Date: October 9, 2013
Time: 12:00PM – 1:30PM
Place: Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall, University of Winnipeg
Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures is pleased to co-sponsor “Connected Learning: New Media Ecology and Young People,” a lecture by Dr. Mimi Ito, MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine. This event is also sponsored by the UW President’s Office, Dean of Arts, the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications, and the Department of English.
The Internet, digital media production tools, portable media, and social gaming environments are part of broad-based shifts in how we express ourselves, produce and access knowledge, and connect with others. This new media ecology can be a powerful driver of meaningful, demand-driven, and socially connected learning, but in our research, we found that very few young people, parents, and educators were taking advantage of this potential. Really tapping into the learning potential of today’s new media environment requires building more robust connections between formal and informal learning environments, and across social, recreational, and academic activities. This talk will describe what research in the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative has taught us about the some of the shifts in how young people are learning and engaging with new media, and areas of opportunity for supporting learning keyed to a networked age.
Mimi Ito is a cultural anthropologist of technology use who works on young people, new media, and fandom at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Ito is also the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning and directs the research of the UCI Digital Media and Learning Hub, which investigates the ways in which digital technology is changing learning environments, social and civic institutions, and youth culture. She is the author of Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software (MIT Press, 2009), and has edited several books, including Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World (Yale UP, 2012), and Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (MIT Press, 2009).