YouthLearn: Using Technology to Create Meaningful Learning Experiences for Youth

The central principal of YouthLearn's work is the belief that learning for young people must be experiential. It must be relevant and directly linked to their lives, their families, and their communities, allowing them to craft and explore as they learn autonomously and in collaboration with others. YouthLearn encourages educators to locate themselves and their programmes on a continuum from passive to active learning, and to chart steps for strengthening their programmes.

Technology tools assist in each phase of the process, from research and planning to production and exhibition, helping youth develop technology skills as they are applied within the project. YouthLearn helps educators to work with these tools by providing access to a variety of lesson plans and strategies for integrating technology into the learning environment. This includes the use of digital cameras (video and still), editing software, and the Internet.

This integrated approach enables programmes to match infrastructure to organisational capacity while offering opportunities for community engagement and youth leadership.

YouthLearn recognises that the use of technology requires both the infrastructure and the accompanying professional development. YouthLearn believes that a needed aspect of training for educators is the development of communities of practice that support the ongoing, daily exploration of methods and best practices.

For that reason, a number of YouthLearn services are centred on creating peer networks and allowing colleagues to collectively identify and address their professional development needs. YouthLearn has a growing online community of more than 2,000 educators, both in the U.S. and abroad, who connect via a discussion list to share ideas, insights, and opinions. A complimentary newsletter and weblog culls research, articles, and opportunities that support this community's needs. Additionally, YouthLearn's website offers detailed information about technology integration, teaching techniques, curriculum design, and youth development principles. With these kinds of services at its base, YouthLearn builds tailored training activities to fit the needs of specific audiences, often using a blended-learning approach in which face-to-face training is complemented by online e-learning activities.

Youth, Violence, Education, Gender.

According to YouthLearn, two major challenges that educators face are 1) how to use technology to develop thoughtful learning experiences for young people, and, 2) facilitating the development of critical thinking skills as they pertain to new technology.

They believe that the Internet and the multimedia capacity of the latest hardware and software offer youth the opportunity to explore the meanings behind media-generated images and messages. In today’s economy, the ability to decipher this type of content and to recognise bias is a component of true literacy. Effective technology learning experiences help young people to become smart, healthy consumers as well as innovative producers of media content.