Even back in the early days of Comparative Media Studies (CMS), when Henry Jenkins and colleagues met in the basement of the Media Lab, there was much discussion of how new media might shape learning and spur novel forms of expression and community engagement. Over the years, as Jenkins and these panelists attest, CMS, with its extended family of collaborators and visiting scholars, has both refined and broadened its study of the impact of new technologies on education, culture and politics. Mitchel Resnick of the Media Lab has frequently made common cause with partners at CMS, finding them “kindred spirits” in “thinking about technologies as ways of empowering people.” Resnick develops tech tools to unleash creative expression in children, and he argues for the central role of play in learning experiences. Exploration and experimentation, “the testing of boundaries,” should be integrated into school curricula, he believes, so children can “figure out what questions they want to ask.” Resnick praises CMS for taking ideas from the media world, like remixing and online sharing, to help people “rethink ideas about learning.” Some CMS graduates are designing pathbreaking educational material for schools and other educational venues. Karen Schrier developed an interactive game around the Boston Massacre intended to create a “paradigm shift in teaching history.” The game assigns each player a unique perspective from which to interpret events of the time. The idea, she says, is to reconstruct history. Ultimately, Schrier hopes “new literacies” such as critical and ethical thinking, and reinterpretation, will be incorporated into school coursework. In Spain, Pilar Lacasa applies the insights she has distilled from research at CMS to projects with software and game companies, hoping to transform her nation’s schools. At MIT, she learned the value of playing games, and using them in education to create learners who truly participate. She views electronic games as importan...