MacArthur Foundation Turns to Kids & Digital Media

The MacArthur Foundation, known mostly for the very cool $500,000, five-year genius grants it awards to unsuspecting creative types, in fact gives out grants totaling $200 million annually. And starting now, it is committing $50 million over the next five years to some of the best minds studying kids and how they use digital media to learn, socialize and grow into tech-savvy adults.

The idea is to support an emerging field of study centered on kids and digital media, and provide a place for researchers to come together to share and collaborate. The grants have already begun to flow: 

• Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Southern California are studying how kids are using technology every day and how it is affecting their peer and family relationships.

• At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Game Designer" software is being developed to help kids to learn about ethical judgment, design, systemic thinking, and team problem solving while designing video games.

• The Illinois Institute of Technology is working on how digital media and learning will change the way schools, libraries and other institutions are designed.

"We know the numbers," said Jonathan Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation, referring to stats about kids and media use. "Less is known about how kids are using digital media, the role it is playing their lives, what they think about it."

The classroom, he and others noted at the unveiling of the MacArthur Digital Learning Initiative, is no longer the hub of all learning. A lot of it takes place online after school, away from teachers and parents.

More than half of teens—57 percent—produce and share content online. And while academics are less concerned about a digital divide because most kids have access to computers, they are concerned about a "participation gap," Henry Jenkins, director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program said. After all, 43 percent of teens are not creating and sharing content online, which probably means they don't have extended access to the Internet to tinker, learn, and develop digital skills.

Proving the 28-year-old foundation is hip to the changes afoot, 43 Second Life avatars from academic institutions around the world participated in the session via a Second Life MacArthur Foundation meeting area.

I'll be keeping an eye on the research to emerge from MacArthur-supported projects. Expect the ongoing work to nudge schools and other institutions to embrace the way kids are learning through digital media—not ignore it, fight it, or punish it.