Engaged Youth » PSO Programming

PSO Programming

June 10th, 2008 at 12:19pm Toby Campbell Permalink

We are currently developing PSO media skills curricula at both our partnering organizations, such as the YMCA, and through the CCCE’s Becoming Citizens program (http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/civiceducation/citizens.html). However, we would love to hear our project advisor’s ideas on the following:

What are some of the programmatic pieces you feel we might want to be sure to include to go along with the PSO website?

What are some of the media pieces that you think we should teach?

Finally, what kind of youth development philosophy would you encourage?

Entry Filed under: adviser conversations, digital learning skills

4 Comments Add your own

1. Toby Campbell | June 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

To elaborate upon this prompt, I would like to include some additional information on the media skills curricula we are developing thus far. So far, we have developed the following workshops:

1) Effective Online Communication
This training focuses on emailing: how to set up an email account, how to write an effective email, and general online etiquette

2) Online Safety
This training deals with privacy, how to set up safe profiles, and cyber-bullying

3) Digital Media Literacy
This training blends traditional media literacy with digital media literacy

4) Blogging
This training treats blogging from start to finish – from how to set up a blog, to effective blogging style and ettiquite, to how a student might use blogs to raise awareness about issues

5) Social Networking
This training focuses on how students can begin to use their own social networks to create change in their own communities

6) Digital Storytelling
This training begins by explaining the cultural and political significance storytelling can have, to examining new forms of digital storytelling, to helping students construct their own digital stories.

We would love feedback on these particular curricula themes. Are there skills that we are missing? Critical aspects we should be sure to include in these curriculum modules? Additional curricula folks recommend we develop? We would love to hear from our advisers on these issues.
2. Deen Freelon | July 2nd, 2008 at 10:01 am

Hi Toby. I’m not an adviser, but one thing I think would be really interesting for the blog down the road is an assessment of how these curricula are being received by youth. Are they engaged, or distant and inattentive? Is their media output strong, or at least recognizably civic? Do we have some sort of exit survey for them that will allow us to report, for example, that our curricula increased their interest in civic matters? Writing our experiences up for discussion here will help us revise the curricula and offer an object lesson for practitioners interested in adapting our ideas.
3. Howard Rheingold | July 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am

Three principles that I think ought to be kept in mind in regard to all of the above themes:

1. Start with what students care about.
2. Start with what students care about.
3. Start with what students care about.

I mean that literally before talking about any technology or literacy, start with a student-centric discussion about what matters in their lives, what issues concern them, what kinds of questions they have, what they would like to learn about. I would emphasize that this is not limited to school-type subjects, but that the most important aspect is that they care about it.

With my students — college students who already have basic skills — I am aiming more and more at inquiry. What questions do they want to pursue? Given a question or small set of questions, as individuals or as small teams, THEN introduce search and RSS as ways to pursue the inquiry.

I found this blog post to be useful. Quoting:

* We work best and learn best when it matters to us. Some kids don’t know what matters to them though, yet.

* We always need to remember we teach kids first and our subjects second.

* Student Centered. It’s not about us. It’s about the kids. “It’s about the work they do. Not the work we do.”

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance–story about mechanic who honks the horn to test it has done a more authentic science experiment versus teacher doing an experiment in science that already knows the end result. Authentic learning is important.

* It has to be passionate and it has to matter. (He is sharing story of a group of his students who worked with their teacher and found a brand new way to process biodiesel. The students have filed two patents on it this year. Two communities overseas are going to build it. ) He asks do you think these students get to class on time everyday?

* It should be metacognitive. We need to think about thinking.

* It should be technology infused. The technology should be “ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.”

* Understanding driven and project based.

* Purpose of projects is not the project, it is deep understanding.
4. Toby Campbell | July 31st, 2008 at 2:15 pm

These are great points. We can definitely use an assessment of how our curricula are being received by youth. We are currently working on some evaluation materials for our youth teams, and for youth who access the PSO site through other organizations and independently. Our pre and post surveys include questions about the civic interest and involvement of the youth we work with. However, I agree that more pointed curriculum evaluation seems like a great next evaluative step.

As for Howard Rheingold’s comments, I can’t agree enough that a student-centered approach will be most effective. We began this project with a series of focus groups around Seattle in which we spoke with hundreds of local youth about the issues they care about and they way the envisioned using an online youth space in the city. Our continued curriculum development and programming with partnering youth organizations has remained youth-centric and project-based, as Dr. Rheingold advises, and I think the next steps will involve exploring ways to make the governance of the project youth-driven and youth-centered.