Tag Archives: connected learning

One could say the only constant during this unprecedented time is change. Childcare centers and schools are adjusting from one day to the next in order to keep the children and families in their communities safe. Another constant, however, is the value of connecting with well-trained children’s library professionals. This is why the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) developed Look to Libraries, a collection of materials intended to assist parents and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. ALSC is…

This summer, my High Point University colleagues and I are hosting a video game camp with twenty 9- to 11-year-olds in our local Boys and Girls Club. Across a series of five sessions, the students are learning some basic video game design principles and coding. Alternating their roles each session—from visual designer, sound designer, and programmer—they are each creating their own simple video game. At the end of the camp they will be able bring their game home to play…

If you happened to be visiting Independence National Historical Park in late October, you might have seen some of us educators and park rangers walking around with cell phones and taking pictures of things not normally featured on the postcards sold in the Park’s gift store. In addition to the Liberty Bell and the Mall, these photos included steam coming out of manhole covers, late budding plants growing along the parks’ edges, sidewalk patterns made of river stones, bricks and…

Last month, the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, made possible by grants from the MacArthur Foundation, published a research report on the findings of the Connected Learning Research Network, a group led by scholars such as Mimi Ito, Sonia Livingstone, S. Craig Watkins, and Katie Salen.  The Connected Learning Research Network, according to the report, is “an interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, designers, and practitioners to advance an evidence-driven approach to learning, the design of learning environments, and educational reform…