Mimi Ito

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Connected Learning: Tying Student Passions to School Subjects

April 3, 2013 | 8:00 AM | By
Q2L_1

Quest to Learn

By Ashley Williams, Youth Radio

What if your extracurricular activities weren’t just extra but a part of your academics too? New thinking on education intends to bring students’ interests into the classroom. It’s called Connected Learning and promotes the idea that students will excel in school if what they are learning is relevant to their lives, experiences, and passions. This plan is spelled out in a new report, by Mimi Ito, the research director of the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of California Irvine.

While students would still learn core subjects like math and science, Connected Learning provides ways for students to link their classroom lessons to their lives outside the school. Ito says the objective of Connected Learning is to, “meet young people where they are in terms of their peer culture, their interest in popular culture, social media, rather than say you have to meet us where we are as adults.”

“It’s important to diversify the kinds of entry points for the kinds of pathways that young people have.”

Ito uses the Harry Potter Alliance to demonstrate how Connected Learning’s can be effective. She says, “the HPA connects young people who are inspired by the civic virtues portrayed in the Harry Potter books, and want to apply them to the real world.” This fan network organizes over social media platforms (Facebook, Livestream, Youtube, Twitter) to spread awareness and solutions to issues like, equality, and human rights, and to support of charitable causes. Literacy has been a central focus of the group. Their annual book drive has brought 85,000 donations since 2009 and contributions have helped build a library for a charter school in NYC.

Ito says another prime example of Connected Learning is at Youth Radio. The youth-driven media organization channels young peoples’ passions into education and job training. For instance, the poetry group inside Youth Radio, Remix Your Life, helps strengthen students’ writing skills, public speaking  and presentation skills while providing an outlet for us to express what we’re passionate about.

“Meet young people where they are in terms of their peer culture, their interest in popular culture, social media, rather than say you have to meet us where we are as adults.”

Here’s where Connected Learning could help close the opportunity gap. Ito says, “it’s important to diversify the kinds of entry points for the kinds of pathways that young people have.” She adds that “having their interests, their identities validated in the context of academic achievement, civic engagement” is essential to keeping students engaged. This could lead to better student Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Big Ideas, Teaching Strategies, connected learning, design thinking, DML, Mimi Ito, project-based-learning, Quest to Learn

What Exactly Can You Learn on a Mobile Phone? Part II

June 25, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

Flickr:Shlala

Here’s the second part of my original interview with Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use in young people. Ito is co-author of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, and has been studying the subject of how kids interact with mobile devices.

Ito talks about whether intervention programs and educational outreach make formal schooling more interesting or relevant.

“A lot of kids were doing amazing things around their interest, but very few of those kids were able to pursue that and translate that into context of adult world,” she says regarding case studies she observed.

Ito also addresses the difference between letting kids experiment and figure out what they want to learn on their own versus setting them on a specific course.

Q. Is there any research that shows mobile phones are raising literacy or reading skills? Does it matter?

A. I see opportunities that digital mobile devices can provide for learning in three ways: information access; social connection and peer learning; and expression and creative production.

“[A mobile phone] is much more of a connector and enabler that can bring knowledge to more settings in daily lives, but not the platform you want to rely on exclusively.”

A mobile phone does really well and delivers better in the first two than the PC does, because it’s ubiquitous and demand-driven. When we’re out somewhere with family, we have a question, whatever it might be, there’s instant ability to access information. The ability to access information within a social face-to-face context is actually a powerful enabler of learning. You don’t have to be locked into a screen in solitary mode to access this big ecosystem of information. You feel a pervasive connection to that. These devices become a way of connecting, ideally providing a social support.

What it doesn’t deliver as well on is the actual production of knowledge and culture and things like that. It’s not a platform that’s optimized for that. Most activated learning is making use of multiple platforms and learning opportunities in multiple settings. And the mobile phone is a device that could potentially knit together those multiple contexts. Whether it’s an iPad or a phone, it’s a stable platform that kids can carry from home to school or after school programs to cobble together resources and social networks. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Big Ideas, Culture, Digital Tools, digital-divide, Mimi Ito, mobile, Mobile Learning

What Exactly Can You Learn on a Mobile Phone?

June 24, 2011 | 2:28 PM | By

Lenny Gonzalez

A student at Napa New Tech High uses his mobile phone at school.

In my quest to understand how a mobile phone can be considered a learning tool, and whether it can actually help bridge the digital divide between low-income, at-risk kids and those with access to computers, I had an illuminating conversation with Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use in young people. Ito is co-author of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, and has been studying the subject of how kids interact with mobile devices.

My conclusion: When it comes to the traditional definition of “learning” — studying a subject like chemistry or literature — mobile phones are not necessarily the best facilitators. Though kids are remarkably facile with phones — texting, researching, Facebooking, Tweeting — it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to focus on a complicated subject with any depth of thought using a four-inch device.

“Social connections are our primary platform for learning in everyday lives.”

The potential magic of the smart phone when it comes to learning lies in its ability to provide instant access to facts and the ability to collaborate with others, as well as provide a fun, mobile platform for educational games.

Take Project K-Nect, for example. The program is a social-media-based curriculum that combines project and collaborative learning with new media learning for 3,000 high schoolers in three states. An Algebra 1 curriculum has been distilled into mini apps that include instant messaging and blogging, assessment tools for teachers, supplemental activities, project-based learning components, problem sets, and cartoon animation. “Students [take] control of the learning process and create personalized learning communities,” said the founder Shawn Gross.

But even Gross doubts that for very high-risk students — such as those who are homeless or are attending school primarily for a free lunch — the technology-integrated math class is as beneficial. In those cases, there’s much more to contend with than academics, and a mobile-phone curriculum alone won’t change that.

I asked Ito to put some of these different pieces of the puzzle into perspective.

Q. Do you see any evidence of mobile phones being a legitimate way for low-income kids to learn?

Mimi Ito: It’s really too early to tell based on technology adoption trends. It’s more like a glimmer on the horizon. We’re pretty early on the research trajectory. We don’t know empirically exactly what’s happening. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Digital Tools, Teaching Strategies, digital-divide, Mimi Ito, mobile, Mobile Learning, Project K-Nect