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News

Video Games as Tools in Workforce Preparation
"Mathematics, science and video games? A U.S. university professor is urging
schools to consider using video games as tools to better prepare children for
the work force. For although many educators scoff at the idea of video games
in schools, the U.S. military has titles that train soldiers, teenagers with cancer
use a game to battle their illness virtually and physically and some surgeons
use video games to keep their hands nimble. David Williamson Shaffer, an
education science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says
schools should use games to prepare children to compete in the work force,
where juggling technology is a daily requirement."
URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070111/tc_nm/videogames_schools_dc

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Funding

MTV TR3s and Youth Venture Present the Tu Voz My Venture Contest
"As part of its mission to provide a voice to young Latinos in the United States,
and in response to the alarming rate at which Latinos are dropping out of high
school, MTV tr3s formed MTV Tr3s Voces, a campaign that aims to empower
Latino youth to graduate high school and prepare for college, work, and life.
In partnership with Youth Venture and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
MTV Tr3s Voces will awards grants of up to $1,000 each to groups of young
Latinos that have new and creative ideas for after-school programs,
organizations, clubs, or other ventures that encourage and help Latino youth
graduate high school and prepare for college.... Venturas grants will be
offered every week until June 29, 2007."
URL: http://www.youthventure.org/index.php?tg=articles&topics=388&new=0&newc=0&PHPSESSID=8692941b5d1f7d2fd360e34f450a6e69
Referred by: Foundation Center

Dollar General Literacy and Other Grants
Spring deadlines are coming up for Dollar General's grant programs, including
Adult Literacy Grants; Back-to-School Grants [for schools]; Beyond Words:
The Dollar General School Library Relief Program [for libraries]; Family Literacy
Grants; and Youth Literacy Initiatives. Please note that in order to be eligible,
organizations must be in or near a community with a Dollar General store.
See applications for details.
URL: http://www.dollargeneral.com/community/communityinvestments.aspx

Funding for Performance and Live Art on the Internet
"New York City-based Franklin Furnace, whose mission is 'to make the world
safe for avant-garde art,' annually awards grants in two categories. The
Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art supports emerging performance
artists, allowing them to produce major works in New York. The Future of
the Present funds the creation of live art that engages the Internet as an art
medium and/or venue. Grants from either fund range between $2,000 and
$5,000 each. Artists from all areas of the world are encouraged to apply, and
applications will automatically be considered for both categories." Deadline:
April 1, 2007
URL: http://www.franklinfurnace.org/grants/grants.html
Referred by: Foundation Center

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Research

Using Digital Images in Teaching and Learning
"Digital images have become a major element in the rapidly-evolving educational
digital landscape. How is the use of these new digital formats contributing to
changing practices in teaching and learning in higher education? This is one of
many questions explored by Academic Commons, an online space created in
2005 to examine the relationships between new technologies and liberal
education.... The two principal investigative instruments were an online survey
and a set of followup face-to-face interviews. The project sought both to build
a knowledge base on the key issues, opportunities and challenges for faculty as
they began to use digital images; and to create an active online forum for
participants to further share their practices, recommendations and needs."
URL: http://www.academiccommons.org/files/image-report.pdf

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Activities

Primary Resources and Real-World Data
"Where can I find historical speeches, posters, and maps? My students like
real-world data and statistics for math problems, where can I find this type of
information? What are the best sources of historical documents, oral histories,
and other authentic resources?... The Internet provides access to a wide range
of primary resources such as letters, diaries, journals, logs, data, documents,
speeches, and videos. Students can also create authentic information through
collecting oral histories, conducting polls and surveys, and keeping journals."
URL: http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic88.htm

Hubble telescope's top ten greatest space photographs
Since "an audacious Shuttle repair mission, when Hubble was fixed with what is
effectively a pair of eyeglasses to correct its sight, the telescope has returned
some of the most stunning images ever captured by science. And now
astronomers have voted for the best pictures taken by Hubble in its 16 years
in orbit. Hubble's Top Ten are shown here, and they illustrate that our universe
is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful."
URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=418049&in_page_id=1770

We welcome your feedback!

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YouthLearn
http://www.youthlearn.org

This newsletter is produced by the YouthLearn Initiative at EDC especially for
members of the YouthLearn discussion group. Every two weeks, the newsletter is
compiled from the entries in the YouthLearn News Blog, including summaries
from various sources that YouthLearn staff periodically review.

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YouthLearn is a project of the nonprofit Education Development Center, Inc.
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