The annual JSB Symposium, sponsored by the School of Information through a grant from John Seely Brown, features thought-leaders from the front lines of the digital revolution, sharing their perspectives on the societal implications of new technology.

Mizuko "Mimi" Ito, a cultural anthropologist of technology use, will speak on entrepreneurial or connected learning. With connected learning, students are able to pursue academically-oriented knowledge about topics and causes they are passionate about, with the support of their peers and schools.

Current strategies for supporting young people's learning were honed in an era where communication centered on face-to-face interaction and experts controlled the flow of knowledge. Today's digital, networked, and interactive media ecology offers new opportunities to pursue meaningful, demand-driven, and socially connected learning, but only the most active digital learners, around one percent, are taking advantage of this amazing potential.

Ito will discuss new learning pathways and relationships that can make connected learning scalable and accessible to more students. She will look at how educators and parents can guide and teach young people in this new era of abundant, free-flowing information and social connection.

Ito is a Professor in Residence at the UC Humanities Research Institute, and has appointments at the Department of Informatics and the Department of Anthropology. Her work on educational software appears in Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children's Software. Ito serves as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning and Research Director of the Digital Media and Learning Hub at UC Irvine.

In Japan, her research has focused on mobile and -portable technologies, and she co-edited a book on that topic with Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. She has led a three-year collaborative ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, examining youth new media practices in the US, and focusing on gaming, digital media production, and Internet use. The findings of this project are reported in Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Youth Living and Learning with New Media. Her book on anime fandom, Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World, was just released by Yale University Press.

Learn more about Mimi Ito at www.itofisher.com/mito.