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Student -created videos telling powerful stories!! D.U.S.T.Y. is an afterschool program for middle and high school students in Oakland, CA. DUSTY students work on computers to create their own Digital Stories, as well at to generate rap and hip hop "beats and rhymes." Throughout the creative process, students learn to master programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Fruity Loops with the help of skilled instructors. At the end of each semester, the students' creative masterpieces, including digital stories, raps, beats, and performances are showcased in some sort of final event at The Parkway Theatre, The Metro, and other local venues.

In this information technology age, children and youth in West and East Oakland face the additional disadvantage of a digital divide, which separates ethnicities, socio-economic classes, genders, and ages. Youth from low-income communities rarely have access to cutting edge communication technologies or, just as importantly, to empowering uses of them. A comparison between the number of computers per Oakland school with the schools' statewide academic performance ranking, or API, revealed that some schools with high numbers of computers have very low API's. This discrepancy suggests that simply having technology is not enough; rather, to improve student academic outcomes, technology must be meaningfully used.

Electronic Media and Youth Violence: A CDC Issue Brief for Educators and Caregivers focuses on the phenomena of electronic aggression. This document was developed for educators and caregivers. It summarizes what is known about young people and electronic aggression and discusses the implications of these findings for school staff, educational policy makers, and caregivers. You can download the full report at this site.

Another source for the MacArthur video, From MySpace to HipHop: New Media in the Everyday Lives of Youth -- a public forum on how digital technologies and new media are changing the way that young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

On April 23, 2008, public forum, "From MySpace to Hip Hop: New Media In the Everyday Lives of Youth," reported on the interim findings of the ethnographic project funded by the MacArthur Foundation, "Kids' Informal Learning through Digital Media," conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Southern California. This event addressed how digital technologies and new media are changing the way that young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life. The forum was presented by Common Sense Media, the MacArthur Foundation and the Stanford University School of Education.

Danah Boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series [Harvard] to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. She provided a great historical context to the various sites that have come and gone from the center of Internet activity, as well as some insight into what brought about their successes and failures.\n\nPrior to her presentation she explained, "Publics offer youth a space to engage in cultural identity development. By engaging in public life, youth learn to interpret the cultural signals that surround them and incorporate these cultural elements into their life. For a diverse array of reasons, contemporary youth have limited access to the types of publics with which most adults grew up. As a substitute for these inaccessible publics, networked publics like MySpace and Facebook are emerging to provide contemporary American youth with a necessary site for peer engagement."

This issue of Curriculum Connections provides educators with the tools to increase awareness about the problem of cyberbullying among their students. Each lesson introduces age appropriate information and skills that encourage youth to think critically about Internet communication, develop empathy for others, respond constructively to cyberbullying and online aggression and interact safely on the Internet. The resources in this edition of Curriculum Connections will be an important part of your school's broader efforts to foster an increased culture of e-safety and respect for differences among youth.

Digital Youth Network gives students tools to be engaged, articulate, critical and collaborative. Facilitate the ability to become creators - designers, builders & innovators - who can envision new possibilities.

One problem with most of today's Internet safety messaging campaigns is that there is only one set of messages for the entire population of youth and parents. But, an extensive literature review conducted by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force Research Advisory Board found that "not all youth are equally at risk" and that "those experiencing difficulties offline, such as physical and sexual abuse, and those with other psychosocial problems are most at risk online."

"The authors argue that five key issues are at stake in the new media: identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. Drawing on evidence from informant interviews, emerging scholarship on new media, and theoretical insights from psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies, the report explores the ways in which youth may be redefining these concepts as they engage with new digital media."

"The authors argue that five key issues are at stake in the new media: identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. Drawing on evidence from informant interviews, emerging scholarship on new media, and theoretical insights from psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies, the report explores the ways in which youth may be redefining these concepts as they engage with new digital media."

In the wake of a Rutger University student's suicide, researchers who study youth and the Internet say schools need to do a better job of teaching kids the basics of digital citizenship.

Carrie James speaks at the Social Good Summit 2010 about the ethical sensibilities of digital youth and describes the need for students to develop important cognitive and analytical skills when using social media. Much of the work was described in the GoodPlay Project.

The Leadership, Education and Etiquette - On and Offline, or [Leo ] Student Leadership Training Project ended Friday with a debriefing and motivational words by the program's adult leaders. It wrapped up four days of training in which the 26 teens learned about cyber safety and social networking issues as well as peer-to-peer marketing and career preparations.

Presentation by Nancy Willard outlining the dangers of association with online communities by at-risk youth. This includes self-harm communities, hate groups and gangs and suicide communities.

MySpace and Facebook Phenomena: How Youth Engage with Networked Publics
Anthropologist of the online community Danah Boyd discusses ways young people use social network sites to connect with their friends and present themselves online.

From MySpace to Hip Hop, A MacArthur Forum, Part 2
This is the second of three videos, researchers who presented their work were: Mimi Ito, University of Southern California, Participatory Learning in a Networked Society:Lessons From the Digital Youth Project;danah boyd, University of California Berkeley, Teen Socialization Practices in Networked Publics; Heather Horst, University of California Berkeley, Understanding New Media in the Home; Dilan Mahendran, University of California Berkeley, Hip Hop Music and Meaning in the Digital Age.

Amy Jussel, founder of the Shaping Youth blog, examines how media and marketing influence children in this quick-paced and lively blog.

"Community Technology Programs Deliver Opportunities to Youth" is an 8:46 minute video in which young people help tell the story of why access to quality technology and training matters to their future. The video covers health improvement, educational achievement, workforce training and civic engagement of young people through the use of information and communications technology.

From Anastasia Goodstein: Here are some of the lessons I've learned from studying young peoples' online habits, helping to launch a number of successful Web sites and TV properties for teens and twentysomethings, and founding a blog about youth culture for media and marketing pros.
1. Teens are multitaskers.
2. Teens prefer byte-sized entertainment.
3. Teens expect content on demand
4. Teens want to participate.

Guarding Kids.com - A Practical Guide to Keeping Kids out of High-Tech Trouble . From podcasts to porn, cyberbullying to cell phones, Dr. Russell Sabella helps readers understand the risks that emerge when high-tech tools, uninformed parents, and exuberant youth collide. Because kids are growing up with modern technologies, many are more expert than their parents. As a result, a parent's ability to make effective decisions for how technology is used may be compromised.

Obama Works is an independent grassroots organization that helps Obama supporters in neighborhoods across the country to organize community service events. The group was founded in early 2008 by a group of Yale students who were inspired by Barack Obama and felt that the energy surrounding his campaign could be channeled to do more than generate votes.