MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition

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Kathy Ishizuka -- School Library Journal, 9/8/2008 10:26:00 AM

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced a second-annual open-call competition that will provide $2 million in awards to innovators in participatory learning. The Digital Media and Learning Competition, supported through a grant to the University of California, Irvine and administered by the virtual network HASTAC, now welcomes international submissions and honors a new category focusing on young innovators aged 18–25.

Awards will be given in two categories:

* Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards will support projects that demonstrate new modes of participatory learning, in which people take part in virtual communities, share ideas, and advance goals together. Successful projects will promote participatory learning in a variety of environments: through the creation of new digital tools, modification of existing ones, or use of digital media in some other novel way. Winners will receive between $30,000 and $250,000.

* Young Innovator Awards will honor young people aged 18–25 who think and plan boldly about the next steps in participatory learning. Winners will receive an internship with a sponsor organization to help bring their most visionary ideas from the “garage” stage to implementation. For this competition cycle, submissions will only be accepted from U.S. applicants. Winners will receive between $5,000 and $30,000.

This year’s competition will include an online forum where applicants can post their ideas, solicit feedback, offer their services, and connect with other applicants and potential collaborators. All material posted to this “Digital Media and Learning Scratchpad” is publicly accessible. Participation is voluntary and not required for application.

The open competition will be administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), which was founded and is primarily operated at two university centers, the University of California Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine and the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. Applications will be judged by an expert panel of scholars, educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, and other digital media specialists.

Applications are due Oct. 15, 2008 and winners will be publicly announced in April 2009. Detailed information on the competition is available online at www.dmlcompetition.net.

Winners last year include a mobile musical laboratory, a digital humanitarian assistance game derived from existing military simulation technology, and a mobile phone project hat connects young African social entepreneurs with young North American professionals.

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