Young people in Viginia, USA have the opportunity to learn how to become digitally savvy students thanks to a project called Globaloria, run by the World Wide Workshop, a non-profit that develops social media and technology applications for use in education.

The project, funded in part by The Knight Foundation, aims to instruct kids in how to read and write with new media. But this is not standard literacy lesson; 'reading' new media might mean understanding how to play and navigate game structures, 'writing' new media might mean learning how to code. The scheme aims to teach young people about how media works, so they can better understand the media they consume and potentially start learning the skills that would stand them in good stead to enter the media industry in future.

The project is now in 50 schools around the state and it is now in the process of becoming a state-funded initiative as it expands and is offered to more students in more schools. Amy Starlight Lawrence, program associate at Knight Foundation said: "Globaloria showed that by enabling students to learn by creating content in the form of games, they furthered their learning goals and digital knowledge".

So maybe computer games in class aren't such a bad idea after all.

Source: The Knight Foundation