Where the MacArthur Foundation Grant Money has Gone, So Far

Education Week has a nice article (registration required) on the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $50 million initiative funding digital media and learning (including educational gaming research). A little less than half, about $23 million, has been funded so far to 36 grantees. Article author Andrew Trotter breaks down the expenditures:

• Examining how young people are changing as a result of digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $6.2 million

• Exploring the development of new learning environments AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $8 million

• Studying how social and civic institutions could change in the future AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4.8 million

• Helping build the field of research and development in youth and digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4 million

Constance Yowell, director of education for the MacArthur Foundation, is quoted extensively. Other prominent mentions include Sasha Barab over at Indiana (Quest Atlantis); Nichole Pinkard, director of technology, Center for Urban School Improvement, University of Chicago (Chicago charter schools and Remix World); Barry Joseph, director of the non-profit after school organization Global Kids (efforts in Teen Second Life); Katie Salen, director of the Institute of Play (New York City Game School); and Mizuko “Mimi” Ito, over at USC (ethnographic studies of digital media consumers).

Trotter mentions another project Salen is involved in:

Katie A. Salen, the director of the Institute of Play, in New York City, is a partner in two projects supported by MacArthur grants. One, led by game researcher Jim Ghee and involving a commercial game company, is creating an online, narrative game in which teenagers are game mechanics who learn to fix and modify broken games in a game-driven world.

I’m wondering if “Jim Ghee” is a reference to James Paul Gee?

Regardless, it’s a good article and well worth the read. The $50 million in grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation will no doubt continue to yield important findings on educational videogames and other components of digital media for years to come.

References:
Trotter, A. (2007, December 5). Projects probe new media’s role in changing the face of learning. Education Week, (27)14. 10.