A few months ago at the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East, I had the opportunity at the round table lunch to learn about the Project New Media Literacies (NML) developed by a team at MIT.
The NML is a research initiative based within MIT's Comparative Media Studies program and explores how educators can equip young people with "the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world."
One of the big challenges for MIT will be working with the Balkanized US education system to get these NML skills integrated into the curriculum. As a result of this fragmentation, the MIT team will have to work with each state on an individual basis to have the NML standards adopted by and/or integrated into the curriculum.
Despite these challenges, the NML standards are a good step in the right direction towards reforming the American school system to meet the needs of today's 21st Century learners.
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