Tim's Blog

Appologies to any youth workers out there (particularly if you've got a participation remit) - I seem to be asking quite a lot of you this evening - but, after weeks of preparation I can happily announce the launch of the 'Youth Work and Social Networking' survey as part of a wider research project I'm working on for The National Youth Agency.

To quote from the post I've just written over on the project blog.

I've been asked by Participation Works to put together a series of pages on 'Technologies for Youth Participation' - so I'm looking out for all manor of technologies and tools that can be used to engage young people effectively in decision making and creating change.

From offline electronic voting keypads and twittering at events, through to collaborative online forums that allow young people to influence a policy process over the long term - I'm interested in hearing from you about:

How different is a 6 year old from a 15 year old?

And how different is a 36 year old from a 45 year old?

You will probably agree with me that the difference in the first case is a lot more significant than that in the second.

So how come the 36 year old and 45 year old are likely to find themselves getting their own age brackets on many surveys (are you aged: 25 - 35?, 36 - 45?, 46 - 55? etc.) when the 6 year old and 15 year old will most likely find themelves lumped together a in the 0 - 19 bracket?

Ok. Here are some possible reasons:

Engaging effectively and honestly with the social web involves listening a lot more than you speak; reading a lot more than you write.

One of the first tools I introduce to clients interested in exploring social media is some form of RSS reader. An RSS reader is a tool to agregate conversations and information from across the social web into one place - making it easier to listen as a foundation for engaging.

Recently, my reader of choice (for those starting out) has been NetVibes. So, here is the next in my series of one page guides - this time looking at NetVibes.

You can download the guide as a PDF here.

Given it's Open Space flavour the Digital Media Literacy Summit on Thursday (8th Nov) at the Channel 4 building in London didn't exactly come up with a set of clear action points for building digital media literacy, but it did offer some key insights that can help us on the way.

That said, if the event was a Summit, then participants had climbed to it from many different directions, and I suspect in fact all we have done so far is to move towards a basecamp where we need to consolidate, take stock, and then climp the real peak.

Building the basecamp

It continues to suprise me how often different standards are uncritically applied to young people and to adults. The justification for the difference is assumed, but never articulated.

In his speech at the Digital Media Literacy Summit today James Purnell, MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, robustly argued that government shouldn't attempt to censor access to digital media - but quickly noted and praised not long after work going on to develop and certify software that allows parents to block young people's access to 'harmful material'.

I'm not going to go as far as the child liberationists to argue that media censorship for children and young people and not adults is an arbitary imposition without grounds. But I would suggest we need more critical thought about the risks of uncritically talking about a blocking approach to young people's media access and to the protection of young people online.