Katie Davis

Adolescent learners’ characteristics comprise the various attributes that shape the way individuals make meaning of their world. These attributes include specific skills, such as hypothetical-deductive reasoning and metacognition, which are tied to an individual’s stage of cognitive development. They also include individuals’ subjective views of the learning enterprise, for instance, their levels of motivation and mastery goals. All of these attributes are shaped in important ways by the social environment in which the learning experience occurs.

Friendships are central to adolescents’ lives, shaping their psychological and social development in important ways. For the past decade, new digital media technologies, such as the Internet and mobile telephony, have played an integral role in adolescent friendship formation and maintenance. In this paper, I draw on data from an empirical study of 20 female adolescent bloggers to explore the role of new digital media in adolescent friendships. By placing the girls’ blogging in a developmental context, I describe how new modes of communication satisfy typical developmental needs of adolescence. In the process, I identify the distinct connections that friends make through blogging and consider how these connections might be redefining traditional forms of friendship.

Parent–child relationships are rede ned during early adolescence, as tweens become increasingly independent and begin to assert their autonomy. Because today’s youth are growing up in a digitally saturated world, investigating the technology use of tweens is key to understanding the changing dynamics in parent–child relationships in early adolescence. Through surveys (N = 79) and follow-up focus groups (N = 30) with middle school students, we investigated how tweens described and made sense of their technology use, how they responded to their parents’ rules about technology, and how they navigated technology-related con icts at home. Tweens perceived a misalignment between their parents’ technology-related rules and their own purposes for using digital media, which they said created a tension between them and their parents. This exploratory study contributes new insight into how tweens relate their technology use to their interpretations of their parents’ rules and messages around technology.

In this chapter, the authors explore the role that networked platforms play in identity development during emerging adulthood. They use the stories of two youth to highlight dominant themes from existing research and to examine the developmental implications of forming one’s identity in a networked era. The inquiry is theoretically informed by the work of the psychologist Erik Erikson, who depicted identity development as a process of exploration that ultimately results in a sense of personal continuity and coherence. The authors consider what insights this theory—formulated in the mid-twentieth century—has to offer in a digital world. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the practical implications relating to education, policy, and the design of new technologies.

We present Group Touch, a method for distinguishing among multiple users simultaneously interacting with a tabletop computer using only the touch information supplied by the device. Rather than tracking individual users for the duration of an activity, Group Touch distinguishes users from each other by modeling whether an interaction with the tabletop corresponds to either: (1) a new user, or (2) a change in users currently interacting with the tabletop. This reframing of the challenge as distinguishing users rather than tracking and identifying them allows Group Touch to support multiuser collaboration in real-world settings without custom instrumentation. Specifically, Group Touch examines pairs of touches and uses the difference in orientation, distance, and time between two touches to determine whether the same person performed both touches in the pair. Validated with field data from high-school students in a classroom setting, Group Touch distinguishes among users " in the wild " with a mean accuracy of 92.92% (SD=3.94%). Group Touch can imbue collaborative touch applications in real-world settings with the ability to distinguish among multiple users. Tabletop; modeling; distinguishing users; " in the wild. " ACM Classification Keywords H.5.3. Group and Organization Interfaces: Collaborative Computing.

The aim of this paper is to investigate which adolescents are most and least at risk of experiencing online victimization. The results of logistic regression analyses using data on 2079 adolescents attending secondary school in Bermuda indicate that not all forms of media use place adolescents at risk of experiencing cyberbullying. Adolescents who spent more time using their cell phone were more likely to report having received an aggressive or threatening electronic communication and having had someone say nasty things about them online. There was no such relationship between time on the internet and either form of online victimization. The findings also suggest that strong parent relationships and positive experiences at school are generally more protective against cyberbullying than adults' restrictions on adolescents' media use. These findings contribute important insight into strategies that hold promise for decreasing cyberbullying among adolescents.

Interaction logs generated by educational software can provide valuable insights into the collaborative learning process and identify opportunities for technology to provide adaptive assistance. Modeling collaborative learning processes at tabletop computers is challenging, as the computer is only able to log a portion of the collaboration, namely the touch events on the table. Our previous lab study with adults showed that patterns in a group's touch interactions with a tabletop computer can reveal the quality of aspects of their collaborative process. We extend this understanding of the relationship between touch interactions and the collaborative process to adolescent learners in a field setting and demonstrate that the touch patterns reflect the quality of collaboration more broadly than previously thought, with accuracies up to 84.2%. We also present an approach to using the touch patterns to model the quality of collaboration in real-time. Collaborative learning; tabletop; modeling; " in the wild. " ACM Classification Keywords H.5.3. Group and organization interfaces: Collaborative computing.

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges associated with implementing a digital badge system that awards high school credit for students' participation in afterschool programs serving non-dominant youth. Data include interviews and focus groups with 43 students, and interviews with 24 teachers and afterschool mentors and one college admissions director. Across all stakeholders, the most frequently cited opportunity related to the potential that badges hold for establishing learners' credibility outside the context in which their badges were earned by providing a trustworthy record of the skills and achievements that students gain through their participation in the afterschool programs. However, credibility also emerged as the dominant challenge associated with digital badges. Participants observed that in order for badges to succeed in proving one's credibility to external audiences, these audi-encesdsuch as college admissions officers and employersdmust know about and recognize the validity of badges. Students, teachers, and program staff all expressed the belief that this essential criterion had not yet been achieved. We examine these findings in light of theory and research on the role of artifacts within and outside the communities of practice in which they were created and used. The findings hold implications for designers of openly networked learning environments that seek to span and connect diverse social settings.

Music is not typically used in teaching high school-and college-level chemistry. This may be attributable to instructors' perceptions of educational music as being solely for memorization, their uncertainty about how to incorporate music effectively, or because of a limited number of suitable songs in which the music and words reinforce each other. To address these issues by way of a biochemistry example, we created Amino Acid Jazz, a sing-along exercise in which students synthesize a musical polypeptide from amino acid building blocks. Along the way, musical elements indicate key points about protein chemistry and structure. This exercise is an example of how the music of a song can amplify (rather than distract from) the content of the lyrics, and can thus promote knowledge acquisition that goes beyond rote memorization. Furthermore, it may be extended to incorporate students' own creative ideas. Most initial feedback from students and other teachers has been positive.

The current study investigates the joint effects of interpersonal relationships and digital media use on adolescents' sense of identity. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of 2079 students (57% female) between the ages of 11 and 19 years (M = 15.4 years) attending one of seven secondary schools in Bermuda. Using structural equation modeling, the author found that mothers and friends play an important role in adolescents' lives, with both relationships contributing in positive ways to respondents' self-concept clarity. Further, the results showed that mother relationship quality affected adolescents' self-concept clarity both directly and indirectly, through the positive impact it had on friendship quality. Friends also played a mediating role in relation to aspects of adolescents' digital media use. Specifically, the negative association detected between online identity expression/exploration and self-concept clarity was mediated partially by low friendship quality. Going online to communicate with one's friends appeared to play a more positive role in adolescents' sense of identity. The results showed that online peer communication affected self-concept clarity indirectly through its positive impact on friendship quality.

This article explores how young people – for whom issues of identity are particularly salient – conceive of the new opportunities for self-expression provided by digital media technologies. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 ‘digital youth,’ ages 15–25, who were highly engaged in at least one form of digital media activity at the time of their interview. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario designed to probe their conceptions of identity, both online and offline. The themes identified in the interviews are organized into a conceptual framework that summarizes the strategies young people use to reconcile the tension between multiplicity and consistency in a networked era. The framework comprises four ‘spheres of obligation’ – to self, interpersonal relationships, online social norms, and broad community-level values – that function as implicit limits on self-multiplicity. Participants varied in the weight they gave to each sphere when deciding how to express themselves in this networked era.

We describe the five minds that should be nurtured in all children to prepare them to become both good workers and good citizens of a complex, ever-changing society. In light of the central role that digital media technologies play in such a society, we explore the way in which digital media affect the development and expression of the five minds, as well as the distinct challenges of cultivating each mind in a digital era. We then delineate the types of schools we believe are best suited to meet these challenges. In conclusion, we consider the pedagogical practices required to develop the five minds and the policies and practices that powerfully affect what happens within the classroom walls.

Background/Context: Digital media seem to pervade all aspects of American youth's lives, from communicating with friends and family to learning about the world around them. Many educators and scholars celebrate the new opportunities for learning that Web 2.0 tools present, and empirical evidence suggests that computer-mediated communication positively influences the quality of adolescents' friendships. Yet, adults are also mindful of the risks associated with youth's digital media activities, including the negative effects of multitask-ing and the implications for identity development of being perpetually " tethered " to one's friends and family. Focus of Study: Because widespread Internet and mobile phone use are still relatively new phenomena, further research is needed to investigate their effects on young people. Existing research indicates that the effects are unlikely to be wholly positive or negative. In this article , the author explores the tension between the promises and perils associated with digital media in the context of one college student's daily experiences. Research Design: Using the qualitative method of portraiture, the author examined how one college student uses digital media in her everyday life; her motivations and goals for using various media; and the opportunities and drawbacks she perceives in her daily media use. Conclusions: This student's experiences illuminate the always-connected, always-connecting quality of life for today's young people. Her experiences also reveal the complexity of life with digital media, because media both support her connections to people and ideas and give rise to feelings of disconnection and fragmentation. Finally, this portrait highlights the need for and value of nurturing youth's reflective practices and providing them with spaces to engage in sustained reflection.

Adolescent girls have emerged as the largest demographic of bloggers in the United States. In this study, the author interviewed 20 girls, aged 17 to 21, who had been blogging for 3 or more years. Consistent with previous studies involving youths' online activities, the girls discussed their use of blogging for self-expression and peer interaction. They also observed that the content and style of their blog writing has changed considerably over the years. Their observations reflect key changes in self-development and peer relationships that typically occur during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Drawing on these findings, the author presents a conceptual framework that illustrates how developmental theory can illuminate our understanding of adolescents' and emerging adults' online behaviors.

We contend that the formation of the contemporary mind should emphasize the development of respect and ethics. Individuals with respectful minds welcome differences between themselves and other individuals and groups and seek to work effectively with all parties. Individuals who possess ethical minds acknowledge their membership within numerous local, national, and international communities; they consider the effects of their actions upon these communities. The multiple intelligences of human beings – particularly logical–mathematical intelligence and the personal intelligences – are the core capacities upon which policymakers and practitioners must call when seeking to foster young people's respectful and ethical minds. Here, we offer a number of experiences that can enhance relevant facets of young people's logical–mathematical and personal intelligences and help them to employ their intelligences in prosocial ways.

The new digital media are a frontier that is rich with opportunities and risks, particularly for young people. Through digital technologies, young people are participating in a range of activities, including social networking, blogging, vlogging, gaming, instant messaging, downloading music and other content, uploading and sharing their own creations, and collaborating with others in various ways.
In late 2006, our research team at Harvard Project Zero launched a three-year project funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The goals of the GoodPlay Project are twofold—(1) to investigate the ethical contours of the new digital media and (2) to create interventions to promote ethical thinking and, ideally, conduct. In the first year of the project, we conducted back- ground research to determine the state of knowledge about digital ethics and youth and to prepare ourselves for our empirical study. This report describes our thinking in advance of beginning our empirical work. We expect to revisit the framework and arguments that are presented here after our empirical study is complete.

In this report, we explore the ethical fault lines that are raised by such digital pursuits. We argue that five key issues are at stake in the new media—identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. Drawing on evidence from informant interviews, emerging scholarship on new media, and theoretical insights from psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies, we explore the ways in which youth are redefining these five concepts as they engage with the new digital media. For each issue, we describe and compare offline and online understandings and then explore the particular ethical promises and perils that surface online.

We define good play as online conduct that is meaningful and engaging to the participant and is responsible to others in the community and society in which it is carried out. We argue that the new digital media, with all their participatory potentials, are a playground in which five factors contribute to the likelihood of good play—the technologies of the new digital media; related technical and new media literacies; person-centered factors, such as cognitive and moral development, beliefs, and values; peer cultures, both online and offline; and ethical supports, including the presence or absence of adult mentors and educational curricula. The proposed model sets the stage for an empirical study that will invite young people to share their personal stories of engagement with the new digital media.