When Nichole Pinkard launched the Digital Youth Network (DYN) at a University of Chicago charter school in 2005, she knew the program would need to help young people acquire practical skills — competencies useful in school and in the work world. She also knew the program, which focuses on developing literacy with digital media tools and environments, would be working with young people who often had limited access to technology.

Today, DYN, with MacArthur support, has expanded to include several local schools, hundreds of students, and a partnership with the Chicago Public Library to run YouMedia, an innovative learning space for teens. In addition, DYN has worked with Quest to Learn, a New York public school based on principles of game design, to create an after-school program that complements the school's curricula.

"DYN is different from many programs that work with kids around media. Most come from trying to create voice. We wanted them to be prepared for the work world, especially given the communities they were coming from," Pinkard said of the students, many of whom come from African-American and low-income communities on Chicago's South Side.

DYN's programs are largely based on findings in the "Living and Learning with New Media" study, which concluded that young people's online interests can be a springboard for learning. Yet the study noted that teenagers' informal learning environments and formal learning environments, such as schools, are often disconnected.

The Digital Youth Network, now based at Chicago's DePaul University, works to close this gap through a school-based program in several middle schools and a citywide after-school program for high school students that combined serve more than 800 students. In the after-school program, high school students choose what they want to learn, from robotics to game design, with support from DYN mentors. Often, students are eager to use digital media to work on topics assigned by their teachers.

The arts-based middle school program helps teachers use digital media to complement learning. Pinkard said digital media allow teachers to focus more on the content of assignments and help them better engage students. In addition, new media can help teachers provide more accurate ways of understanding what young people can do. Traditional educational methods emphasize scores on standardized tests, while digital media incorporate other aspects of performance, such as composing, storytelling, and critical review of their own and others' work. The emphasis is on demonstrating competence through creating or producing with digital media, where concepts, skills, and rich ideas are embedded in the quality of the production, according to educators involved with the program. For example, DYN mentors in middle schools have helped students create documentaries that express what would be hard to capture in more traditional written reports.

"The biggest barrier for teachers is the fear of being the one to have to teach the kids technology," she said. "The Digital Youth Network allows them to give kids the assignment and let them use any form of media to complete the task without having to teach students how to use the media."

Even more Chicago-area students participate in the program through Remix World, a closed social networking website where youth, with support from select adult mentors, critique each others' videos, podcasts, and other work produced through DYN. Remix World provides youth with a peer-driven community, which research shows is critical to their learning.

Diana Rhoten, director of the Knowledge Institutions program at the Social Science Research Council, said it is important for the educational system to tap into young people's interests. "One of the things that we constantly hear is that, if you look at the data, time-on-task is the biggest influencer of performance in academic gain," she said. "We have mistakenly said time-on-task is time in classroom."

Rhoten is working with 15 institutions in New York City, including museums, libraries, and community centers, to form a citywide learning network. The MacArthur-sponsored effort is part of a broader initiative, including Chicago's YouMedia, which seeks to tap into how young people learn across institutions and media platforms.

Pinkard said DYN's success can be measured in academic and community benefits. A three-year grant from the MacArthur Foundation has allowed the staff to track the program's first middle school participants' state test scores, which have increased over time. Several students have been admitted to Chicago's selective high schools, a competitive process based on grades as well as extracurricular accomplishments. Pinkard said the digital media portfolios students created through the school-based program have helped them with admissions.

Most important, Pinkard said, the students' communities have benefited from their media literacy, as the teenagers teach others what they have learned. DYN has attracted "kids who have the ability and social awareness to take and give back to their communities."