The glory days of the high school newspaper are long gone -- in some urban districts, it is already virtually extinct. At the same time, students are enjoying new opportunities to make media…via student radio and television programs, classroom projects that include podcasts, Power Point presentations, and web design, and individual web sites. In this story from Youth Media Reporter, editor Kendra Hurley looks at what’s been gained, and lost.

The “G” in family movie ratings clearly doesn’t stand for “girl-power.” Researchers at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California studied 101 kids’ flicks and found that male roles predominate: three of four characters are male, and fewer than one in three of speaking roles overall belongs to a female. There’s evidence that exposure to television is a “significant and positive” predictor of sex role acceptance and attitudes among children and adults. The study was study sponsored by the nonprofit Dads and Daughters and its See Jane program.

The rapid growth of virtual schools is seen by some as the beginning of a fundamental change in the relationship between schools and students. We spoke to Tom Clark, author of Virtual Schools: Status and Trends and co-editor of a new book, Virtual Schools: Planning for Success, for some insight into this new educational frontier.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires a lot of monitoring and measuring on the part of states and school districts. To keep track of data, states are spending millions of dollars to build powerful high-tech systems. Careful data reporting is important—but states are shifting their focus away from putting high-quality instructional technologies, such as personal computers and learning software, into classrooms, according to Education Week’s eighth annual Technology Counts report.

While teens use the Internet day in and day out, new research indicates that many struggle to find their way through the Web�s vast stores of information. Rob Capriccioso reports on how educators and Web designers can help create a more teen-friendly Internet.

CFK reports from: The Brookings Institution
Event: release of report: "OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era"
Organized by: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Reboot, Brookings
Where/When: Washington, D.C., April 11, 2005

The results of a wide-ranging survey on youth and religion were released today. The report, “OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era,” compares and contrasts the religious identities of 18- to 25-year-old Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims. The survey was conducted with 1385 total respondents; Muslim, Jewish, Asian, African American and Hispanic youth were oversampled to achieve more accurate results.

Educators at the Bluffview Montessori School in Minnesota are using an old medium—radio—to teach modern day lessons about working and thinking creatively. Rob Capriccioso reports on this and other audio-focused programs that are gaining steam across the country.

Virtually all U.S. schools are connected to the Internet, with about one
computer for every five students, according to the Department of
Education. At least 15 states provide some form of individualized online
instruction. But too many teachers still lack the skills needed to make
the most of new technologies. The Department's National Education
Technology Plan describes the state of ed tech and recommends
improvements -- including tapping students' own technological abilities
in classrooms.