Partners

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. Through the support it provides, the foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, helps strengthen institutions, helps improve public policy, and provides information to the public, primarily through support for public interest media.

The GoodPlay Project: Ethical Perspectives on Young Person's Use of Digital Media
Principal Investigator: Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education
The GoodPlay Project is exploring the ethical character of young people's online activities. The broad aim of the project is to discover how young people are changing because of digital media, with a  particular focus on the ethical fault-lines that surface online, including those related to identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. The Good Play team is studying youth ages 15-25 who participate in online games, social networking sites, and other online communities. The project seeks to uncover the meanings of "good play" online and to develop curricular materials that support reflection about digital ethics.

Wyn Kelley
Wyn Kelley, of the Literature Faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is author of Melville's City: Literary and Urban Form in Nineteenth-Century New York (1996). Associate Editor of the Melville Society journal Leviathan, and editor of the Blackwell Companion to Herman Melville, she has published in a number of journals and collections, including Melville and Hawthorne: Writing Relationship, Ungraspable Phantom: Essays on Moby-Dick, Melville and Women, "Whole Oceans Away": Melville in the Pacific, and The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. A founding member of the Melville Society Cultural Project, she has worked closely with the New Bedford Whaling Museum on a number of initiatives: lecture series, conferences, exhibits, and a scholarly archive. Her next project is a Blackwell Short Guide to Herman Melville.

Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
Over the past twenty years, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Artistic Director of Mixed Magic Theatre, has written/produced/directed "From the Bard to the Bounce: A Hip-Hop Shakespeare Experience", "Kwanzaa Song", "The Great Battle for the Air", "About Me and the Adventure" (with Community Prep and the Rhode Island School for the Deaf), "How the World Came to North Kingstown Café"(an American historical drama for the North Kingstown Millenium), "The Spirit Warrior's Dream" (at the University of Rhode Island, Long Island University, Johnson & Wales University, and Marin Academy in San Rafael, California), "Harlem Renaissance Project" (with Blackstone Academy), and four Annual Black History Month Celebrations at Portsmouth Abbey. Pitts-Wiley was the Resident Artist at Brown University Summer High School in 2001. In all of these collaborations, students had the opportunity to work with professional theatre artists and musicians.

Youth Voice Collaborative
Young Woman's Christian Association (YWCA), Boston, MA
An innovative after-school program of media literacy and leadership training, YVC provides young people from 13-18 with the information they need to become critical consumers of media and the skills to create and distribute messages that reflect their realities. YVC continues to expand and students have benefited from partnerships with the Boston Public Schools, WGBH, MIT, and 21st Century Learning Centers.

MIT@Lawrence
MIT@Lawrence is a long-term commitment to support dynamic and mutually beneficial relationships between faculty, students, and staff at MIT, together with civic leaders, residents, and community-based organizations in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The MIT@Lawrence commitment includes service learning, technical assistance, and community-based service projects in three program areas: affordable housing, community asset-building, and youth pathways to career and education. These areas promise opportunities for action-oriented scholarship through university-community engagement for the purpose of contributing to an equitable and sustainable future in the City of Lawrence.

Global Kids  
Founded in 1989, Global Kids' mission is to transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. Through its leadership development and academic enrichment programs, Global Kids educates youth about critical international and domestic issues and promotes their engagement in civic life and the democratic process.

Youth Media Exchange (YMEX)
TakingITGlobal and Global Kids, Inc., in collaboration with Asia Society, are launching Youth Media Exchange, an online social networking environment to encourage media production by international youth addressing the role of digital media in their lives and pressing global issues.