Connected Learning

Many teachers still struggle to find a coherent and meaningful framework for incorporating new literacies into their instruction. This case study examines the teaching and learning that took place in a New and Multimodal Literacies class for preservice English teachers to understand how the ideas of connected learning are generative yet challenging as educators seek to create transforma-tive, technology-integrated, and equity-oriented literacy learning experiences for students. Findings suggest that when teachers explore technological tools with connection in mind, they can develop instructional experiences that forefront student interests and critical literacy learning. The study offers a vision of connected teaching to guide digital literacy teacher education into the future. "I was very wary of bringing technology into the classroom in arbitrary ways simply for the sake of calling the unit multimodal. In designing the curriculum I was aware of the affordances of each piece of technology and the actions associated with their use that have to be made relevant in each activity. Something like Microsoft OneNote, for example, could be no more revolutionary than a sheet of paper if it is simply being used for submission instead of interaction or a place to share ideas and feedback. Technology is not a magical enhancer of activities, nor do students magically know what to do with it just because they are young." Elizabeth 1 , an aspiring high school English language arts (ELA) teacher , shared these thoughts in the rationale paper accompanying the final unit plan she submitted for my New and Multimodal Literacies graduate education course. She echoes some of the most common concerns that educators across the country voice about integrating technology into classroom pedagogy , specifically, a healthy skepticism about the idea that the mere presence of these tools "magically" transforms learning (Cuban, 2013; Enyedy, 2014).

In this research the activities of students and teachers participating in the Biophilia Educational Program in schools in Reykjavík are studied. Empirical data were collected at Dalskóli within a preschool/primary school setting in the context of the national core curriculum guide and developing multimodal digital literacy within Icelandic schools and the global ecology of learning resources. The study is grounded in sociocultural theories of learning that stress children’s active role in their development and participation in the adult world. It applies a theory of multimodal mediation to study the learning processes and learning outcomes of students. The results shed light on how digital literacy can develop in an interdisciplinary and playful learning context and on the potential of Biophilia as a learning resource.

In this paper we present the results of an evaluation study of a development project for the introduction and use of tablet
computers (iPads) at the lower secondary level in Nordlinga school, a compulsory school in Reykjavík. In the study, we
assess the impact of the use of tablet computers on instruction and students’ learning in grades 9 to 10, and on school
development in Nordlinga school. First results show that that the project came to a good start, despite some differences
that the school had with city administrators and technical problems in the beginning. Most students brought their tablet
home and used it for formal, as well as informal and non-formal learning. The introduction of tablet computers enabled
access to a variety of software for learning, tools and games. It stimulated communication and collaboration. Products of
learning increasingly involved multimedia elements and networking. The study indicated increased satisfaction, interest
and independence of students in learning, development of individualized learning strategies, increased student
engagement and an improved use of class time. Teachers felt that the use of tablet computers stimulated their professional
development and enhanced their work satisfaction. Parents were generally supportive of the use of tablet computers and
considered it important that the school could continue to invest in new technologies for learning. Indications were of
insufficient availability of learning materials in Icelandic and a start of co-configuration of partners to remedy the
situation. The evaluation revealed some weaknesses, challenges and opportunities for further development.

Teachers of this digital era have plenty of scope for updating their knowledge of various subjects of their interests and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer learning opportunities to teachers across the globe. Teachers receive lot of inputs on varied topics, participate in webinars, share views with other participants and more importantly get motivated to play the role of an online tutor. Furthermore, the flexibility of these courses paves the way for collaborating with the online teaching community. With the experience of having attended a MOOC, the author highlights the way that the course has widened her knowledge of digital learning and discusses the relevance of the online courses to teacher development, in her article.

This book chapter presents the findings of a phenomenological research study that explored the use of social media in an online college course and how it impacted learners’ experiences and feelings of engagement. Findings suggest that social media has the potential to positively impact learner engagement with instructional support and when it is elevated from merely an entertainment source to a productive source for connected learning. This includes uses for communication as well as creative expression within and beyond the class.

This article reports on the activities undertaken in a U. S. high school through which students produced video texts designed to address key social problems. The authors argue against conventional "writing process" models that assert a single set of stages for all writing and that position "publication" as the final stage of "the writing process." In contrast, they illustrate how teaching grounded in critical literacy theory and informed by principles of connected learning requires instruction in task-specific procedures for interrogating information, imagining alternatives, and taking social action as the ultimate goal of composition. The authors detail one teacher's instruction and illustrate its effects with examples from students' work to demonstrate the shortcomings of conventional "writing process" conceptions and offer an alternative that advances the citizenship potential of youth in addressing societal inequities.

This paper levers on a live case study to examine frameworks for the development and rapid activation of global, pilot connected learning programmes. It describes the strategies and tactics deployed in the establishment of a Centre for Connected Learning (CCCL) in Malta in 2016, a joint venture between COL and the Ministry for Education and Employment in Malta. The Centre is positioned as a key hub in a global network of educators, learners and teaching institutions in 53 Commonwealth countries and 28 countries in the EU. It levers on social technologies to facilitate projects that embrace the three core connected learning values of equity, full participation and social connection. Within this context, the paper also examines how the island state of Malta is being positioned as a connected, netnographic digital lab that facilitates a complex setting for short-term pilots as well as research on digital pedagogy.

Digital technologies have been consuming more of our students time and attention than ever before. As literacy educators interested in supporting students' digital literacies, how do we strike a balance to ensure that technological tools don't become the driving force of instruction?

This dissertation explored the state of acceptance of new media projects as Ed.D. capstone experiences and the rationale for the acceptance, rejection, or undecided participants’ positions on this subject. Many authors argue that a traditional dissertation, because of its form and reachability, does not fit the heterogeneous nature of the educational field. New media, which can take many forms, is a 21st century affordance that already permeates the everyday lives of graduate students. Consequently, the theoretical frameworks that guided this dissertation were: (1) multimodal literacy theory, which argues that technological progress has affected the way people communicate and that addresses the multimodalities that are required to teach and learn in the 21st century; and (2) connected learning, which supports the use of new media to foster environments for meaningful experiences and for growth. Participants in this study were members of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), and are thoughtfully engaged in the dialogue about the improvement of their Ed.D. capstone experiences. For this multiple-case qualitative case study, 58 questionnaires were given, 32 responses were collected followed by relevant document review and 15 semi-structured phone interviews. The findings indicate that new media projects are still often rejected as Ed.D. capstone experiences because of faculty unfamiliarity with what new media is, government sanctions, and because in the participant’s views a traditional dissertation means research study. This study also indicates that rigor is the crucial factor in determining the acceptance or rejection of new media projects as Ed.D. capstone experiences. Recommendations include educating faculty about new media and its potential benefits for educational research dissemination, conducting research on the construct of rigor as it relates to graduate capstone experiences, and exploring how nontraditional formats of capstone experiences are developed and supported by dissertation mentors and committees.

The idea of establishing a working group on participatory models of professional development grew out of discussions that occurred during the Digital Media and Learning Conference 2011. The aim of this working group was to bring together those who are designing, developing and implementing initiatives to support teachers in understanding the affordances of digital media in learning, and to engage in a much-needed dialogue on culturally relevant professional development. We believe that, in order to generate effective models of participatory professional development, an engaged collaboration is needed between multiple stakeholders who bring a diverse set of ideas and challenges to the conversation. Our group is, thus, a mixture of researchers, teachers and school administrators from a variety of disciplines, schools, and states. Instead of working in silos on the same issue, coming together as a collaborative has led to a productive and important discussion of how to scale and sustain successful models of 21st century professional development in education.

Social media's ubiquity is transforming contemporary education. Students inhabit classrooms with connected devices, streaming data, chatting on personal messaging, and sharing information with invisible audiences. The academic curriculum is challenged not only by social media resources, but also by novel, complex practices of producing, organising, evaluating and distributing knowledge. Some have taken the emergence of these connected learning environments as questioning the very need of a physical classroom. We seek to unpack the dynamics that social media generate in academic teaching, thinking, and learning without severely compromising the pedagogic impulse and intentions of learning. Consequently, this paper begins with a look at the rapid rise and even faster decline of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with the aim of identifying some of the pitfalls for attempts to rethink higher education in the light of social media. The second part of this paper proposes that the classroom was historically constructed with and in relationship to technologies of knowledge production, thus questioning the dissociation between the pedagogical practices and technological conditions of learning. This leads into an exploration of some of the modes of engagement in user generated content platforms, which have potentially fruitful resonances in higher education

Memes are humorous digital artifacts created by web users copying an image and overlaying a personal funny caption. They are virally shared in the web and represent an important part of the online discourse young learners are exposed to on a daily basis. The aim of this paper is to show how memes on mathematical subjects can inspire learning activities that harness the participatory and playful nature of these digital artifacts, connecting positive emotions, focal for learning achievement, to serious mathematical reasoning. The paper presents a collection of 3 examples taken from different learning scenarios: 1 from a spontaneous out-of-school learning environment and 2 from intentionally designed school experiences conducted with 6th-and 12th-grade students, all pivoting on the use of a popular meme based on a Spiderman cartoon. The analysis elicits the core properties of these experiences in order to show how they fit within the connected learning framework. I hope the outcome of this research can shed some light on how educators can leverage on students' popular culture embodied in memes to foster interest-powered learning outcomes in mathematics.

This article reports on the activities undertaken in a U. S. high school through which students produced video texts designed to address key social problems. The authors argue against conventional " writing process " models that assert a single set of stages for all writing and that position " publication " as the final stage of " the writing process. " In contrast, they illustrate how teaching grounded in critical literacy theory and informed by principles of connected learning requires instruction in task-specific procedures for interrogating information, imagining alternatives, and taking social action as the ultimate goal of composition. The authors detail one teacher's instruction and illustrate its effects with examples from students' work to demonstrate the shortcomings of conventional " writing process " conceptions and offer an alternative that advances the citizenship potential of youth in addressing societal inequities.

This collaborative project partners Michigan State University literacy researchers with an established afterschool program, Racquet Up Detroit (RUD), to investigate the effects of a summer technology camp (“RU Connected”) for middle school students enrolled in RUD. Its purpose is to inform RUD’s future integration of its technology and new literacies curriculum into its year-round programming, which weaves together sports, literacy, mentoring, and community service. RU Connected, piloted in July 2012, uses free web-based tools and resources to develop online research skills, and encourages students to think creatively and use higher-order thinking. RUD is planning to repeat and expand the summer camp in July 2013, this year documenting and evaluating it with an eye toward infusing new literacies activities into its regular afterschool programming. Through this project, RUD will develop a plan for quantitative and qualitative assessment of the impact of the 2013 summer camp on students’ literacy skills and their general motivation to read and write, work with staff to implement this plan, draft a report for RUD stakeholders, and develop RUD’s in-house capacity for ongoing data collection and analysis as it moves new literacies into the school-year literacy component of its afterschool program.

In this study, I discuss the need to increase girls’ involvement with game design due to the numerous benefits that engaging in this practice might have. In particular, I discuss the tool Twine, an accessible and relatively easy-to-use platform for creating text-based games. I provide an overview of the tool and its potential benefits for learning, including traditional and digital literacy skills. I present the findings from an after-school workshop in which I led a small group of ten- to twelve-year old girls in designing their own games. Finally, the ways in which the girls engaged with the tool and the workshop, and the implications for literacy and education, are discussed.

ABSTRACT Digital media are central in almost every aspect of daily life, most notably in how we communicate, understand political issues, reflect (co-)produce, consume, and share knowledge. Perhaps nowhere is this digital influence contested more than in education, where questions arise about the ability of traditional systems to prepare young people for the social, economic, and political demands of a complex and connected new century. From these concerns springs an innovative approach to supporting the development of systems thinking in young people; one that allows them to see how systems are at play in the digital contexts they regularly engage and one that puts them in the position of designers of those systems. Soft Circuits: Crafting e-Fashion with DIY Electronics explores the field of electronics and "e-textiles," which involves making physical computing projects based in fabrics and other everyday materials. This volume incorporates microprocessors into these materials and programs them with an accessible tool called Modkit to further enhance e-fashions like light-up wristbands and t-shirts, as well as solar-powered backpacks.

As communication, civic engagement, and labor shift toward digital media platforms, there is an attendant need to prepare students for a more collaborative and digital media-oriented society. Evidence suggests that young people learn better when actively engaged in a social, participatory, and interest-driven pedagogy that incorporates digital media and contemporary modes of communication, yet many urban public schools lack the instructional support and resources necessary to integrate connected learning strategies into the school culture and curriculum. While there is a considerable body of literature on participatory learning practices, there is limited research on the collaborative implementation of participatory learning practices within urban schools, and even less on the interaction between higher education, private foundations, and public schools in relationship to a school change model. This chapter focuses on the Convergence Academies program in order to share lessons around collaborative partnerships and participatory learning practices within urban schools.

The aim of the paper is to describe some of the challenges faced by schools, or by formal education in general, as a consequence of today’s mobile-centric society (henceforth MCS), the term we will use to denote the new, networked learning ecology that has arisen from the massive penetration of digital media in everyday life. After revisiting some of the ideas of McLuhan and Vygotsky in the light of this new technological scenario, we describe five traits of the MCS and the challenges – illustrated through educational practices – that we believe schools will face if they wish to preserve their function of individualization and socialization. We believe that despite the emergence of the MCS, the main function of the school is still to provide the “box of tools ” (a set of psychological instruments, such as reading, writing, mathematical notation, digital literacy, etc.) that enables people to develop their learning skills and life projects and to become part of communities and groups...

Nowadays, transmedia storytelling has shaped new ways to produce children's content, in which the audience has an increasingly active role (Living-stone and Bovill 2013; Cortesi et al. 2015). The fruition of storytelling content through digital media allows to connect it with personal interests and school activities as well as to enhance the link between adults and children (Ito et al. 2013; Jen-kins, Īto, and boyd 2015). The main goal of this paper is to analyze the new trans-media release of one the most successful and recognized TV cartoons all over Spain and Latin America: La Familia Telerín. Specifically, we want to discover how the cartoon was re-valued by the production company Anima Kitchen, and understand the role that transmedia storytelling played out in this regard. Adopting a digital anthropology approach (Horst and Miller 2012), our findings come from big data, a focus group and through a virtual ethnography. The findings provide us with a clear understanding about how transmedia storytelling supports social values, media skills and learning activities into the everyday life of children.

A evolução do brincar de Baggins: conectando fabricações em jogos eletrônicos com espaços físicos e virtuais afins Resumo O presente artigo constitui um estudo de caso abordando o brincar criativo de um adolescente capaz de criar táticas para ir " além " das estratégias implícitas em jogos eletrônicos estilo multiplayer (nos quais diversos jogadores interagem conectados em rede) e a relação entre a experiência criativa com buscas e descobertas em outras novas mídias, tanto em espaços virtuais como reais – vide programação, robótica e impressão 3d. O trabalho investiga o processo criativo e os projetos implementados pelo jovem, a partir de dados coletados ao longo de mais de um ano, através de entrevistas qualitativas em estilo " multimodal " – agregando modos de interação variados. A análise, fundamentada nas ideias de Certeau sobre as artes de fazer do consumidor cultural e nas de Winnicott sobre o brincar e seus desdobramentos ao longo do processo de amadurecimento, revela que a experiência vivenciada nos jogos multiplayer impulsionou a autonomia e o desenvolvimento criativo do jovem, levando-o a estabelecer uma inter-relação entre suas fabricações em espaços virtuais e físicos, alargando o campo da experiência cultural, e facilitando a " evolução " do brincar.

This paper describes an effort to develop a survey measure of adolescents’ interest-related pursuits. The measure focuses on youths’ experiences of connected learning (Ito et al. 2013), an emerging model of learning supported by digital media. The survey measure includes items and scales intended to measure the depth with which youth are able to engage in an interest-related pursuit, the level of support and encouragement they receive from peers, and the degree to which their pursuit involves performance or media production as an essential feature. The survey items and scales also focus on connections between youths’ interest-related pursuits and academic goals, the involvement of adults as co-participants in pursuits, and youths’ access to technology tools they deem necessary for their pursuits. The paper reports on results from a pilot study and field test of these items, in which we estimated the reliability of scales and compared survey results to evidence from interviews with youth. In developing this analysis, our aim was to investigate the feasibility of an approach to measuring youths’ interest-related pursuits to inform future research and evaluation of initiatives focused on digital media and learning.

Connected learning is a powerful educational framework that emphasizes creative and social learning experiences that are driven by learners’ personal interests. The framework’s core principles include learning contexts that are peer supported, interest powered, and academically oriented along with experiences that are production centered, openly networked, and bring together learners and adults around a shared purpose (Ito et al., 2013). The “connected” in connected learning refers to connecting in-school and out-of-school learning, connecting interests to opportunities, and connecting the learner to peers and mentors. In making these connections across the entire “youth learning ecology” (Martin, 2015), the connected learning framework promotes an equity agenda meant to help close the economic and cultural gaps faced by many non-dominant youth (youth from sociocultural groups who have historically been excluded from institutionalized sources of power) (Braun, Hartman, Hughes- Hasse...

Script Changers shows the ways that stories offer a lens for seeing the world as a series of systems. It provides opportunities for students to create interactive and animated stories about creating positive change in their communities. These projects utilize the Scratch visual programming environment.

Introduction/Background Who is Dave? Dave Cormier of the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada is renowned for coining the term MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and for developing the notion of rhizomatic learning. In January 2014, he facilitated a MOOC entitled 'Rhizomatic learning: the community is the curriculum' (popularly known as #rhizo14-the hashtag used on twitter and facebook for it), in which we (Maha and Sarah) were participants. How was this interview conducted? Since Dave lives in Canada, Maha lives in Egypt, and Sarah lives in Scotland, this was not a traditional interview. Maha conducted this interview with Dave rhizomatically (see below for explanation of rhizomatic), starting on google docs, facebook and twitter. Additionally, Maha crowdsourced part of this interview by inviting anyone who was interested in asking questions to pose those questions on her blog (Bali, 2014b) or on twitter using the hashtag #askjpd, and Dave Cormier answered those questions on a live (and recorded) google hangout, co-facilitated by us (Maha and Sarah). The full list of crowdsourced questions asked of Dave is available at this Storify 1 , 1the full hangout recording is available here 2 ,2and the transcript is here 3 .3What follows is an edited summary of the interview, focusing on particular aspects that we thought would be of interest to readers of the JPD. Because of the unorthodox way of conducting the interview, the summary does not follow the order the questions were asked of Dave, nor does it include his full response to each question. We try to explain most terms in the body of the text, but have also provided a glossary at the end of the article for reference. What is Rhizomatic Learning? Dave Cormier is reluctant to define rhizomatic learning in a concise format. In a tweet, he told us he has 'been very careful to never write a definition', and he now prefers to think of it as a story 4 .4Keith Hamon, a #rhizo14 participant and someone who has engaged with the notion of

An Australian higher education experience often includes group work as an important social learning opportunity. For international students, taking part in a group assignment can positively influence learning and adjustment to the new cultural and educational context through social interaction. However, students are increasingly choosing to use digital technologies to participate in group assignments, which may impact on opportunities available to make social connections with peers. This study investigated the experiences of 26 international students as they transitioned to study at an Australian university about their use of social media for group assignments and their resulting perceptions of connection to classmates. Analysis of the results suggests that students who engaged in collaborative rather than cooperative interactions via social media were more likely to perceive a connection to their classmates. This has implications for educators to include classroom modelling of digitally-mediated collaborative interactions to benefit students’ participation in group assignments, which can improve the transition experience through social connection.

n this study, I detail three families who play the popular mobile augmented reality game Poke ́mon Go together. I discuss the parents’ perceptions of the game’s educational merits and potential drawbacks and detail how learning occurs around the game. Using the framework of Distributed Teaching and Learning Systems, I argue that Poke ́mon Go and other games and digital media experiences that families engage with at home can be powerful resources, which connect and integrate with other sites and resources, both in-school and out-of-school. In the case of these families, parents engage in explicit teaching around the game and share information that they have learned online. The findings presented here have implications for researchers, educators, and designers.

Since summer of 2013, Hive Research Lab (HRL), an applied research partner of Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network, has engaged in a range of activities that include both basic research and applied design activities geared toward advancing the community’s collective understanding of how to support youth interest-driven learning pathways. Our activities have included developing case studies of high school students and recent high school graduates who participate in Hive network programs and events, leading consensus-building discussions during Hive community meetings and calls around youth pathway issues, facilitating the design of initiatives that target specific barriers to supporting youth pathways1, and providing formative design research support to members2.
In reviewing community members’ accounts of successful examples of youth pathway support in the Hive, one youth development practice emerged as central—educator activity linking their youth to other programs and opportunities, a practice we call brokering. At the same time, it was evident that efforts around brokering future learning opportunities were often time-consuming and constrained by factors such as awareness of opportunities at any given moment. HRL used this understanding as a starting point for asking: What if we as a network were able to collectively and systematically think about the issues and opportunities around brokering future learning opportunities to our youth? How might that enhance our impact on young people’s lives and on our abilities to address entrenched issues of equity, opportunity, and empowerment?
This white paper, representative of collective work between Hive Research Lab, Hive network members, and the administrators of the Hive NYC network3, attempts to bring more clarity to the practice of brokering as a way to support youth pathways towards meaningful futures. In the fall of 2014, HRL facilitated discussions in the Hive community around how the network as a whole can more effectively broker opportunities to our youth, and worked with members to collectively formalize our collective understandings and definition of brokering as a promising youth development practice. Based on those community conversations, in this paper we articulate who are (or could be) learning opportunity brokers, how brokering is achieved, and some precise goals the Hive community could work towards. While many Hive educators already engage in brokering to some degree, our goal here is to bring more attention to what we do and what we can do to formalize this as a valued practice in our community. We aim to more actively give it consideration in a way that allows us to discover how to do it better as both individual educators but also as a collective. HRL facilitated many of these discussions and also attempted to connect our discussions to existing research whenever it seemed to be illustrative to do so. This paper represents the culmination of our collective knowledge building efforts and should be considered a product of joint research and action that emerged from the community as a whole.

This book chapter presents the findings of a phenomenological research study that explored the use of social media in an online college course and how it impacted learners’ experiences and feelings of engagement. Findings suggest that social media has the potential to positively impact learner engagement with instructional support and when it is elevated from merely an entertainment source to a productive source for connected learning. This includes uses for communication as well as creative expression within and beyond the class.

In this book we respond to a higher education environment that is on the verge of profound changes by imagining an evolving and agile problem-based learning ecology for learning. The goal of doing so is to humanise university education by pursuing innovative approaches to student learning, teaching, curricula, assessment, and professional learning, and to employ interdisciplinary methods that go far beyond institutional walls and include student development and support, curriculum sustainability, research and the scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as administration and leadership. An agile problem-based learning (PBL) ecology for learning deliberately blurs the boundaries between disciplines, between students and teachers, between students and employers, between employers and teachers, between academics and professional staff, between formal and informal learning, and between teaching and research. It is based on the recognition that all of these elements are interconnect...

Strong pathways of connected learning are possible when one makes sense of the complex game development process in the wake of greater interconnected social media tools. This paper reviews and categorizes the core approaches to understand game development processes and proposes exploring an ecosystem-based approach to take advantage of the rising interconnected social media tools. This approach serves to enrich information gathering experiences and intuitively offers greater opportunities for building a firm foundation and understanding of game development.

A range of mobile technologies, multiple screens, and user engagement are arising in connected formats of media usage. Connected viewing is a term that refers to these varieties of platforms for content distribution and multiple viewing practices that are being developed, or have evolved, within the convergent digital landscape, and generates many disruptions in the viewing consumption. This paper presents the book anthology edited by Holt and Sanson, Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming, & Sharing Media in the Digital Age, with subjects on how connected viewing is affecting the contemporary media environment such as business models of production, infrastructure, distribution, user engagement, TV, film, video games, and social media.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate design principles for transforming existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities to support youths, families with young children and adult members’ making and tinkering during COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach Building upon C4P and connected learning framework, the authors analyze existing literature and practitioner reports on informal learning projects related to making and STEM learning, family learning and online learning as well as emergent cases of innovative approaches in response to COVID-19 from public libraries, informal learning institutions and community groups. Findings The authors suggest 11 design principles around five areas: program design, facilitation, tools and materials, process documentation and sharing and feedback. Originality/value This work contributes to the information and learning sciences concerned with community engagement and knowledge creation by s...