The MacArthur Foundation released an important report on “connected learning” (Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutiérrez, Sonia Livingstone, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, S. Craig Watkins. 2013. Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub).
This report represents the culmination of years of work on digital media and learning funded by MacArthur. The MacArthur funded work has given rise to a distinctive vision and helped launch an international movement devoted to digital media and learning in and out of school.
In earlier days James Paul Gee was part of this effort exploring a somewhat different but related stream than connected learning. This paper is a reflection on the report, but only in the indirect sense that the report prompted Gee to these thoughts.
In this text, the author talks about the how the changes that have been most important in digital media and society are ones that have led
more and more people, young and old, to be (and want to be) participants not just spectators, producers and not just consumers, and experts even without formal credentials. He also analyzes the concept of learning via digital media at school and at home, its advantages and disadvantages.