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    Safe Space and Shared Interests: YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning
    Safe Space and Shared Interests: YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning
    Safe Space and Shared Interests: YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Safe Space and Shared Interests: YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning

    By Mizuko Ito, Mike Hawkins, Nichole Pinkard and

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    This report documents an ongoing design experiment that addresses issues of digital literacy, connected learning, and equity through the design, establishment, and ongoing development of a youth media center, the YOUmedia learning lab at the Chicago Public Library’s downtown Harold Washington Library Center. Supported by the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning (DML) Initiative, YOUmedia represents a collaboration between the Chicago Public Library (CPL) and Digital Youth Network (DYN), a digital media literacy and mentoring program. Located on the first floor of Chicago’s flagship public library, YOUmedia is dedicated to the interests of teens and supported by librarians and mentors with expertise in digital media production.

    This report first frames the social and educational issues that YOUmedia addresses, and describes the design model in relation to connected learning. It then explores a set of learning outcomes to which the model aspires at both a collective and individual level, providing examples based on youth accounts. Three examples of youth who were highly engaged at YOUmedia and the opportunities the space opened up to them are also included, as well as an appendix—the Connected Learning Program Guide from YOUmedia Chicago—authored by Sam Dyson and YOUmedia mentors and librarians. The program guide describes “signature projects” that have successfully engaged mentors and youth in joint, purposeful activities.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateNov 13, 2013
    ISBN9780988725515
    Safe Space and Shared Interests: YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning

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      Book preview

      Safe Space and Shared Interests - Mizuko Ito

      This digital edition of Safe Space and Shared Interests:

      YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Unported 3.0 License (CC BY 3.0)

      http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

      ISBN-13: 978-0-9887255-1-5

      Published by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.

      Irvine, CA. November 2013.

      A full-text PDF of this report is available as a free download from www.dmlhub.net/publications

      Suggested citation:

      Larson, Kiley, Mizuko Ito, Eric Brown, Mike Hawkins, Nichole Pinkard, Penny Sebring. 2013. Safe Space and Shared Interests:

      YOUmedia Chicago as a Laboratory for Connected Learning.

      Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.

      This report series on connected learning was made possible by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection with its grant making initiative on Digital Media and Learning. For more information on the initiative visit www.macfound.org. For more information on connected learning visit www.connectedlearning.tv.

      Contents

      Introduction

      The Social Issues That YOUmedia Addresses

      YOUmedia’s Approach to Learning, Design, and Influence

      Connected Learning at YOUmedia

      Youth Stories: James: Finding a Place for Himself

      Outcomes and Goals

      Youth Stories: Dominique: Figuring Out What I Love to Do

      Youth Stories: Miona: The Next Level of Growth

      Onward

      References

      Connected Learning Program Guide – YOUmedia Chicago

      Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      Lyricist Loft

      One Book, One Chicago

      Library of Games

      YouLit Magazine

      YOUmedia Records

      INTRODUCTION

      In today’s digital and networked media ecology, young people have a wealth of new learning opportunities that span home, school, community, and peer culture. In addition to being able to access well-established learning resources in the form of school-based classes, museums, and libraries, young people can turn to online resources and communities to pursue self-directed learning tailored to their own unique interests and at their own pace. They can also use accessible digital media authoring tools to create music, video, artwork, and writing; share; and get feedback and mentorship in communities of interest. Through these capabilities, we see digital and networked media as offering the potential for broadened access to connected learning–learning that is socially connected, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, and political opportunity (Ito et al. 2013). Despite the tremendous opportunities for connected learning afforded by today’s digital, interactive, and networked media, research has also consistently demonstrated that only a small minority of young people fully take advantage of these opportunities. We see a real risk that digital media will result in a greater equity gap as public school systems struggle to support the diverse range of learner-centered and interest-driven inquiry in which today’s most activated, wired, and privileged learners are engaged.

      This report documents an ongoing design experiment that addresses issues of digital literacy, connected learning, and equity through the design, establishment, and ongoing development of a youth media center, the YOUmedia learning lab at the Chicago Public Library’s downtown Harold Washington Library Center. Supported by the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning (DML) Initiative, YOUmedia represents a collaboration between the Chicago Public Library (CPL) and Digital Youth Network (DYN), a digital media literacy and mentoring program. Located on the first floor of Chicago’s flagship public library, YOUmedia is dedicated to the interests of teens and supported by librarians and mentors with expertise in digital media production.

      Opened in the fall of 2009, YOUmedia occupies 5,500 square feet on the ground floor of the Harold Washington Library Center. From the beginning, YOUmedia was designed to support three forms of digital media participation identified by Ito et al. (2009)–hanging out, messing around, and geeking out. The design team sought to create a physical space that would promote these distinct forms of participation and, in doing so, foster youth engagement and learning. In addition to welcoming young people to engage in casual social hanging out with friends, YOUmedia offers workshops and mentoring in interest areas that help youth further develop knowledge and expertise, or geek out. The space also allows and encourages youth to engage in informal messing around with the resources provided. The overarching purpose in designing YOUmedia was to create a space that supported digital and traditional literacy development and was welcoming of, engaging to, and easily accessible by teens. There is also an online social network site associated with YOUmedia on the iRemix platform, where young people can share their work and communicate with peers and mentors 24 hours a day.

      YOUmedia provides teens access to a diverse array of resources that go beyond structured educational offerings. Young people can check out video cameras, laptops, books, and art supplies for their own use. They can also access music recording equipment, music editing software, and graphic design software, which can be prohibitively expensive to purchase for home use. In addition to these tangible resources, YOUmedia connects teens to the wealth of knowledge possessed by the DYN mentors and library staff. The meaningful relationships teens at YOUmedia are able to form with adults who share their interests are one of the driving forces behind the success of the space. While providing social and interest-based support to teens, DYN mentors and library staff also help teens to draw connections between their activities at YOUmedia and academic achievement or career opportunity. The mentorship model currently in place at YOUmedia was originally developed and supported by DYN but has evolved over time to meet the needs of teens in the space. As YOUmedia matured, library staff members also increasingly took the role of mentor. In fact, teens at YOUmedia refer to all adults in the space as mentors; they do not see distinctions between adults staffed by the library and those staffed by DYN. Library staff members were incorporated into DYN professional development to facilitate their growth as mentors and to help build a coherent approach to working with youth in the space across the two organizations.

      YOUmedia continues to develop and evolve based on the interests and initiative of the youth, mentors, and librarians who frequent the space. The creation of a safe and welcoming space for youth interaction and the provision of resources with adult support provide an important foundation for encouraging youth to engage with their peers around their various interests. These features of YOUmedia are provided in the context of a hybrid design that allows for a high degree of youth choice, including elements of a free-form public space and a typical out-of-school program that provides teens with structured activities organized by adults (Sebring et al. 2013).

      The YOUmedia effort has garnered the attention of educators, youth, and media around the country, and even internationally, for providing a living laboratory to reimagine the public library as a space that is welcoming and engaging to teens, and for leveraging the opportunities that digital media have to offer for learning. Other libraries, museums, and community and cultural institutions are beginning to develop digital media centers that are informed by the YOUmedia model, and the MacArthur Foundation has teamed up with the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the Association of Science – Technology Centers to support the design of YOUmedia-inspired Learning Labs in other parts of the country.¹

      In tandem with the development and evolution of the YOUmedia model, researchers have been examining the learning outcomes of participation in YOUmedia and how the program is tied to changes at a collective and institutional level. Research by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) has documented the implementation of YOUmedia from its inception, how the collaborative development has evolved, and outcomes at the youth and institutional levels (Austin et al. 2011; Sebring et al. 2013). This report builds on this research and additional research conducted by Larson as part of New York University’s Connecting Youth: Digital Learning Research Project (CY), which examines a range of Learning Labs in informal educational institutions, including YOUmedia Chicago. In parallel with the program’s innovative work and the empirical research at YOUmedia Chicago, the Connected Learning Research Network has been developing a conceptual and design model inspired in part by the YOUmedia effort. YOUmedia Chicago represents a focus of attention for on-the-ground program development, research on learning outcomes, and the development of the conceptual and design model for connected learning. This report integrates these three dimensions of research and development, identifying key principles and design features through focused reflection on the first three years of YOUmedia’s operation. This report is not an evaluation of the degree to which YOUmedia has delivered on these learning outcomes or design aspirations, but rather is an effort to reflect on and clarify the design model and learning goals as they relate to connected learning.

      This report first frames the social and educational issues that YOUmedia addresses, and describes the design model in relation to connected learning. It then explores a set of learning outcomes to which the model aspires at both a collective and individual level, providing examples based on youth accounts. Three examples of youth who were highly engaged at YOUmedia and the opportunities the space opened up to them are also included, as well as an appendix—the Connected Learning Program Guide from YOUmedia Chicago—authored by Sam Dyson and YOUmedia mentors and librarians. The program guide describes signature projects that have successfully engaged mentors and youth in joint, purposeful activities.

      THE SOCIAL ISSUES THAT YOUMEDIA ADDRESSES

      Young people coming of age in the U.S. today are facing a period of economic contraction, uncertainty, and rapid change. Low-income and minority youth suffer the brunt of the negative impacts

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