Karen Greenwood Henke is a professional writer and speaker on emerging technologies and their role in education. She is also the founder of Grant Wrangler, a free grants and awards listing service.
The winners of the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition show a fascinating range of projects, technology tools, and locations. Reading the briefs, I’m struck that these projects focus on creating and publishing with technology, giving voice to those without mainstream media access. They are not just ways to get youth engaged in learning, but to get them engaged in their community as creative, empowered forces. What a terrific award.
Women videoblogging in India
Students worldwide collect and share data on fish populations
MetroVoice gives students a media platform on city buses
Hole-in-the-wall reaching children in the most remote communities
I attended a workshop at the American Architecture Foundation on Great Schools by Design to talk about how to design learning spaces for schools in Los Angeles and New York City. Listening to architects and school leaders talk about the actual shape and functionality of classrooms and school spaces, I realized that the architecture of the virtual learning space is as important as the physical space.
These students created a centralized web site for their school and recently won a Digital Open award, a tech expo for teens.
When we talk about school quality and achievement, we tend to get caught up in funding, teachers, textbooks, and test scores. But what do you really need to learn? An open mind? A quiet opportunity for reflection? The discipline to keep trying? Enough curiosity to ask a question?
If you think the U.S. has a drop out problem, India has the world’s largest population of children and 53% of children who start school drop out by 8th grade. The government plans to double annual education expenditures and remake the nation’s schools. A panel led by Dilip Thakore, Publisher and Editor, Education World, at the Milken Institute discussed India’s Human Capital: Educating the World’s Largest Population of Children, the opportunities to reform India’s education system both in terms of curricula and investment opportunities.
I’m a writer who specializes in writing for the Web and I’m a reader. Lately, I feel like I’m going out of fashion. I feel like my grandmother who lived to be 100 years old and could no longer find comfortable shoes. Her feet had conformed to a certain heel height and shoe width sometime during the first 60 years of her life. Shoe makers stopped making it–no market.
