Overview
Launched in the Spring of 2008, iCue was a media-rich interactive learning environment intended to supplement high school curricula and engage young viewers in the news.
In 2006, the majority of high school students could successfully navigate the rich, diverse, and increasingly complicated scope of media outlets; teens had had little awareness of – or regard for – news and current events. To address this disparity, MIT and NBC News joined forces to develop iCue: a new media experience to enhance both the learning and teaching of high school humanities. It offered students and teachers access to NBC News coverage and reinforced classroom learning by weaving the media into the curriculum.
Research
iCue built on the New Media Literacies research conducted by Comparative Media Studies including their frameworks to help teachers and corporate media-makers provide students with rich, powerful learning experiences in more participatory contexts. The project extended our work in this area by studying the ways that games can enhance a student’s understanding and experience of learning.
Ultimately, iCue was cancelled and Eric Klopfer and Jason Haas have documented the factors that contributed to the program’s demise as well as professional lessons learned in their recent book, The More We Know.
