v. important: report & conference

Pew issued a new report on teen use of technology -- this one focuses on writing. Not surprisingly, their research finds that teens make a clear distinction (in their minds) between casual writing, as in a text or blog post, and formal writing for school. But of course the occasional "LOL" will slip into a term paper. (But hopefully not a college application!) 

• update:  eSchoolNews parsed this story more throughly, and found statistical evidence that teen bloggers, through their experience writing for personal reasons, value the skill of writing more than non-bloggers.   A good reason to encourage blogging! 

Stanford hosted a conference (sponsored by digital-ed funders MacArthur Foundation and non-profit media-parent link Common Sense Media) on how to get schools/teachers/educators in general more up to speed on what kids actually LIKE to do with media & technology tools. I hope someone is listening - it is about time that some cogent research on this subject is being presented on this subject.

• CNET story on said conference (link via Ypulse)
• Berkeley's recap of the conference, notes presenting researchers