Archive for October, 2007
Via Eszter at Crooked Timber (a really great blog on politics from a social-science perspective) come the results of a recent Berkman Center-sponsored contest that solicited video PSAs explaining WWW cookies. A few of my favorites are here, here, and here. I’m planning on using them as examples when teaching the kids how to produce PSAs for blogging and the content rules.
Entry Filed under: digital learning skills
October 29th, 2007 at 03:48pm
Deen Freelon
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Since we’re not always together and accessible, I suggest we try using some collaboration tools online. They can be helpful when preparing presentations, proposals, or just pure brainstorming.
Examples:
- Google Docs: basics of Word, Powerpoint and Excel. You can upload docs created in your computer and then share them with people you choose.
- Mindomo.com: mindmapping tool(great for brainstorms and mapping all kinds of things). Click here to see an example of a mind map I’m developing for one of my classes.
A couple more suggestions for the blog:
- Can we create a link list to the existing document databases (like Mindshare, Digital aid docs, etc.)?
- Calendar of meetings? so we can see what’s going on.
- List of people in the project and roles, so we can contact each other easily.
- Email subscription option to receive blog updates
- Login link on the blog to post messages?
- Also as the blog grows, you might want to consider looking at search buttons
Entry Filed under: administrative
October 28th, 2007 at 10:30pm
Adri
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I want to continue the discussion that began earlier in the week with Toby’s post on partnership development. The next two quarters will be quite important for the Becoming Citizens program, as we design a program that hopefully will complement PSO for some time. As I mentioned at the UW-group meeting on Tuesday, several possible models for doing this have emerged. I want to lay these out in order to (1) ask for feedback/suggestions; and (2) encourage us to think about the BC program as we develop partnership models, which have important bearing on what the BC program can do.
Track A: One model for BC interaction with the SoundOff emerged from a recent meeting with Lois at Service Learning Seattle (we are speaking again soon to look at some other ideas). In Track A, students would be placed directly with an organization (as most are now), and find ways for the work already going on to have an outlet on PSO. For example, with Service Learning Seattle, BC interns would work with public school 8th graders to learn to communicate the work they are doing in their service placements through the PSO. Beyond simply communicating about their experiences, this could also be an opportunity for those youth to connect to more information and deeper engagement about the issue (e.g. learning about a bill in Olympia that is relevant to their project).
Track B: Another possibility would be for BC students to spend their internships facilitating management teams with various organizations around the city. Here, again, BC students would be working with a continuing group of youth at a local community organization or community center (perhaps a library?). They would be working as small sub-groups of the larger youth management team.
Track C: A third possibility would extend the Service Learning opportunities of public school youth to include participation in the PSO, perhaps on a management or editorial team. In this case, the youth would earn their service learning ours directly from us, and BC students would be assigned to work with a group of such youth. I will talk to Lois soon about whether Service Learning Seattle would be open to that kind of partnership.
Track D: A final model for BC/PSO interaction would be the workshops Toby described in her post early this week. This would be the least demanding in terms of BC students’ schedules or the commitment of partners. BC students would intern with the CCCE (much the way the Focus Group interns did in the spring), they would design or at least learn to run skills workshops on various aspects of PSO (e.g. blogging, video production), and they would use PSO as the framework for the workshops. Workshops could be given at organizations either one-off or perhaps in a sequence (like two meetings separated by a week, with an assignment in between). This would give a large number of youth in many organizations exposure to PSO and the opportunities we offer; however, there would be no way to ensure that they continue to use PSO or that further content is produced after the workshop(s).
I think that, at least for the next two quarters, we probably will be best off with a combination of these tracks. Designing a program for BC interns doing different projects should not be a problem. I’d appreciate any feedback, suggestions or new ideas.
Entry Filed under: partner strategy
October 26th, 2007 at 05:21pm
Chris Wells
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I’ve observed that this team has multiple ways of working together and many different areas, and I find it fascinating how this comes together and translates into action. Note that I come from a highly organized corporate culture where there’s always control on time, budget, and human resources. Normally I’m used to having a project lead/director who is in charge of centralizing and organizing the vision, tasks, deliverables and resources.
Here are some thoughts about this structure, and actions I will incorporate going forward. Please feel free to give me feedback:
Pros:
- It engages people at a personal level
- Free flow collaboration
- Fosters independent action
- People can contribute as much or as little as they want
- Communications lines are open
- Organic configuration that can adapt as project grows and evolves
- Everything has equal importance
Cons:
- Hard to build and keep track of common vision and understanding of how it all fits together (is there a work breakdown system diagram somewhere???)
- Unclear decision process (when and who needs to be present, when to use blog vs meetings, who can veto decisions, who can revisit/challenge a decision already taken)
- How to determine how many people join, when, and what role they play
- Hard to keep focus on results: what are next steps are for different members and expected deliverables
- Unclear what is out of scope
Going Forward:
1.Frame Discussion: Because there’s different meetings and people involved, I see the need to spend a little time always giving a bit of background:
- what I’m doing
- why
- how it connects to the rest of the stuff
- clarify what I want from people (an opinion, a decision, collaboration, etc).
- clarify whether I’m opening a “vision, long term discussion” or ” right-now, immediate action thing.
2. Decision Log: Deen’s idea was great and I’m keen to start using it after every meeting.
Questions:
- When does a “proposal” become a decision?
- What types of decisions are worth blogging?
Entry Filed under: collaboration reflections, misc
October 25th, 2007 at 02:38pm
Adri
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Toby and Adri met to continue work on marketing plan. Given some of the on going discussions we decided to compartmentalize efforts and focus on things we can attain before the site launches and things that are longer term:
Partner Strategy:
1. Toby will lead the partner strategy and divided in pre-launch and post-launch timelines. Agreed on concrete outcomes
2. We developed a partner types (content basic, offline+online collaborators and managed content (TBD, depending on site structure), target partners for this quarter
3. We will modify the last proposal to reflect discussion and incorporate comments to date. Toby to post full proposal next week
Direct to Youth Marketing:
1. Adri will take the lead on this
2. Adri will consult with Chris/Amber on possible integration with classes so kids can develop their own marketing materials and ideas for viral marketing
3. Adri will post proposal on blog next week
We plan to present final plan on Team Meeting in 2 weeks.
Entry Filed under: decision log, partner strategy
October 25th, 2007 at 01:46pm
Adri
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Hi all, thanks for using the blog . . . I just added a new category
called “decision log” that will allow us to record all decisions made
during our meetings. One way it might work is the following: at the end
of every meeting (whether the entire group is present or not), someone
takes a few minutes to record any decisions that were made. Then,
that person comes back and posts them here in the decision log. The
idea is that we have an easily accessible, regularly updated chronicle
of what has been decided so that we can keep duplication of effort to a
minimum. So, unless anyone is opposed, let’s see if this is worthwhile
by trying it out at the next few meetings
Entry Filed under: administrative
October 25th, 2007 at 10:58am
Deen Freelon
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I’ve (toby) started this learning goals document that we can use to articulate the learning goals we have for youth involved in the PSO project over the years to come. Please reply to this with any comments or additions.
I would like to urge you all to think conceptually about these goals; this is not a template for curriculum. It’s a way for us to step back and clarify all of the learning goals we have for youth who get involved in the PSO in any way (outside the YMCA program as well as within it) in the years to come. So, don’t worry about the nitty gritty of curriculum construction yet when it comes to these ideas. Let’s just make sure we are all on board with a set of learning goals first. We can get into the nitty gritty of curriculum construction based on these goals after we’ve done this conceptual work; hopefully this will make that step easier down the road.
1. media literacy
- Political Economy of the media (in other words, an analysis of the way media is shaped by economic and political forces - ownership, for example)
- Importance of independent and community media
2. youth voice
- What is it? Why important? How can we cultivate it thru PSO?
- How do you present your voice effectively
3. blogging
- What is it?
- Threaded discussions via comments - how they work
- Etiquette
- How to blog
- How to manage content and online discussions
4. Video
- How to contribute to youth voice through video
- How to make videos
5. Citizen journalism basics
- Why is this kind of journalism important?
- How to do citizen journalism - issues reporting
6. Content Management (editorial curriculum)
- Principles - leadership, content policy
7. Civic Engagement and Organizing
- What is civic engagement
- How can youth get engaged
- Organizing tools workshop
8. Social Networking, Digital Media
- How can these tools be used to bring youth together around topics and issues
Entry Filed under: civic learning goals
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:46pm
Chris Tugwell
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PROPOSAL B:
CREATING PSO CURRICULUM
Rationale:
Folks at the YMCA program have been doing an excellent job creating new curriculum for the PSO team at the Y on the fly. However, more resources allocated toward the creation, packaging and testing of curriculum would be very helpful, especially if we think of this curriculum as leverage – an appealing resource – for new partners down the road. This proposal therefore suggests a way that we may be able to support additional curriculum construction and testing, and to expose potential new partners and youth to the PSO program and site along the way.
Adapting the Becoming Citizens Program:
In the winter and fall, BC interns would work with staff support to develop and test specific curriculum modules. These would be designed in the form of discrete workshops that BC interns would go out into the community to facilitate at youth organizations around Seattle. Each workshop would teach a particular skill and would use the PSO website as a workshop tool whenever possible. In this way, youth and organizations would be exposed to the commons while receiving valuable curriculum and a free workshop that would teach a specific skill to their youth. Additionally, we would have the opportunity to test and refine exportable curriculum modules that we could use to attract new partners over time.
What we’d need to support this:
1. Support for curriculum development (School of Education?)
2. Curriculum subcommittee meetings to decide
-What specific learning goals to address with BC curriculum
-Logistics of how to create curriculum and test it: timeline
-Resources, needs, scope of work
Comments?
Entry Filed under: digital learning skills
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:41pm
Toby Campbell
Permalink
PROPOSAL A:
ESTABLISHING YOUTH ACTIVITY AND CONTENT FOR THE WEBSITE
Rationale:
At this launch phase, our marketing efforts to recruit large numbers of unpaid youth will be effective IF and ONLY IF the site appears active and interesting when these youth visit it for the first time. This proposal is designed to ensure that the website becomes active (an active community of youth is consistently using the site for the kinds of activities for which it was designed, productively engaging in discussions and posting content) and interesting (there is ample, circulating content on the website).
1. Problem: We need content.
Solution: We ask our partners to provide us with content created by their youth.
2. Problem: Why would partners want to provide us with content? What do they get in return?
Solution: We give them the promise that all content posted by their youth will be commented on and discussed by youth using our site who are trained to engage in positive dialogue around youth content. Their youth can participate in discussions that stem from their work.
3. Problem: How will we ensure that all content is being discussed?
Solution: We hire a team of paid youth to comment on and discuss all website content. They receive training on how to positively do this, and we create job descriptions that are very specific about expectations for their positions. They could work out of the Y or even from home.
PHYSICAL SPACES:
As we establish these content partners, we will test program collaborations that open up physical spaces for PSO youth. For example, we may collaborate with the libraries to report on their Writers’ in the Schools event, or collaborate with the VERA project to host an arts or music event tied to PSO content. These opportunities will open up on a case by case basis through meetings and correspondence with partner staff.
Proposal A PHASE TWO: MARKETING TO YOUTH
The purpose of Proposal A is to ensure that the website becomes active and interesting so that a phase two marketing campaign to recruit many youth to the site will be effective.
What do we need to make Proposal A possible?
• Funds to pay youth staff
• Staff work on creating partnerships to get content for when the website launches
• Staff work on structuring job descriptions and training for paid youth staff
• Staff recruit youth to act as paid staff when the website launches
Comments?
Entry Filed under: partner strategy, youth management
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:37pm
Toby Campbell
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One of the ideas that came up during our budget discussion was how much money would we be willing to give to organizations for maintaining a project team group. The range was $500 to $1500. I suggested we should look at capacity building and provide an organization with $1000 to $1500 worth of camera’s, video camera’s, software, and equipment; along with digital story telling curriculum.
Our Y did this with Cali, Columbia this summer. We spent a little over $1000 on equipment, put together some basic curriculum, and sent it down with a staff member.
To get the project going we also sent some raw footage of our kids asking some very basic questions like: “what do you do in your free time” and “what does your home look like.”
Entry Filed under: partner strategy
October 22nd, 2007 at 09:57am
Chris Tugwell
Permalink
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