Participant Understandings of the Affordances of Remix World

Remix World was designed as an online media education learning environment that bridges multiple contexts of informal and formal learning. On Remix World students and mentors have the opportunity to engage in critical dialogue in an online community context (Buckingham 2007) and to construct knowledge through the production of artifacts that are linked to social practices and social identities. A more in-depth analysis of these new media artifacts, which include video, blogs, discussion threads, photos, and personal profile pages, will provide further insight into the meaning-making opportunities, knowledge building (Scardamalia and Bereiter 2003), and knowledge-sharing interactions of this space and the literacy practices that students engage in as members of Remix World. More research is needed to explore issues of equity and the availability of learning opportunities for all youth within learner, community-centered, and new media environments (Alvermann et al. 1999; Buckingham 2007).