I’ve been researching technology’s role in child development for nearly twenty years. For most of that time, whenever a non-researcher asked me for the verdict – is tech good or bad for kids? – I dutifully replied that it’s complicated, because it is.   And as research continues to accumulate, one could argue things have only... Read more »

The post Technology’s Child: Making the Complex More Concrete for Research on Kids and Tech appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

The first and second authors of this blog post were teens in the the middle 2010s and the early 2000s, respectively. We experienced a media landscape vastly different from each other as well as the present day. Media devices were more limited, Internet connections were constrained; user-generated content or social media was barely on the... Read more »

The post Mobilizing Teen-Centered Research Findings for Teen-Oriented Storytelling appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

New research from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center shows the power of involving young people in community organizations as partners, not just beneficiaries. Gen Z in the Room: Making Public Media By and With Youth for the Future, by Mary Madden and Elizabeth Rood, details findings gathered through in-depth interviews with young people and professional... Read more »

The post The Power of Participatory Projects: Public Media and Gen Z appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Call for proposals now open for the sixth annual Connected Learning Summit, which will run entirely online from October 26 to 28, 2023. Submissions open: March 6, 2023 Deadline for submissions: June 23, 2023 Notifications: August 2023 We invite submissions of Research Papers and Showcases that focus on digital technologies for learning, educational and commercial... Read more »

The post Call for Proposals Now Open for the Sixth Annual Connected Learning Summit appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Educators are urged to teach “computer science for all!” In our new book, based on ten years of work at YR Media, we respond with a question: “Code for what?” What if emerging creators approached computer science as an expansive medium for storytelling and social justice? How would they use it to produce digital content... Read more »

The post Code for What? appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

For the last seven years, I’ve been working with a talented and committed group of researchers and library practitioners on the ConnectedLib Project, a research-practice partnership focused on bringing connected learning to public libraries across the United States. With support from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), our team at the University of... Read more »

The post ConnectedLib Toolkit 2.0: Bringing Connected Learning to Small and Rural Libraries appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Let me take you inside a conversation at a recent board meeting for Susan Crown Exchange, a national foundation that supports organizations working at the intersection of adolescent well-being and technology. Two young people were invited to share their experiences as participants in a research study conducted by our partners at Erikson Institute: Q: “Does... Read more »

The post Who Has The Solutions For Thriving In A Digital World? Young People.  appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Fiber craft textiles have played an important role in the development of technology and the advancement of STEM areas. Crochet contributed to the transformation of non-Euclidean geometry due to the consolidation of hyperbolic planes. Our work has led us to design activities with the intention of recovering fiber crafts as a means of learning and... Read more »

The post Performing Mathematics Through Crafting: A Workshop From A Constructionist Approach appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Earlier this summer, our Creative Communities research group at the University of Colorado Boulder launched “A Facilitators’ Guide to Family Creative Learning, the ScratchJr Edition”. This guide, which can be downloaded for free on the Family Creative Learning website, builds on more than 10 years of research and collaborative design with community-based organizations such as... Read more »

The post Building Relationships, Building Projects: Engaging Families in Joyful, Creative, and Caring Experiences in Computing appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

  Emily was feeling stressed – her day was not going well. She’d bombed her math test and had a fight with her mom over whether she could stay out later than usual the following week to hang out with some friends. She needed a moment to de-stress. Fortunately, it was in her pocket, on... Read more »

The post There’s An App For That? Tackling Teen Mental Health With Digital Solutions appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

  The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the delivery of education across the globe, raising concerns about its long-term consequences on academic achievement and the unequal effect on students from vulnerable and marginalized groups. In our preprint, Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic, we present perspectives of Elementary School teachers across the US and Canada... Read more »

The post Education During COVID: The Voice Of Teachers Across Canada and the US appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

    Writing for this blog in 2013, Dr. John Jones warned, “[D]igital technologies are increasingly important not just to learning, but to all facets of students’ lives[,] and reminders of the breaches of privacy made possible by these technologies are nearly ubiquitous.” Jones described how education technologies subject students to the invasive gaze of... Read more »

The post Getting Over Privacy: Surveillance Studies and Edtech appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

In the book, How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design, scholar Katherine Isbister observed that because of player agency, “games have an additional palette of social emotions at their disposal.” Suppose a student reads Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables. Through a process known as theory of mind, readers may empathize with protagonist Jean Valjean and... Read more »

The post Harnessing Video Games to Cultivate Social and Emotional Learning appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

The 2022 Connected Learning Summit, held virtually, engaged over 300 participants in interactive discussions about research, design, and practice, as well as hands-on workshops and inspiring talks. Videos of the plenaries, keynotes, showcases, and research papers are now live on the CLS2022 website and YouTube playlist.   Get Inspired by Keynote and Plenary Session Videos... Read more »

The post Catch What You Missed, Get Inspired, and Dive Into Connected Learning Projects with Videos from the 2022 Connected Learning Summit appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

by Eli H. (High School Senior) For anyone interested in how to better connect with teens, here’s an idea: stop starting conversations with how “terrible” social media is, and instead ask teens about their grinds. Last summer, I worked with Project Zero researchers and other teens to design “The Grind” – a way of thinking... Read more »

The post The Grind: My Teen Experience of LGBTQ+ Misrepresentation Within Social Media appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Much of the conversation around children’s use of technology focuses on the potential risks and harms of exploring the digital world. While protecting children is an essential focus, it cannot be the only one. As children’s lives become increasingly digital, we also have an obligation and an opportunity to reframe the discussion using a whole... Read more »

The post What Does Well-Being Mean to Children in a Digital Age? appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Power On!, our newly released graphic novel (MIT Press, April 2022), follows the experiences of four high school friends from diverse backgrounds as they confront the harm technology has done in their own community. We follow them as they awaken to how computer science (CS) impacts our daily lives and ask questions such as: Can... Read more »

The post Power On!: Why CS Education Can No Longer Pretend to Be “Neutral”  appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

Connected Learning Summit 2022 (#CLS2022) kicks off next week with a pre-conference day July 27 featuring online meetups on common issues in research, design and practice. Discussions will be facilitated by Research Paper and Showcase presenters and other CLS community members. Everyone is welcome to join the conversations! Research Paper and Showcase presenters have recorded... Read more »

The post Join the Conversation in CLS2022 Meetups – STEAM Learning and Inclusion, Community Driven R&D, and Game-Based & Online Learning appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

“What does it take to cultivate safe, empowering and culturally sustaining STEM spaces for Youth of Color from low income backgrounds?”  In Fall 2018, I helped lead a multi-year, multi-site NSF study designed to answer this question. As a Black woman who had once been pushed out of STEM, I was deeply invested in exploring... Read more »

The post Building Race-Conscious and Justice-Oriented STEM Spaces: Learning from Women of Color Educators appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.

In addition to inspiring keynotes and plenaries, this year’s Connected Learning Summit features interactive workshops and roundtables offered by Connected Learning Alliance partners. Our partners are research labs, nonprofits, and research-practice collaborations leading the way in designing for a more equitable, participatory, learner-centered ecosystem. All workshops and roundtables will be offered in interactive and engaging... Read more »

The post Learn, Organize, and Collaborate with Fellow Innovators and Researchers at CLS2022 Workshops & Roundtables appeared first on Connected Learning Alliance.