What if your extracurricular activities weren’t just extra but a part of your academics too? New thinking on education intends to bring students' interests into the classroom. It's called Connected Learning and promotes the idea that students will excel in school if what they are learning is relevant to their lives, experiences, and passions. This plan is spelled out in a new report, by Mimi Ito, the research director of the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of Ca. Irvine.

While students would still learn core subjects like math and science, Connected Learning provides ways for students to link their classroom lessons to their lives outside the school. Ito says the objective of Connected Learning is to, “meet young people where they are in terms of their peer culture, their interest in popular culture, social media, rather than say you have to meet us where we are as adults.”

Ito uses the Harry Potter Alliance to demonstrate how Connected Learning’s can be effective. She says, “the HPA connects young people who are inspired by the civic virtues portrayed in the Harry Potter books, and want to apply them to the real world.” This fan network organizes over social media platforms (Facebook, Livestream, Youtube, Twitter) to spread awareness and solutions to issues like, equality, and human rights, and to support of charitable causes. Literacy has been a central focus of the group. Their annual book drive has brought 85,000 donations since 2009 and contributions have helped build a library for a charter school in NYC.

 The Federal Trade Commission has just updated and tightened rules protecting children’s online privacy. Existing restrictions prevent sites from collecting information from minors under the age of 13 without first obtaining parental consent. The new amendments apply that rule to mobile technology and tablets. Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the trade commission, has called it a "landmark update of a seminal piece of legislation."

Youth Radio’s Malachi Segers has been following the legislation and is concerned that stronger protections could mean less internet freedom. He says, “it should be up to kids and their parents to decide how much they disclose online.”

The Direct Marketing Association and the Association of National Advertisers agrees that heavier restrictions could handicap online marketers' ability to tailor their advertisements to users’ online habits. The industry group’s lawyer, Mr. Stuart P. Ingis, tells the New York Times, “there might be overreaction that would limit just general third-party collection of data, which is very useful to businesses and consumers.”

Take a look at the final changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection rule and tell us what you think. Here are some highlights:

Change the paramaters of "personal information” that cannot be collected without parental notice and consent, to include geolocation information, photographs, videos and audio files that contain a child’s image or voice.

Disallow kid-directed apps and websites to permit third parties to collect personal information from children through plug-ins without parental notice and consent;

Require website operators and online service providers to take reasonable steps to release children’s personal information only to companies that are capable of keeping it secure and confidential;

Expand the definition of a website or online service directed to children to include plug-ins or ad networks that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information through a child-directed website or online service.

Require sites and services that target children only as a secondary audience to differentiate among users, and provide notice and obtain parental consent only for those users who identify themselves as being younger than 13.

 In 2008, an estimated two-thirds of first-time voters supported Barack Obama, causing some analysts to peg 18 to 21-year-olds as a politically liberal voting bloc. But today, national polling data shows first-time voters are more ideologically diverse, both within parties and as a whole. Using data from CIRCLE, the Harvard Instittue of Politics and voting experts, Youth Radio illustrates how this new generation is shaping the face of politics.

 Illustration and graphic design by Teresa Chin. Reporting by Robyn Gee and Maya Cueva.

Our friends at KQED continue their YouDecide series with this question about the cost of college.

Challenge your assumptions at YouDecide.

By Lauren Silverman

One hundred and eight pages. That's my next reading assignment. No, it's not the last chapters of one of Steig Larsson's novels. It's the "proxy statement" from Morgan Stanley.

Back in August, I went online and put the majority of my savings in Morgan Stanley's "Special Value Fund." I didn't realize Mr. Stanley would soon be asking me for advice on how to manage his company.

Let me explain. Two years ago, I couldn't tell the difference between a stock chart and a seismograph, which you have to admit look pretty similar. Then, the financial crisis hit. And all the talk about bonds, bankruptcy, and billions made me want to learn how markets work. So I started practicing on stock market game websites - like the Investopedia Simulator.

To my surprise, I actually did pretty well. So when analysts started raving about bargain stock deals, I decided it was time to take the money I had saved up from babysitting and selling jewelry out of the bank and invest it. My stock market-savvy uncle Richard nudged me to invest everything. But my dad, who would rather have me walk on cement than eggshells, told me to slow down. So I compromised and kept about twenty percent squirreled away in the bank.

A year later, here I am: sitting on the floor in my apartment with a long letter from Morgan Stanley in my hands.

Okay, I know a reminder notice to cast a proxy vote isn't exactly an invitation to the company picnic or anything, but I am still honored to know Morgan Stanley wants my opinion on his plans for the future of his company.

The only problem is I can't quite figure out what his plans for the future are, or even who's behind them.

In this third installment of Youth Radio's Making Cents--a video collaboration with Marketplace in which teens talk money...we're tackling: taxes.


 

"When you think of the IRS, what comes to your mind and why?"

Our friends in public media's Economy collaboration are shining the spotlight on a new project.

In a world where more and more Americans dream of pusuing a college degree, the cost of higher education continues to rise. According to the College Board, most students can expect to pay up to a thousand dollars more in tuition and fees this year than they did last year.

So, how can students -- and, in many cases, their families -- pay for college? Well, these days, it takes a lot of planning. In an effort to help, the Nightly Business Report team presents -- "Planning 101: Paying for College." The program is a resource you can use to get the information you need about college costs, savings plans, loans, and more.

Check out a ton of videos on subjects ranging from student loans and savings plans to a breakdown of college costs all at PBS' Nightly Business Report.

While diving into the new Credit CARD Act I asked, “what ever happened to legislation making more student loans available directly from the government?”

And the last I heard, the lobbyists for major private student lenders were stalling that one. Well Obama isn’t going let this slip though the cracks. Our President is still working to overhaul of federal student loan programs. By combining the new student loan programs with Democratic Healthcare reform into an expedited budget reconciliation bill (or as like to call it, the SUPER DUPER REFORM bill), it can be passed with a majority vote instead of the "necessary" 60% or more vote.

The bill would end government payments to private, commercial student lenders, leaving the government to lend directly to students. It would also redirect billions of dollars to expand the Pell grant program for low-income students, and to pay for other education initiatives.

[And] federal education officials warned on Thursday that if Congress failed to act, millions of students might see their Pell grants cut by 60 percent.

(Via: NY Times)

There are two main reasons to package these programs together. One: it saves the financial student loan bill, that many believe wouldn’t have a chance without the health care reform. Two: it attempts to persuade health care reform opposition by offering aid to their students. Some senators who have strong ties to private lenders are now in a sticky situation.

This loan reform will help stimulate the government; they will be making money off of each loan they receive while not charging crazy interest rates. An estimated “$87 billion [will be saved] by eliminating payments to private lenders “and that savings could go towards more Pell Grants.  If this bill passes it assures Americans that their government is on their side, and wants to help them stay out of major debt from health care cost and student loans.

This is an extreme relief for college students like me, who are stressing with how next year's tuition will be paid. If this passes students struggling to get jobs over the summer, working during school, and filling out endless pages for grants and scholarship can take a breath. 

By Lauren Silverman

A few years ago I secretly dreamed about working on Wall Street. I used to picture myself in a pinstripe business suit strutting past the Charging Bull before the opening bell. Working there seemed cool. It was like working for the company that makes the blackberry – before the iphone…or working for Enron – before the bankruptcy.

On the March 4th Day of Action, colleges around California and across America joined in solidarity with protests, walk-outs, teach-ins, and marches against major budget cuts in public education. This is far from just a California UC system march; k-12 schools and 4-year and 2-year colleges in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota all participated  totaling in 33 cities and over 125 events across the nation.

Every level of education has been affected by these budget cuts. K-12 schools are receiving less funding and firing more teachers. Community colleges will be turning more than 20,000 students away. Tuition has drastically risen at UC’s and California State Universities are crowing classrooms and furloughing professors.

Here are some reactions from every perspective:

Students have varied opinions. UC Berkeley’s the Daily Californian reports, "For me, it is about the symbolic statement-I don't expect anything to come out of this," said Jackie Moore, a UC Berkeley junior, as she marched to Oakland. "We need to say we value public education."

High school students explain how important it is for them participate. "I'm only 16, I can't vote, I don't really have a say in the politics of it all, as much as I would want to," said Hope Schwartz, a sophomore at Oakland Technical High School who joined the march. "This is the only thing I can do."

Elected officials responded to the protestors in California, “a spokesman for Schwarzenegger said he wanted a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that higher education received more funding than the state's prison system”. State Senator Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo said, “In all my 20 years in elected office, this is the largest rally I have ever seen; I've never seen a gathering where they just take over the entire Civic Center area"

A lot of the media perpetuates the negatives of the protest. The students who shut down the freeways in Oakland, CA and in Santa Cruz, CA. The window some students broke at a few universities and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee protesters who threw punches and ice chunks. UC Davis had some violent reaction from the local police, and arrest were made nationwide. The media raises the question, were these protests effective? And how do we measure an effective protest? Instead let’s look and the solidarity formed across the country on all levels of education. March 4th was a Day of Action, the multitude of support and media exposure. Let’s see if any politicians actually hear the thousands of student who screamed to “Save Our Schools”.