ‘Space Invaders’: Are Smartphones Really Transforming Parents and Adolescents’ Ways of Communicating?
- Supporting and Developing Parents’ Strategies for Children’s Use of Digital Media at Home
- Making the Familiar Strange: Studying the Syrian Refugee Crisis
- Bridging Time Between Home and the Mine: Parenting Through Social Media in Northern Chile
- Bringing Social Media Into the Curriculum: New Ways of Teaching and Learning?
- Digital Skills Matter in the Quest for the ‘Holy Grail’
- The Controversial Named Persons Provision in Scotland
- The Internet of Toys
- Micro-Microcelebrity: Famous Babies and Business on the Internet
- When Is a Toothbrush Not Just a Toothbrush?
- ClassDojo Poses Data Protection Concerns for Parents
- What Are the Effects of Touchscreens on Toddler Development?
- The Peculiar Joylessness of Neuroparenting
- Follow the Money
- The Need for Parity of Protection
- An Example From Flanders on How to Inform and Support Parents in Media Education
- How Brexit Could Affect Media Content for Children and Families
- Opportunity for All? Digital Equity in the Lives of Lower-Income U.S. Families
- When Parents Choose ‘Screen Time’ – Real Lives Behind the New AAP Guidelines
- New ‘Screen Time’ Rules From the American Academy of Pediatrics
- Digital Parenting or ‘Just’ Parenting?
- YouTube in The Class
- Where and When Does a Parent’s Right to Share End Online?
- Book Review: Reclaiming Conversation – the Power of Talk in a Digital Age
- The Content and Context of Screen Use Is More Important Than the Amount of Screen Time
- School Census Changes Add Concerns to the Richest Education Database in the World
- Why do educators advocate for digital media and learning, and whose interests are served?
- Do You Ever Grow Out Of Digital Parenting?
- Beyond Digital Immigrants? Rethinking The Role Of Parents In A Digital Age
- Book Review: Parenting Out Of Control
- #Parentfails and Triumphs – Favorite Podcasts and Learning from Others
- Hello From the Other Side of Music Video Regulation
- Mining Data and the Database State
- Book review: Kids in the middle
- Why We Post – Why people use social media around the world
- What Are Pre-Schoolers Doing With Tablets And Is It Good For Them?
- Are the Trolls Winning?
- Reading the Runes to Anticipate Children’s Digital Futures
- Book Review: Disconnected: Youth, New Media and the Ethics Gap
- What Parents Need to Know: Latest Trends in Children’s Internet Use
- Teenagers Just Seem To Get Bad Press
- Reasons to love parenting in the digital age
- Digital deception: legal questions surround new “YouTube Kids” app
- Parents Are Now ‘Digital Natives’ Too – Thoughts from the 2015 Family Online Safety Institute Conference
- Is Using Technology for Learning a Good Idea?
- When is sexual content online more a right than a risk? And how can parents figure this out?
- Children’s Internet Use is More Personal, Mobile and Even Fair – While Parents Pick Up the Cost
- Is There Such a Thing as ‘Good’ Screen Time for Young Children?
- Online ‘baby role-playing’: between casual fantasy and real-life obsession
- Headphones in or out? (De)prioritising the social in digital media and learning
- Parental Education & Digital Skills Matter Most in Guiding Children’s Internet Use
- Alan Kurdi and Parents as Witnesses
- Parenting for a Digital Future – recent media appearances
- Media literacy in Europe: inspiring ways to involve parents
- Book review: It’s complicated – The social lives of networked teens
- Online extremism: why we need to be concerned and what we can do
- Why study parenting from a media studies perspective?
- What does it mean for children to have a ‘voice’ in research?
- E-Safety – It’s not just for teens
- Young children and digital technology in Europe: important but not dominating
- Book Review: Distrusting educational technology – Critical questions for changing times
- Unwrapping the unboxing craze
- ‘Sharenting:’ Parent bloggers and managing children’s digital footprints
- As ever younger kids go online, how is the family responding?
- Are social networking sites doing enough to keep children safe?
- How parents make the future
- Young juries want a fair internet: deliberating over digital rights
- ‘Barbie’: the smart choice of toy?
- What foster and adoptive parents need to know about digital media PART 2: The risks
- Playing games together or hiding the tablet in the cupboard: What works when managing kids’ media use?
- Five tips for doing research with schools, charities and NGOs
- What foster and adoptive parents need to know about digital media PART 1: The benefits
- How do parents influence their children’s attitudes to life?
- Not just playing games: Moving on from hobbies to digital jobs
- iRights – advocating for children’s rights online
- Now that kids are diversifying away from Facebook, how can parents keep up?
- UK research team launches “Parenting for a Digital Future” blog for international audience
