Nichole Pinkard is a Visiting Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. She is the founder of Digital Youth Network and co-creator of Remix World, a social learning platform that connects youth's learning opportunities in school, home, and beyond.
In collaboration with the Chicago Public Library, Dr. Pinkard helped found YOUmedia, a public learning space that immerses high school students in a context of traditional media (books) to make and produce new media artifacts like music, games, videos, and virtual worlds.
When teachers got to observe their students in this alternate learning space, it affirmed the effectiveness of the YOUmedia space: "What we initially did is we asked teachers to just come and watch [...] their students using technology in a way that was very different in how they were using it in the school. So they saw their students as producers and creators. They saw them create videos, they saw them create these video games, music and songs. And what they saw, which many of them talked about: students who were quiet in the school day [came] alive in the after-school space." (2:12)
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