Projects and Use of Technology

An ideal YAN project involves youth going out into the community, interviewing residents, visiting local organizations, taking pictures, building representations and, based on that, identifying personally relevant neighborhood challenges that they, with support from adults, would like to tackle. In addition to enacting community change, young people are motivated to document their own work and, in parallel to the project, create a two- or three-minute documentary telling the story of their initiative. At the end, a community celebration is organized for youth to present those stories and share the inspiration with other youth and community members. That event also provides an opportunity to recognize the efforts of everyone who contributed to the projects.

Even though projects are not meant to be technology-driven, they should provide an appropriate context for youth to learn about digital tools and explore how they can be combined with other materials and social support towards the creation of things that are important to their lives. In fact, through the development of their projects, young people may realize that they do not necessarily need digital tools to better their communities. However, they may also realize that the wise use of those tools may greatly enhance the development of their ideas.

Please let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions. Your input is really important to us! Please send us your contributions to yan@media.mit.edu.