{"id":815,"date":"2013-12-18T14:29:28","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T21:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2013-12-28T20:35:18","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T03:35:18","slug":"chicago-library-provides-example-of-high-tech-and-high-touch-is-l-a-ready-for-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Library Provides Example of High-Tech and High Touch. Is L.A. Ready For This?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Adrienne<\/a>

Adrienne Strock and Sybil Madison-Boyd at YouMedia space in the Chicago Public Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Brandon Towns was having trouble opening his MacBook to show me the movie he\u2019d made because his fingers were sticky with the glue he was using to make a paper mach\u00e9 mask.<\/p>\n

Both sticky fingers and the Macbook capture the essence of YouMedia, the 5,500 square foot space in the Chicago Public Library where Towns and I met.\u00a0 It\u2019s a high-tech and high touch place for engaging and motivating students, trying to get them sticky with learning.<\/p>\n

For the MacArthur Foundation, which funded YouMedia, and for a growing group of educators, the space is a physical representation of a more profound form of learning than that represented by the current teach-and-test regime.<\/p>\n

As Connie Yowell, director of education at the foundation, says: \u201cWe really think that part of what\u2019s wrong with the current education system, and why people talk about it as broken, is that it is fundamentally starting with the wrong question.\u00a0 The education system now often starts with the question of outcomes: what do we want kids to learn?…. Our core question is \u2018what\u2019s the experience we want kids to have?\u2019\u00a0 So, the core question is around engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Towns, and an estimated 300-500 students a week, YouMedia represents a safe place to go after school: somewhere to hang out, mess around, and to geek out.\u00a0 These terms were coined by Mimi Ito and her collaborators in their book about how kids engage digital media. The physical layout of YouMedia was designed with spaces that invite each activity.<\/p>\n

Comfortable chairs and couches occupy the space near the door watched over by a friendly security guard.\u00a0 Eight teen-age girls crowd the conversation nook.\u00a0 Further down the room, students worked at tables and computers.\u00a0 Five young men crowded into the soundproof recording booth. \u00a0At the end of the room, Towns sat huddled with his mentors, working on the mask that will be incorporated into his next film.<\/p>\n

Towns is geeking out.\u00a0 He is part of the 22 percent of YouMedia users who come together with the adult staff to create something or connect youthful interest with academic learning.\u00a0 A student at King College Prep Academy<\/a>, a Chicago Public Schools magnet, Towns has been making movies since he was 10.\u00a0 \u201cThe Struggle is Real\u201d<\/a> is a two-minute reminder that food insecurity dogs the lives of many Americans. \u00a0And here is the trailer for his upcoming film<\/a> featuring the mask he made.<\/p>\n

Towns and the other visitors to the library get to use good stuff for free.\u00a0 For a young man who scrimped to buy his own camera, the range of available equipment and services helps level the economic playing field a bit.\u00a0 New model computers sit on desks.\u00a0 Students can check out laptops and video cameras for use in the space.\u00a0 They can create in one of the recording studios, print the art they have created, or experiment with a 3-D printer.\u00a0 There are also hundreds of books.\u00a0 The librarians found that when they moved the teen collection into the YouMedia space, circulation for old-fashioned \u201cdead tree\u201d media increased 400 percent.<\/p>\n

Most Teens Make A Special Trip<\/h2>\n

The YouMedia space is a magnet.\u00a0 Some of the students come on their way from school, but most make a special trip to Chicago\u2019s central Harold Washington Library, located at the edge of the \u201cLoop\u201d where the elevated and subway lines converge and circle downtown.\u00a0 About half live more than five miles from the library, a study<\/strong><\/a> by the Consortium for Chicago School Research reports.\u00a0 African American males stand out as the largest of a diverse set of YouMedia users.\u00a0 Some 88 percent of users go to Chicago Public Schools, and they are relatively successful: 35 percent of them attend selective schools, which account for only about 10 percent of the district\u2019s high school enrollment.<\/p>\n

In the study, written by Penny Bender Sebring and colleagues, students report that they like the space and see it as safe and welcoming.\u00a0 Particularly among the most active users, students say that YouMedia has helped them with academic skills, especially communicating with adults, writing, and understanding opportunities that are available to them after high school.<\/p>\n

Like Towns and his mentors Carolina Gonzalez and Sean Owens, students surveyed said that they had created a personal relationship with at least one adult.\u00a0 Significantly, these adults not only help students learn skills, they help them connect with other adults and open their minds to career and learning possibilities.<\/p>\n

YouMedia is spreading.\u00a0 Four Chicago branch libraries have instillations, 24 learning laboratories have been established around the country. \u00a0Adrienne Strock, a Chicago Public Library staff member who manages the space, writes that two of them are in California: at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley and at the San Francisco Public Library. \u00a0There are also experiments with temporary, \u201cpop-up\u201d instillations in schools and shopping centers.<\/p>\n

Moving social and learning connections out of physical space and into virtual space is an important aspect of the experiment. YouMedia Online is a closed social network, where uninvited adults and youth can\u2019t lurk.\u00a0 Central to them is the intersection of individual interests, peer culture among teenagers, and academic content.\u00a0 Seventy-four percent of the YouMedia space users have a high-speed Internet connection at home, a number nearly identical to that of Chicago Public Schools students at large.<\/p>\n

Does all of this work perfectly?\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 YouMedia is a laboratory, a test bed for a set of ideas that MacArthur calls Connected Learning<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/i>The Digital Media and Learning Hub<\/a> at the University of California, Irving, synthesized connected learning from the experience of MacArthur grantees and researchers.\u00a0 (Connected Learning<\/i> is not substantially different from the ideas that I call Learning 2.0<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n

The connection with academic content does not come easily.\u00a0 The pull to YouMedia\u2019s library space is as much that of teen friends as it is access to technology.\u00a0 Teens choose how deeply to get involved.\u00a0 The adults try to design activities that attract teens to workshops and projects that deepen their skills, but they are not always successful.\u00a0 As the study notes, \u201cStaff must cajole and persuade in order to attract teens to the workshops and projects where they can build their skills and deepen their expertise. Staff members have found it particularly difficult to encourage novice youth to develop the skills they need to take advantage of the high-profile events that are available to teens with more advanced skill levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like a YMCA or other community center, YouMedia is a combination of unstructured space (the lounge or open basketball court) and structured space (classes or programs with expected participation and attendance).\u00a0 However, at YouMedia, structured and unstructured activities take place next to each other in the same large, open room.\u00a0 Youth can move fluidly between levels of activity.\u00a0 This provides a splendid laboratory that can peer into teen imagination, but doesn\u2019t have the lock-in expectation of attendance of more a traditional class or workshop.<\/p>\n

‘It can be frustrating’<\/h2>\n

One mentor quoted in the study said: \u201cIt can be frustrating when you think you\u2019ve got a really great idea for a program, and then no teenagers show up.\u00a0 And it happens a lot.\u00a0 And it\u2019s always a challenge because you can develop something and have kids say they\u2019re gonna come, but because we\u2019re a voluntary space, there\u2019s no penalty for being absent.\u00a0 So that can be hard and frustrating and somewhat disheartening.\u00a0 Sometimes, you want to do really big projects, and it just can\u2019t come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a solution, YouMedia is trying to link students to project-based learning opportunities offered outside the library by other organizations.\u00a0 Projects and short duration theme-based workshops seem more successful in retaining teen\u2019s participation, but it is difficult to use them to teach introductory skills or attract novices.<\/p>\n

The digital equipment presents another issue.\u00a0 One YouMedia staff member remarked in the study, \u201cTeenagers break stuff really quickly. \u00a0Really, really quickly. And it is a big concern on how often we can replace the equipment.\u201d\u00a0 There is real tension between giving teens freedom to cultivate interest and requiring that they know how to properly use and care for equipment.\u00a0 Youth must pass a certification requirement before using the recording studio, but access to other equipment is much less restricted.<\/p>\n

YouMedia online is a work in progress.\u00a0 The network is closed in the sense that teens must register to use it.\u00a0 In its first iteration, it was thought that it would be a social network for YouMedia users, but it did not work that way.\u00a0 Teens preferred other platforms where they could interact with all their friends, not just those who were associated with the library project.\u00a0 \u201cFacebook has the larger pull,\u201d one said. There were also technical problems making it hard to connect to the site.<\/p>\n

However, the site was useful as a way for students to interact with teacher mentors and to get feedback on projects.<\/p>\n

There is bubbling in the pot at YouMedia and with the network of organizations that intersect with it.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes the whole process fascinating.\u00a0 Already, the web of interactions links the library and its activities with the Chicago Summer of Learning (see earlier post).\u00a0 The summer project is likely headed to Los Angeles.\u00a0 And that in the words of Sybil Madison Boyd<\/a>, program director at the Digital Youth Network, is a B-F-D, a big fantastic deal.\u00a0 That gives one reason to consider how the YouMedia library and learning labs might migrate westward, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Revised 12\/28\/13<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brandon Towns was having trouble opening his MacBook to show me the movie he\u2019d made because his fingers were sticky with the glue he was using to make a paper mach\u00e9 mask. Both sticky fingers and the Macbook capture the essence of YouMedia, the 5,500 square foot space in the Chicago Public Library where Towns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,143],"tags":[169,173,167,168,43,42,170],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}