The Digital Media and Learning Competition, created in 2007, was designed to find and to inspire the most novel uses of new media in support of learning. Winning projects explore how digital technologies are changing the way people learn and participate in daily life. Awards have recognized individuals, for-profit companies, universities, and community organizations using new media to transform learning. TheDigital Media and Learning Winners' Hub, featuring each winning project, is located on HASTAC.org.
The Competition is funded by the MacArthur Foundation and administered by HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), a virtual network of learning institutions. HASTAC co-founders David Theo Goldberg, Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and Cathy N. Davidson, Duke University, are the principal administrators of the Competition.
Digital Media and Learning Competition
TheDigital Media and Learning Competition is administered by HASTAC (link) and supported by the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning initiative, which aims to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. This open Competition is intended to mobilize emerging leaders, communicators, and innovators in these fields.
2010: Year 3
The third annual internationalHASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition launched in December 2009 with the theme "reimagining learning." Two types of awards were offered: 21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.
The 2010 Competition, launched in partnership with National Lab Day, challenged designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, practitioners and researchers to build learning labs and/or learning experiences for the 21st Century, environments that will help young people interact, share, build, tinker, and explore in new and innovative ways.
21st Century Learning Lab Designers
The21st Century Learning Lab Designer awards were aligned withNational Lab Day as part of the White House'sEducate to Innovate Initiative, and prizes ranged from $30,000-$200,000. Awards were made for learning environments and digital media-based experiences that allow young people to grapple with social challenges through activities based on the social nature, contexts, and ideas of science, technology, engineering and math.
Learning Labs take the form of physical or virtual spaces, maker kits, learning environments, project-based learning experiences, to name a few examples. Labs were expected, at a minimum, to support participatory learning while engaging young people in actively experimenting, inventing, and/or tinkering with some aspects of the grand challenge(s) of the 21st century. They were expected to meaningfully extend across institutions (e.g., libraries, community centers, home, schools, museums, after-school program, youth programs, etc) and communities (physical or online), and had to connect virtually and physically through creative use of digital media. Most importantly, youth were expected to be critical partners and active creators of these learning labs and the experiences they provide.
The Game Changers category was undertaken in cooperation withSony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA), Electronic Arts (EA),Entertainment Software Assocation, and theInformation Technology Industry Council. Winning projects were awarded amounts ranging from $5,000-$50,000 for creative levels designed with either Sony’sLittleBigPlanet™or EA’s Spore™ Galactic Adventures. Winning levels were expected to offer young people engaging game play experiences that incorporated and leveraged principles of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning.
The application process included a public commenting period, which allowed applicants to collaborate with others and improve their submissions prior to final review. Of the more than 800 applications from 32 countries, 67 finalists were asked to submit videos of their projects for a final round of judging. Winners were selected from this pool by a panel of expert judges that included scholars, educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, and other digital media specialists.
Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, announced the tenwinners of the 21st Century Learning Lab Designers category on May 12, 2010 at a celebration of National Lab Day in Washington, DC, and the ninewinners of the Game Changers category at the Games for Change conference on May 24, 2010 in New York, New York. Best in Class awards were selected by expert judges, as well as a fourPeople’s Choice Awards based on the results of over 1200 votes submitted by the general public onwww.dmlcompetition.net.
HASTAC hosted the Digital Media and Learning Competition Winners’ Showcase on March 4, 2011 in Long Beach, California at theSecond Annual Digital Media and Learning Conference, "Designing Learning Futures," an annual event supported by theJohn D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundat and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at University of California, Irvine.
Game Changers Kids’ Competition
The Game Changers Kids’ Competition was part of the larger third annual $2 million HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition dedicated to "reimagining learning." Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA), Electronic Arts (EA), Entertainment Software Association, and the Information Technology Industry Council partnered with the Competition. Youth were challenged to develop new levels and adventures for EA’s Spore™ Galactic Adventures and Sony’s LittleBigPlanet™. Winners who designed adventures for Spore were hosted, along with a parent or guardian, on a trip to Electronic Arts in California. Youth who won for creating new levels in LittleBigPlanet received a Sony PSP-3000 system.
Seventeenwinners of the Game Changers Kids Competition were announced in Washington, DC at the White House Science Fair on October 18, 2010, where President Barack Obama congratulated 13-year-old Jack Hanson of New Mexico for scoring the highest marks among other youth game designer contenders for his winning submission.
2009: Year 2
The2009 Digital Media and Learning Competition cycle launched on August 18, 2008. The theme wasparticipatory learning, which included two award categories. TheInnovation in Participatory Learning Award category (with awards ranging from $30,000 to $250,000) encouraged organizations, institutions, and individuals to develop large-scale projects and models that advanced new learning environments. Eligible applicants from around the world were invited to apply.Young Innovator Awards (with awards ranging from $5,000 to $30,000) were distributed to youth aged 18 to 25 who demonstrated "what comes next in participatory learning."
A total of 19 projects were announced on April 16, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. Fourteen Innovation in Participatory Learning and 5 Young Innovator projects shared the $2 million prize money.
This group also included the first Competition projects based outside the United States, with one project each from Canada, India, Mexico, and South Africa. The public announcement coincided with a showcase in which all 17 projects from the 2008 Competition cycle demonstrated their projects for a public audience.
2008: Year 1
Awards were divided into two categories: Innovation and Knowledge-Networking. The Innovation Award (with grants of $100,000 or $250,000 to each award-winner) was designed to support learning pioneers, entrepreneurs, and builders of new digital learning environments for formal and informal learning. The Knowledge-Networking Award (with grants ranging from $30,000 to $75,000) was designed to support communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating or translating research around digital media and learning.
The competition closed on October 15, 2007. Over 100 applications were received and the 17 award winners were announced on February 21, 2008, with grants totaling $2 million. An archive of the 2007-08 Competition cycle, with more information about the winners and their projects, is availablehere.
