"Since the early 80s digital media have promised more engaged, child-centered learning opportunities. The advent of Internet-enabled digital devices has added a new layer of communication & social networking. While this evolving palette of technologies has demonstrated the ability to capture the attention of young people, the innovative learning outcomes that educators had hoped for are more elusive. There is a growing recognition that kids' passion for digital media has been ignited more by peer group sociability & play than academic learning. This gap between in-school & out-of-school experience represents a gap in children's engagement in learning, a gap in our research & understandings, & a missed opportunity to reenergize public education. This project works to address this gap with a targeted set of ethnographic investigations into three emergent modes of informal learning that young people are practicing using new media technologies: communication, learning, & play." - George H. Williams