A Changing Learning Landscape
Technology and social media are replacing the telephone, office, and library, and are changing the classroom. The digital age may still confound those born without cell phones in their hands and computers in their totes, but technology is the principal way today’s young people communicate, play, and interact with the world.Kids use social media for gaming, video production, research, and, of course, socializing. While some schools are slowly adopting new technologies, other informal learning institutions, including museums and libraries, can help kids find and follow their interests more deeply. These community and cultural groups can connect kids to collections, new information, peers, mentors, and new experiences using digital media and mobile technology in fun ways.
About The Fund
The Hive Digital Media Learning Fund was started by the MacArthur Foundation and The New York Community Trust in 2011 so that, together, kids, teachers, scientists, and artists can design new and exciting ways to learn, create, and participate beyond the classroom. In addition to MacArthur and The Trust, donors include Mozilla Foundation and the Joan Ganz Cooney Fund and Beth M. Uffner Fund in The Trust.
The Fund is currently overseen by an advisory committee consisting of representatives from major funders and the commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs. The Hive Learning Network's director serves
ex-officio.
We encourage the participation of other grantmakers, and each funder will be represented on the advisory committee.
In 2011, the Fund made grants totaling approximately $1.1 million to museums, libraries, and a host of other community groups. All grantees are members of the Network and will share resources.
Read more about the project>>
Fall 2011 Grantees
The second round of grants, totaling $590,000, went to:
- American Museum of Natural History, $50,000
for teens participating in the Urban Biodiversity Network to use mobile
devices to seek out hidden alerts at urban sites in Manhattan and at
the Bronx Zoo, where they make a field observation or solve a riddle.
With help from the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, they will share findings
on an online platform that the teens will help customize.
- Brooklyn Museum, $25,000 for teenagers to research and create an online guide to African art at the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of African Art.
- City Lore, $25,000
to pair Reel Works teen filmmakers with skateboarders to make and share
online videos about skateboarding and to create a digital map of skate
parks in all five boroughs. Bank Street College is advising on the
project.
- The DreamYard Project, $25,000
for workshops in graphic and web design; and video, audio, and music
production for Bronx youth. The students will also advise on future
programs at a new Bronx media and social center.
- Girls Write Now, $25,000 for a creative writing program that will end with a digital portfolio of finished stories.
- Global Kids, $25,000
for teens involved with the Brooklyn Public Library to create an
outdoor treasure hunt that uses GPS-enabled devices to get their peers
involved in neighborhood issues; and $15,000 to work with Mills College to evaluate the program.
- Museum of the Moving Image, $25,000
for a digital game-design camp during spring break that will produce a
replicable game-design curriculum. The Institute of Play will provide
mentors for participants.
- MOUSE, $100,000
for teens to plan and implement 2012 Emoti-Con!, a competitive digital
media festival in which young designers, programmers, filmmakers, and
technologists demonstrate their work, collaborate on social action
projects, and meet professionals in the industry.
- Museum of Modern Art, $25,000 for a series of digital media and art-making classes, CLICK@MoMA.
- New York Public Library, $100,000
for NYC Haunts, a mobile scavenger hunt in the Bronx, Manhattan, and
Staten Island that connects local history to contemporary problems.
Teens create and post possible solutions.
- People’s Production House, $50,000 to train youth to use digital multimedia storytelling to capture, edit, and publish news not covered by the mainstream media.
- Urban Word NYC, $100,000
for young people involved with Global Action Project and the YMCA to
write and share poetry through in-person workshops and through Urban
Word Live, an interactive website, as well as live-stream and digitally
publish their writing.
Spring 2011 Grantees
The first round of grants, totaling $485,500, went to:
- DreamYard Project, $100,000, is working with Cooper-Hewitt and The Point Community Development Corporation on A City of Neighborhoods: the Bronx Citizen Advocate Project. Bronx teens will explore local environmental problems and will gather information using their social media networks and hand-held devices with video, photo, and GPS capabilities. They will share solutions via presentations, designing mobile phone applications, and providing their communities with ways to take action.
- Eyebeam, $23,000, is working with WNYC’s Radio Rookies and Digital Democracy to help teens investigate and record stories about a neighborhood. Teens will create multimedia presentations about important community centers or businesses and post them on the web using Broadcastr.com
- Facing History, $75,000, is also working with WNYC’s Radio Rookies program to help teens develop multimedia stories about their neighborhoods. Participants will learn research, interviewing, writing, and editing skills to help teen journalists produce documentary stories and share them online.
- Girls Write Now, $15,000, a program that pairs girls with professional female writers, is developing a program plan that incorporates new technologies to strengthen its mentoring program.
- Institute of Play, $25,000, is developing an after-school program that focuses on design, engineering, and science, and challenges young people to take on roles as journalists, scientists, designers, inventors, and activists by giving them the skills to make science-based contributions to the sustainability of their communities.
- Iridescent, $165,000, is joining the New York Hall of Science to help high school students who are “explainers” at the Hall create mobile phone applications based on science museum exhibits that increase informal learning for children, teens, families, and teachers. Watch the video>>