Techophilia and Social Progress

Just been trying a cool new social network that is done as a comic. You can use your own characters or pre-made characters to say your blog words or whatever. Love it! Bitstrips.com

I’m really disappointed that my Alma Mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has decided to continue banning video artist Wafaa Bilal’s show at the RPI arts dept. Giving various reasons, the administration, led by President Shirley Ann Jackson (whom I had hoped would be more progressive) has closed the show. It opened again at http://www.mediasanctuary.org/ but was closed after one day by the city of Troy citing some bylaw infraction. Clearly, they are trying to prevent Wafaa’s message getting out. Ironically, he is a pacifist. The only aspect that is good about this censorship is that it is at least generating discussion about Free Speech. But hey, wouldn’t you have thought that was already something we could agree on??

From a new report by Ipsos-Reid:
“Contrary to popular belief, teens are not online as much as they are stereotyped to be, the time they do spend on the Internet is focused rather narrowly on particular types of websites and activities, and their comfort level with technology is actually much lower than adults. ”

This is fascinating research. One point that did stand out is that many teens’ access to the Internet are limited by their parents. If this was removed, would they have sky-high Internet hours?

I had the opportunity to be a part of a Broadband Symposium in Haida Gwaii in Nov 07. It was organized by Art Lew of the Community Futures there. It was a great opportunity to hear from a large group of experts about the opportunities and challenges for communities that have high speed Internet. Haida Gwaii is just in the process of being hooked up, courtesy of TELUS, the BC Gov’t and GwaiiTel, a local not-for-profit group that is working to connect the last mile.

Here’s some of the presentations, including mine.

• Phillip Djwa – The Future of Work (880KB)
• Jamie Sterritt – Enhancing Community Vitality through ICT
  
• Chris Bywater – Developing and Expanding your eBusiness
  
• Terry McAloney – High-Speed Internet on Haida Gwaii
  

At a recent conference, we convened a discussion around youth and what our thoughts are about engaging youth.

Here were the rough notes that I took! It took me a while to write these up, so I feel like I’ve missed some important things, but still, here’s what I remember.

There were a bunch of fantastic people there!

· Victoria Henry, Public Outreach

· Hannah Renglich, Five Minutes to Midnight

· Anna Strom, Renewal Partners

· Nathan Gilbert, Laidlaw Foundation

· Charles Tsai, Global Youth fund

· Alanna MacLennan, Projections Youth

· Tom Willians, GiveMeaning

· Joseph Mouzon, Network for Good

· Marta ?

· Allan Wong, Power of Hope

Youth have it figured it out – it’s the “adults” that need the help. But youth need to be addressed and respected. Youth experiences must be honoured. They can’t be token window-dressing, which often happens with a single “youth in the room”. Meaningful youth engagement is a long and tricky process but must be part of any program. We need to be blind to age and bridge intergenerational communities.

Youth are under siege, being lied to and being targeted by message that are “buy buy buy”. It is a serious state of affairs with youth bored and fighting no to have their differences suppressed. Media literacy is a key part of helping them through this world. This is something we adults can help them with.

Yet they have the answer. They are being lied to but responding with humour, for example with Youtube spoofs.

Digital storytelling is an effective way for youth engagement, given that it is logical for them to use technology. But the role of stories is far beyond just a tale. We need to expand the idea of stories into helping them interpret the world. For example, youth media could shoot stories for not-for-profit orgs and then these are used to tell a story.

Some principles that we need to follow while working with youth:

- suppression of difference must be avoided (don’t constrain them to our adult value system)

- dialogue continuously (and check your language around your beliefs)

- invite youth without restriction

- level the playing field

- provide food

- trust them

- be careful representing the youth to funders, clients

- avoid stereotyping

We also need to example public policies in Canada, for example early childhood education and crime. They need to reflect our current thinking about youth.

More comments that were said verbatim are as follows.

Victoria- we need to have language more accessible, sometimes youth are seen as window-dressing, the experience of being the “youth in the room”

Hannah – online sometimes fails to build a community, how to bridge communities?

Nathan – the laidlaw foundation really practices youth engagement
How to give youth power & representation (they are different) Laidlaw builds in a policy piece – Nathan’s job review is partially completed by youth

Charles – peer to peer learning is key

- this I believe was Global Youth’s essay contest
- high quality youth recordings
- 25 different countries including Togo
- important to have projects that engage them
- to share beliefs
- recently, spent a week in NYC
- there is a barrier in terms of structures i.e. short periods prevent deeper knowledge sharing

Alanna – Projections has a film/video film mentoring aspect linking back to education. small, but long term skills and tools that are needed from POV of students, focus on struggle – they need a chance to be kids, be young

Tom – media literacy is important issue. What is the agenda behind the message? What spoofs of ads are youth responding to? They are being lied to but responding with humour. The Internet is getting worse – either flame war and/or leave

Joseph – had a big interest in youth – reel vignettes and use rich media to tell their story salesforce, bayback has youth media shoot not-for-profit orgs and then use to tell story. Community foundation supports youth media to tell the story of non profits

Marta – youth power, youth are our future – we need an integrated approach that is a holistic view

Allan wong – why I do my work is very related to youth boredom and suppression of difference. Youth are alienated and disconnected and it has gotten to a point where it is a serious sickness, but at the same time they are their own antidote – work is around creativity and engagement of youth. Yes it is dire situation but being real around the communities around issues is important. How to bring sense of aliveness/ creation / constructivism

From here on, it was more of a free input, so I lost the thread of who said what…

Youth need creation and reflection time

It’s logical that they would use technology

But it has to be a meaningful dialogue
just thinking of youth can lead to a token youth
Bigger question of how do we actually be blind to age?

empowering
How do you get information to them
where are you getting your information
how to get them to take action
how to honour their experience
only recently has school been part of this what they want is real engagement connect them to bigger projects

resource is teenage liberation handbook
youtube – power of storytelling – one fact you communicate in terms of special place ideasbank – actionable ideas that youth can take videos are taken by adults, and 1 by kids communicate

role of stories, far beyond just a tale
expand the idea of stories
young people are targeted for marketing – peers etc how do we interpret the world making stories with meaning shouldn’t be just I’m not good enough that I need to buy something…

create youth space
check your ideas and beliefs around your own belief especially language – alienation and class power is always an issue

want to constrain to value system – invite youth without restriction – unblock that disconnect

Youth have it figured it out – we need the help

Where is the intergenerational reciprocity? What do adults give if youth are encouraged to participate?

working with youth is still the “other”
we have something valuable
youth are questioning the value systems

avoid stereotyping
less universal
computer aspect for example

what are some principles
each group has to work with youth
- suppression of difference must be avoided
- dialogue continuously
- level the playing field
- food
- trust
- we have to be careful in the way we market our services
- be careful representing the youth

- direct programs

- public policies in Canada, ie early childhood education and crime
- concept of play is important
- identity formation
- consortium – arts based organizations
- challenge municipalities to be youth friendly
- abdication of parenting – how are parents responsible?

two parts to the question
- training youth and adults

- approach is being there
- cultural
- be the best ancestor you can be

- have youth be able to do what?

- intergenerational work

I read this article and was really impressed Danah Boyd’s opinion in the difference of users on MySpace and Facebook. Basically, she points out that “alter I think I’ve noticed in the work I do with Aboriginal youth that the urban population uses MySpace whereas the on-reserve population uses Hi5 and Beboe. So I guess the approach to understanding why might be to look at this from an anthropological point of view of socio-economics and class. But I think class is hard to pin down, but it is an issue. But so many of the youth are in the same marginalized class it’s hard to pin down. Within a lower socio-economic class, there are differences too, and that is where I am also interested in thinking about. Anyway, I also thought Danah’s points about the ‘bling’ aesthetic very true as I also tie this a lot to the youth I work with. The love for the overkill and the flashy is very true!

We’ve lately done a few focus groups with Aboriginal youth and I’m starting to see some trends. Aboriginal youth, at least here in BC, are pretty savvy when it comes to technology. They are regular users of email and of instant messenger and cell phones. In both focus groups, which were mostly urban Aboriginal youth, there was quite a high use and understanding of information and communication technology. This is great as we want to be able to offer programs online that require youth to be comfortable with technology. However, one interesting fact is that access is still an issue. While many had used cell phones, fewer of them actually had their own cell phone. Barriers are various and multiple with cost being the number one barrier. Same with computer access. Now the question is whether this is the same or different with non-Aboriginal youth. To a certain degree I would say so, but I don’t have any proof. I’ll try to find some.

The Summit 2007 is coming up and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m one of the MC’s again this year and because of the amazing work of Bev Collins of the PCNA and the rest of the organizing committee, it will be fabulous. Check it out at 2007summit.ca!
One cool thing was the video summary from last year. John Kerr from Tatlayoko Think Tank edited it up. I managed to run away every time he came around with the camera, but you can see it here in the comments.

Well today is a big day if all goes well. I’ve been organizing a youth videoconference today that will be wild. Might be up to 50 kids from all over BC and Quebec getting together today on our videoconferencing network. We’ll be having a poster contest with have a bunch of prizes to give away to the kids that come with the best poster – and we’re going to have a special performance from Rapsure Risin, an amazing hip-hop group from Vancouver. I’m a little nervous because of all the tech, but I’m sure it will be fine. These are the kinds of events that we need to have to make this network really sing.

This article really speaks to what I believe is the case. Kids do know more than us about technology. In the traditional classroom this is pretty scary for teachers. But teachers can’t learn all the technology that they need. So the answer really lies in tapping into what the kids can do. We can’t be afraid of what the kdis can do. Check out the article for some suggestions.