Announcing New Info Brief on Integrating IT

[Wendy Rivenburgh]

YouthLearn folks,

We're pleased to share with you an Information Brief that YouthLearn team 
members helped developed as part of the NSF ITEST Learning Resource 
Center: "Active Learning in the Information Age: Integrating IT Skill 
Development into STEM Curricula."  This concise document, now published on 
the ITEST website as a PDF file, seeks to answer key questions and provide 
helpful Web resources for further exploration of the issues.  The key 
questions include:  What IT skills are essential to living, learning, and 
working?  And how do we integrate these essential skills into both formal 
and informal learning?  Why is it beneficial to integrate technology 
through project-based learning?  What kind of technology standards have 
been developed to guide IT and STEM integration? 

Link to the Info Brief: http://www2.edc.org/itestlrc/infoBrief.htm

For your quick reference, here's the introduction from the brief:

"Despite the deployment of computers, software and high-speed internet 
access in schools and community centers across the country over the last 
decade, educators in both formal and informal learning environments 
throughout the US still struggle to foster information technology (IT) 
skills development. With the addition of the No Child Left Behind Act and 
other elevated accountability efforts, educators are also increasingly 
challenged to improve academic performance, especially in content areas 
that lead to high-tech jobs such as science, technology, engineering and 
math (STEM). Some leaders in the youth development and education fields 
are beginning to find success in building IT and STEM skills through 
integrated approaches that employ experiential learning methods, address 
academic standards, and make content relevant to the lives of learners and 
their communities. In this first volume of the ITEST Learning Resource 
Center Information Brief, these innovations, that are at the core of the 
ITEST experience, will be highlighted and their challenges and successes 
revealed."

Please let us know what you think of this new resource!  Also, it would be 
great to host some discussion on the YouthLearn list using this new brief 
as a jumping off point.  A few questions come to mind to get the ball 
rolling: 

* What are your successes with the ways that you integrate technology into 
your learning program? 
* How might you change how you use or integrate it, and why?
* Are you using standards in your learning program?  If so, how?
* How might the new Information Brief inform your work? Who will you share 
it with, and why?

As always, we look forward to hearing from you!

Best,
Wendy
*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*
Wendy Rivenburgh
YouthLearn Initiative at EDC
55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458
617.618.2159  Fax 617.332.4318
wrivenburgh at edc.org

Visit YouthLearn at http://www.youthlearn.org

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YouthLearn ( http://www.youthlearn.org ) brings together youth
professionals to share information on using technology to create
exciting learning environments. YouthLearn was created by the
Morino Institute ( http://www.morino.org ) and is now an Initiative
at Education Development Center ( http://www.edc.org ). We hope
this list assists you in your efforts to make a difference in the
lives and potential of young people.

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