Using websites like Twitter and Facebook, young people are sharing photos, videos, music, ideas, and opinions online, connecting with a large group of peers in new and sometimes unexpected ways. They are “always on,” in constant contact with their friends via texting, instant messaging, mobile phones, and the Internet. A 2008 MacArthur Foundation “Report on Digital Media and Learning” found that 83% of young people between the ages of 8 and 18 play video games regularly; nearly 75% use instant messaging, with up to 96 SMS messages sent per day. On a typical day, more than half of U.S. teenagers use a computer and more than 40% play a video game. But how much of this activity occurs in schools, and how can educators utilize—or even keep up with—all these emerging forms of social media?
Erica and Richard Halverson
In their Academy Evenings presentation, Digital Media and the Future of Schooling: A Look at the 2050 Classroom, UW–Madison professors of Education Erica and Richard Halverson will discuss how video games, social networking sites, and virtual performance spaces are transforming the ways we teach and learn—both in and out of the classroom—and reframing learning in terms of the production of new ideas, rather than the consumption of existing ideas. The Halversons will also outline how evolving digital media environments will result in powerfully different learning environments, blurring the boundaries between the classroom and the world beyond.
Part of the “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series, this free Academy Evenings presentation begins at 7:00 pm in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art lecture hall on Tuesday, November 17. Doors open at 6:15 pm, and seating is first-come, first served. If you can’t attend this Academy Evenings presentation, you can also tune in to the live webcast at http://www.wisconsinacademy.org (click the link on the “What’s New” section).
About Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future
Who will we be in the future and what are the events that will shape us? In the “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series of Academy Evenings presentations, the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters hopes to address these questions and more. “Wisconsin 2050” shows us our state and world through the lens of the year 2050, allowing us to make some intelligent projections about our future based on current affairs, contemporary knowledge, and research by some of our best minds. The “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series is sponsored by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, M&I Bank, the Evjue Foundation, and Isthmus Publishing Company.
