Wisconsin Academy: Academy Evenings presentation explores digital media in the classroom and the future of education

Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director

MADISON—Video games, social networking, virtual performance spaces, and other digital media are transforming the ways in which we teach and learn—both in and out of the classroom. These new technologies reframe learning in terms of the production of new ideas, rather than the consumption of existing ideas, and offer an exciting platform for the restructuring of our educational system. University of Wisconsin–Madison professors of Education Erica and Richard Halverson discuss how evolving digital media environments will result in powerfully different learning environments, blurring the boundaries between the classroom and the world beyond, in their Academy Evenings presentation, Digital Media and the Future of Schooling: A Look at the 2050 Classroom.

Part of the Wisconsin Academy’s “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series of Academy Evenings presentations, Digital Media and the Future of Schooling: A Look at the 2050 Classroom, with Erica and Richard Halverson, will be held on Tuesday, November 17, from 7:00–8:30 pm at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art lecture hall, 221 State Street. This presentation is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:15 pm. Seating is first-come, first-served.

Erica Halverson is an assistant professor of Learning Sciences in the Educational Psychology department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She co-founded Barrel of Monkeys, a creative arts program that provides some of Chicago’s most underserved elementary school students with the opportunity to express themselves through writing and performance. Erica Halverson is a member of the Games Learning Society research group where she studies how people use new media, ranging from digital video to fantasy sports, to push the boundaries of what we know about learning and identity development.

Richard Halverson is an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is co-director of Games, Learning, and Society at UW–Madison, an internationally known research group that investigates how cutting-edge learning technologies can reshape learning in and out of schools. Richard Halverson is co-author (with Allan Collins) of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America (Teachers College Press, 2009).

The “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” Academy Evenings 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.

About Academy Evenings

Academy Evenings engage the public in a wide variety of topics of public interest and feature Wisconsin’s leading thinkers, scholars, and artists. These free forums are intended to encourage public interaction with these leaders in an intimate atmosphere designed to foster discussion and build community. The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters sponsors Academy Evenings regularly in Overture Center for the Arts in Madison and at other venues across the state. For more information on Academy Evenings in your area, visit wisconsinacademy.org .