Integrating Web 2.0 into Youth Programming

“If you work with youth, you know that they are interacting online. They are creating and posting content and remixing, commenting on, and mashing up content created by others. New Web 2.0 tools, which encompass sites allowing for collaborative, dynamic, user generated content, are quickly becoming ubiquitous in everyday life.”

Myself and a few other CTEPs worked for the past few months on an article for the Youth Media Reporter, a professional journal for the youth media field. We focused on how new technology tools are being integrated into youth programming and what capacity building needs are still there.

Its definitely a topic I am interested in looking at in the future. You can read the full article here. (http://www.youthmediareporter.org/2009/08/integrating_web_20_into_youth.html)

ABCs

One of the additional reasons I started this blog, besides documenting interesting new and mass media that intrigues and frightens me was to find resources for being critical of the media. At my job at a cable access TV station working with youth I have been looking around at different media literacy. I plan on keeping that up in the future but I wanted to share one really great resource. Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Channel has their media literacy training curriculum available online, free to download. You can find the curriculum in PDF form, and their presentation slides here.

The arc of the curriculum is great, it opens by asking students to identify different types of trees based on their leaves, all trees found around NYC. They then show the alphabet to the left, and ask students to identify what product each of the letters comes from (try it, its scary how easy it is). They then move into an explanation of media consolidation and some analysis of different texts (I think they include some sort of dated ads, which can easily be swapped out for new ads), and then conclude with a call to action. A call to be media producers, cultural producers, to go down to MNN and make something. I think thats probably a good idea, so check out Youth Channel’s curriculum and find out if there are any public access centers, pirate radio stations, community radio in your area. Or, start a blog, print a zine. Make some of your own media. (Thats my call to action…)

Trying blogging again.

I have tried to keep blogs before about myself, and I never end up keeping up with them, or never knowing what to say. So, here is an attempt to have a blog on a theme. Inspired by my co-worker Mary (who has been starting/working on some blogs this year: technolution.wordpress.com and amerimom.wordpress.com) and a creepy story that I heard on WNYC’s On The Media, I decided to keep track of creepy media and advertising, cool hunting (you should watch Frontline: The Merchants of Cool, if you haven’t), and media literacy resources and curriculum I find along the way. I think that I will be able to go strong in the beginning, I might have a backlog of these ideas in my head, so…stay tuned (or rss feeded).