Last week, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, long-time supporter of CC, announced the second annual Digital Media and Learning Competition. The 2008 competition is a collaborative result of the MacArthur Foundation, the University of California, Irvine, Duke University, and HASTAC, a virtual and voluntary network of educators and innovators committed to improving learning via technology. The competition accompanies the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Initiative, a $50 million, five-year initiative that was launched in 2006 to “help determine how digital technologies are changing the way people, especially young people, learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.”

This year’s competition theme is “Participatory Learning,” which focuses on the collaborative aspect of learning by exploring different and new models in digital media. This may include “major adaptations of existing models of gaming, world building, social networking or other virtual environments; or the development of entirely new programs.” The emphasis, however, is on “a strong commitment to making possible new ways of valuable participatory learning, as opposed to simply creating new content.”

$2 million will be awarded in sum over two categories: “Innovation in Participatory Learning” and “Young Innovator.” The latter’s focus is the same, but the targeted group is 18-25 year old persons who are willing to “think boldly about what comes next in participatory learning and to contribute to making it happen.”

The winning products and/or programs will be licensed CC BY-NC-SA or be available as Open Source. For more details, see the MacArthur Foundation’s August 18th press release and the competition guidelines.

For examples of winning projects, see last year’s winners in Innovation and Knowledge-Networking.