Youthlearn News Archive

The latest SparkAction Update features articles on Occupy Wall Street's message as well as interviews and video of those involved.

For more info, follow these and other headlines linked from the SparkUpdate:

"Join 1 million Americans and 7,500+ communities nationwide in celebrating the afterschool programs that keep our kids safe, inspire them to learn and help working families...

October 20, 2011
Lights On Afterschool, brought to you by the Afterschool Alliance, is a nationwide celebration of afterschool programs designed to draw attention to the reality that high-quality afterschool and summer learning programs are crucial to children, youth, families, and communities.
Register your Lights on Afterschool event: http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/loa.cfm

"In an article in The Harvard Education Letter, Dave Saltman writes that educators are now teaching "digital natives" -- kids who have grown up with digital technology -- to become good digital citizens. While cyberbullying is a concern, teachers are also helping students investigate the issue of intellectual property rights, setting out legal and ethical boundaries.

"When 90 to 100 percent of my students are excitedly engaged in their tasks and asking deep and interesting questions, I experience joy, and joy is a lot less tiring than the frustration that comes with student apathy.

Project-based classrooms with an active-learning environment make such in-the-flow moments more common. Yet these same classrooms require many teacher and student skills to work well. As teachers, we can feel overwhelmed when we try something new and experience chaos instead of flow.

"With a library of over 2,400 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 180 practice exercises, we're on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace." Our library of videos covers K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even reaches into the humanities with playlists on finance and history.

"In response to the lack of representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in school curricula and disproportionate incidents of bullying and violence against LGBT youth, ADL, GLSEN and StoryCorps have collaborated to create Unheard Voices, an oral history and curriculum project that will help educators to integrate LGBT history, people and issues into their instructional programs.

The Fourth Digital Media and Learning Competition offers two related competitions: 
a design competition on Badges for Lifelong Learning and a research competition on Badges, Trophies, and Achievements.

Badges Competition - Awards: $10,000 to $200,000

"United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Friday launched Digital Promise, a new center authorized by Congress to identify and support the most effective education technology innovations and expose them more broadly to schools across the country.

The center will receive start-up funding from the U.S. Department of Education as well as the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and will be overseen by a board of ed-tech leaders selected based on Congressional recommendations....

"The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program annually honors middle and high school students across the U.S. for helping to improve their communities through volunteer activities. The program's goals are to applaud young people who already are making a positive difference in their towns and neighborhoods, and to inspire others to think about how they might contribute to their communities.