About Connected Learning
What is Connected Learning?
Connected learning integrates personal interests, supportive relationships, and access to opportunities. It is learning in an age of abundant access to information and social connections that grows from the diverse interests and assets of young people.
Elements of Connected Learning
The research is clear: Learning is irresistible and life-changing when it connects personal interests to meaningful relationships and real-world opportunity.
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Interests
Learning is irresistible and relevant when it grows from interests, culture, and identity. This could be personal interests like arts, sports, or literature, as well as social issues and community connection that motivates civic engagement and activism. Learn more in our reports on connected arts learning and connected civics.
Relationships
Learners thrive when they are supported and challenged by caring peers and mentors with shared affinities. Youth can find these support and affinity groups in school and community settings, as well as in supportive online spaces and peer interactions. Learn more in our report on social media and youth wellbeing.
Opportunities
Personally relevant learning connected to academic, civic, and career opportunities is how young people find their place in communities and careers. Learn more in our report on how youth development organizations foster occupational equity by connecting to young people’s culture and identity.
Elements of Connected Learning Environments
Connected learning does not rely on a single technology or technique. Rather, it is fostered over time through a combination of supports for developing interests, relationships, skills, and a sense of purpose.
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Sponsorship of Youth Interests
Organizations and adults must meet youth where they are in order to foster connected learning. They do this by being sponsors of what youth are genuinely interested in — recognizing diverse interests and providing mentorship, space, and other resources.
Shared Practices
Learners thrive when they are supported and challenged by caring peers and mentors with shared affinities. Youth can find these support and affinity groups in school and community settings, as well as in supportive online spaces and peer interactions. Learn more in our report on social media and youth wellbeing.
Shared Purpose
Learners need to feel a sense of belonging and be able to make meaningful contributions to a community in order to experience connected learning. Groups that foster connected learning have shared culture and values, are welcoming to newcomers, and encourage sharing, feedback and learning among all participants.
Connections Across Settings
As connected learners develop, they access varied programs, communities and opportunities. In order to support diverse learner pathways, organizations and caring adults can form partnerships, broker connections across settings, and share on openly networked platforms and portfolios.
Connected Learning In Action
Programs and organizations designed around connected learning are serving young people around the country and world.
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Connected Camps
Connected Camps offers STEM online clubs that connect interests in gaming with STEM learning and community, and has served over 20,000 learners since its founding in 2015.
Connected Scholars Program
The Connected Scholars program supports college students in developing network and relationship-building skills based on a connected learning model. Learn more about the positive outcomes of this program from this evaluation research.
Connected Wellbeing Initiative
The Connected Wellbeing Initiative accelerated the impact of 11 innovative programs fostering youth and community wellbeing through strengths-based, social-connected and youth-centered approaches. Read about the programs and their impact in case studies highlighting how they put connected learning and wellbeing into action.
Fuse Studios
Fuse facilitates learning through ‘making,’ develops 21st century skills, and builds collaborative, youth-centered learning communities. FUSE is designed for students in middle and high school, but is also used in community colleges and elementary schools.
STEM Next Making Connections
The Making Connections program of STEM Next offers tools to make connections between afterschool STEM programs to unlock academic, workforce-related and civic opportunities for you.
NASEF
The Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations equips education, comunity and industry leaders to maximize the potential of scholastic esports through a unique blend of play and learning.
Quest to Learn
The Quest to Learn school in New York City is a beacon for game-based connected learning. See the Institute of Play resource site for related curriculum and resources.
YOUmedia
Libraries across the country have established YOUmedia learning labs to engage thousands of young people in creative, hands-on connected learning experiences. See the Connected Learning Through Libraries resources site to learn more.
History of Connected Learning
Connected learning was catalyzed by MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative that invested $242.5 million in research, innovation, and field building between 2004 and 2018. The Connected Learning Alliance has continued to steward a network of researchers, educators, and innovators advancing connected learning research, design and practice with support from the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine.
Connected Learning Over the Years
2005
The MacArthur Foundation makes a series of grants that kick off their initial investments in digital media and learning. These include grants to Henry Jenkins to write a white paper on new media literacy; to Nichole Pinkard to start the Digital Youth Network; and to Peter Lyman, Michael Carter and Mizuko Ito for ethnographic research on youth and digital media.
2006
The MacArthur Foundation launches the Digital Media and Learning Initiative, with a $50 million commitment, to explore how digital media changes the way young people learn, socialize, communicate and play.
2008
Researchers from the Digital Youth Project publish “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Youth Living and Learning with New Media,” reporting on a three-year ethnographic study of youth digital media engagement and learning. The Digital Youth Project was one of the first projects funded by MacArthur’s DML Initiative.
2009
With MacArthur support, four Major DML Initiatives are launched: YOUmedia, a teen digital learning space at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library, is designed in collaboration with the Chicago Public Library, the Digital Youth Network and Carnegie Melon’s Entertainment Technology Center; the New York City Learning Network, later renamed the Hive Learning Network, supports collaboration amongst youth-serving educators in different regions; and the DML Hub at UC Irvine is established to support research and field-building for the emerging DML field.
Quest to Learn, a new middle school for game-like learning in New York City, opens its doors. This project is co-funded by the MacArthur and Gates foundations.
2010
The DML Hub organizes the first Digital Media and Learning Conference, chaired by Henry Jenkins, at UC San Diego.
The MacArthur Foundation launches the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network, chaired by Joseph Kahne, to explore the nature and extent of young people’s use of digital communications tools, social media and the Internet as tools to engage in civic and political activities.
2011
The MacArthur Foundation launches the Connected Learning Research Network, chaired by Mizuko Ito. It is dedicated to understanding the opportunities and risks for learning, afforded by today’s changing media ecology, as well as building new learning environments that support effective learning and educational equity.
2012
The DML initiative adopts connected learning as its core values and design principles and unveils the model at the annual Digital Media and Learning conference in San Francisco.
2013
The Connected Learning Research Network sets a vision for the movement for connected learning in the report “Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design.”
2018
The Connected Learning Summit launches as a new event for the connected learning community, merging the Digital Media and Learning Conference, Games + Learning + Society Conference, and Sandbox Summit.
2020
The Connected Learning Research Network releases its final report, reflecting on their decade of work together, and updating the connected learning framework.
2025
The Connected Learning Lab is established as a cross-campus institute and opens a dedicated lab space at the University of California, Irvine.