Participatory Design and Young People as 'Possibilities Personified'

 Tara L. Conley, Teachers College, Columbia University (March 29, 2013)

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to speak about participatory design and fostering critical connections in our work with young people. Though the talk was meant as a brief audition for TEDxTeachersCollege next month, I was able to share some of the work I've been doing with young people involved in building a text line for court-involved youth in NYC.

As I continue to work with young people on the mobile initiative, I'm beginning to understand why it's important for us, as educators, designers, researchers, and social entrepreneurs to involve young people in the work that we're doing. Particularly if your mission is to actively support communities and young people, it's important to involve motivated young leaders because, quite frankly, they know more than we do about what's best for their neighborhoods, families, and local cohorts. It's sounds simple enough but you'd be surprised at how much we end up not actively involving young people in work that is meant to support their growth.

In this brief 5-minute talk I outline some of the reasons why I believe that participating in collaborative working groups is an effective strategy for community building and social entrepreneurship. I also touch on the idea that the process of building and creating technology platforms with others may result in a kinship formation experience where we not only produce knowledge together but we do so in a way that can yield sustainable outcomes for surrounding communities.

A few key definitions and insights that inform my work thus far:

Participatory Design

"Participatory design is a hybrid experience where participants are neither user or developer but both simultaneously. Characteristics of PD experiences include 'challenging assumptions, learning reciprocally, and creating new ideas, which emerge through negotiation and co-creation of identities, working languages, understandings, and relationships, and polyvocal (many-voiced) discussions across and through differences'" (Muller; 2002).

“‘Believing in the potential of everyone to design is more egalitarian than believing in exclusive talents and specialised roles. However, this is not the same as involving every potential user in every design project, or at all stages, or in the same way as the next person" (Light & Luckin, 2008).

It is not the hand that makes the designer, it’s the eye. Learning to design is learning to see . . .Our experience sharpens our eyes to certain perceptions and shapes what we expect to see, just as what we expect to see shapes our experience. Our reality is perspectival. Although we don’t perceive and sense things that a more experienced practitioner can, we can learn. (Reichenstein; 2013).

Transcript from my talk below.

Thank you.

I’d like to share a quote with you from author Margaret Wheatley, who received her doctorate in education from Harvard University. She wrote in 2006,

“Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.  We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.  Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change”

I recently received a Media Ideation Fellowship grant that will allow me to begin developing a text line for court-involved youth in New York City. The text line will support young people involved in foster care, juvenile justice, and criminal justice systems so that can use their cell phones to access educational, vocational, and intervention support resources.

I’m currently working directly with young people who serve on the text line youth advisory board to develop the mobile initiative.

For the TEDxTeachersCollege conference, I would like to talk about the significance of collaborative working groups between young people and social entrepreneurs, and the exponential impact this particular collaborative cohort has on the broader community.

I want to talk about how we can, as Margaret Wheatley amply describes, foster critical connections through our work and by way of democratic working processes, and through what Oliver Reichenstein articulates as an understanding that learning to design (in what ever form that may take for educators, scholars, and designers) means learning to see. Learning to see.

To that end, I want to discuss how we might envision and situate technology artifacts as points of entry where community building and kinships can emerge. And how we might re-conceptualize the process of building and incorporating technologies in learning spaces with members of communities we wish to serve.

While working with the youth advisory board over the past four weeks, I’m beginning to notice these sort of third space, or hybrid, themes come about, and I want to share these themes with the TC community as a way to inform our teaching, researching, and design practices.

Some of the themes I’ve noticed include:

• The idea that social entrepreneurship is fundamentally participatory
• That participatory design methods as defined by Mueller look more and more like kinship formations
• Also the idea that critical connections yield knowledge production that is local, specific, and sustainable
• And the idea that hybridization does not only apply to theory and practice but also applies to entrepreneurship and learning
• And finally, it is the notion that education is a concept we can actually define through democratic learning processes and, most importantly, through love.

Before I go, I want to share with you a story. I was walking home with one of the youth advisory board members recently. And she told me that when she first heard about the opportunity to be part of the development of the text line she knew she wanted to be involved. She told me that she thought the text line would be a great way for court-involved youth to access resources that were usually difficult to impossible to access. Then she said to me, “You know, when I first head that someone was developing a text line for court-involved youth, my first thought was, ‘Wow! Someone out there actually cares about fosters kids.’”

That was my ah-ha moment. That was when I realized why it’s so important for us to develop strategies and create spaces where we involved young people in our teaching, researching, and design methods.

Because young people are not statistics or bodies to fill up classrooms, residential facilities, or prisons. They are media makers. They are developers. They are designers. Young people, especially the one I work with, are possibilities personified. Thank you.

References

Fouche, R. (2013). “From Black Inventors to One Laptop Per Child: Exploring a Racial Politics of Technology” in Race after the Internet, L. Nakamura & P. A. Chow-White (EDs). (pp. 61-83)

Kensing, F. and J. Blomberg. (1998). Participatory Design: Issues and Concerns

Light, A., and Luckin, R. (2008). Designing for social justice: People, technology, and learning. Futurelab: http://archive.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/opening-education-reports/

Muller, M. J. Participatory design: The third space in HCI. In J. A. Jacko and A. Sears (Eds.), The Human Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2002, 1051–1068.

Reinchenstein, O. (2013). Learning to see.

Huff Post Front Page Graphic Highlights US Gun Violence Epidemic

April 22, 2013 - Friday night, The Huffington Post debuted on its front page a striking graphic representing US deaths related to gun violence since the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2013. The moving graphic illustrates nearly real-time statistics of gun deaths across the country. Many of these gun related instances appear to be concentrated on the eastern part of the country (with the exception of California and Texas). It also appears that most gun violence is situated in densely populated areas. Congress has since failed to pass an assault weapons ban.

For some perspective, according to the Huff Post graphic there have been 2,244 deaths since the Sandy Hook shooting (98 days). There have been a total of 852 civilian deaths in Iraq since January 2013 and 2,537 civilian causalities in Afghanistan from 2009-2010.

Huffington Post states it's methodology is based on "compiled news reports of gun-related homicides and accidental deaths in the U.S. since the massacre in Newtown, Conn. on the morning of Dec. 14."

This is perhaps an example of digital media journalism at its finest. The use of interactive mapping, data visualization, and infographics are becoming increasingly popular means of documenting and showing information. As gun-related violence continues to infiltrate cities and neighborhoods across this country, the use of media here seems like the most appropriate means of providing the public with necessary information while raising awareness.

A question we're most concerned with here at MEDIA MAKE CHANGE is what do we do with this visual information? Related to this question concerns, how can media, in this instance, work to inform and evoke necessary action to change the current epidemic in this country related to gun violence? What calls-to-action might we engage so this graphic doesn't simply collect virtual dust?

A good place to start would be to contact your local congress person (senator and HOR) and, as professor Sarah Jackson suggested, email the graphic directly to your representative.

Kudos to Huffington Post for using media to spread information and evoke awareness. Here's hoping we can use this online media artifact to change the course of gun violence spread across our neighborhoods offline.

Founder Tara L. Conley Named 2013 Media Ideation Fellow

I'm so pleased to announced that I've been named as one of the 2013 Media Ideation Fellows! I, along with Kristy Tillman, Charles DeTar, and Yongjun Heo are among the very first class of fellows supported by the Media Ideation Fellowship, a Voqal initiative.

Several months ago, I asked for your nomination for the fellowship and many of you came through with support. For that, I thank you. I'm humbled and overwhelmed with gratitude, especially knowing that my work will be supported financially and by way of professional mentorship. Through the generous support of the Media Ideation Fund, I will be able to begin developing a text line for court-involved youth in New York City.

The Text Line for Court-Involved (CI) Youth [official name TBD] will provide anonymous means for young people who are tethered to foster care, juvenile justice, and criminal justice systems in New York City to access resources and seek support beyond the institutions to which they are bound.

Eventually, users of the text line will be able to:

• Access available tutoring services and job listings in their neighborhoods.
• Access family planning and mental health services.
• Connect immediately to crisis and emergency response hotlines.
• Set up reminders for court dates and other appointments.
• Receive automated information about Know Your Rights (ACLU) and tips/suggestions about how to talk to lawyers and caseworkers.

There is a tremendous amount of work ahead and the fellowship marks only the beginning of further development that will need to be completed to ensure that young people involved in foster care and juvenile justice systems receive the support and resources they need and deserve.

So far this month I've been meeting (and hanging out!) with several young people who are serving as youth advisory board members. Their insights, stories, and perspectives will inform the purpose and uses of the line. The youth advisory board members will be making their public debut on MEDIA MAKE CHANGE very soon, so stick around and prepare to be touched and inspired by the work these incredible young people are doing. I can't wait for you to meet them!

I'll continue to keep MMC readers updated on new developments within the next few months. In addition to a beta launch of the text line, we will also be launching an official Facebook group page that will begin connecting agencies, organizations, resources, and CI youth online and via social media.

Finally, I invite those who will be in the NYC area on March 29th, 2013 to come support me as I audition for TEDxTeachersCollege. I'll be giving a brief pitch on a proposed TED talk about participatory design and how mobile technology can enable members of transient and displaced groups to build stronger connections and networked communities across contexts. It'll be like American Idol for nerds! You can register for the conference by going to TEDxTeachersCollege.com

With that, I leave you with an excerpt about critical connections that has stayed with me since I began this work. The quote comes from Margaret Wheatley.

Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.  We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.  Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change (2006).

If you are a mobile strategist, funder, or developer and interested in learning more about the text line, please email me directly at tara [at] mediamakechange [dot] org.

MEDIA MAKE CHANGE Remembers Joshua C. Watson

It is with a heavy heart that we share the devastating news about the passing of Joshua C. Watson. Josh was an inaugural fellow of the 2012 Community Producers Program that MEDIA MAKE CHANGE co-authored with the Beyond the Bricks Project. He was known as one of the most brightest fellows in his Atlanta cohort. Josh is shown in the video below speaking proudly about his work and his hopes for the future. We learned yesterday that Josh was victim of an apparent robbery while walking home from work. He was murdered on Christmas Eve.

From the Beyond the Bricks producers, Derek Koen and Ouida Washington:

18 year old Joshua C. Watson, one of the young men that graduated this past June from the first cohort of Beyond The Bricks Community Producers Program, was murdered in Atlanta, GA December 24, 2012, robbed on his way home from work. I had the pleasure of meeting Josh in person once, I spoke with him a few times over Skype and we awarded him with a certificate for his dedication to the program. The entire BTBP team was horrified to hear the news that yet another young person with so much promise and potential was taken away forever. Josh was the result of hard work, sacrifice and love by a community of people; evident by the way he presented himself to the world. We here at Beyond The Bricks Project struggle to make the message clear, we ALL have a role and duty to give ALL our children brighter futures and the chance to live their life the best way possible. Senseless violence that we see almost daily in news headlines, in our communities and in our schools is destroying this country. In the life of Josh, lest we forget that too much has already been lost.

If the person who took Joshua from this earth can some how come across this message, I would like you to know that this is not acceptable you deserve to be punished and you are redeemable.  To you all, we would like to introduce you to Joshua C. Watson.

We share the sentiments expressed by the BTBP team. The news of Josh's death only strengthens our desire to ensure the work that we do at MEDIA MAKE CHANGE benefits young people like Joshua Watson. He was an inspiration, shining light, and a gift to us all. We would like to send condolences to the Watson family and express our deepest sympathies to anyone who had the pleasure of befriending Joshua during his short eighteen years on earth.

You can pay tribute to Josh's memory on RIP Joshua C. Watson Facebeook page made in his honor.

MEDIA (CAN) MAKE CHANGE: ImmaTeen Fans Speak Out Against Bullying

I've been thinking, since so many teens are on the Internet, why don't we start there?

I'm pretty active on the Internet. I'm especially active on my facebook page, ImmaTeen. All my admins on ImmaTeen have been actively using this page for fun, games, and anti-bullying awareness.

So today, I asked my fans on ImmaTeen if they can post some of their bullying stories, and they agreed to! Here's one story below.

"I was getting bullied in 7th grade because I liked a boy who a girl liked. She never would leave me alone. Her friends would start and they would message me saying I'm a slut I'm fat and ugly no ones wants to be with or around me. After awhile I started to believe them so I started drugs, then burning my self. One night I took a full [bottle] of sleeping pills the ambulance had to revive me. I'm now not doing drugs or bullied and I'm not harming myself things get better. Trust me"

- Katlynn

It makes me sad to think that this happens to kids and teens all around the world. Just hearing some of these stories give me chills down my spine. It's not something that needs to happen to people. Most reason kids bully each other, especially over the Internet, is because they were hurt themselves. They had gotten bullied or abused at home. They can't take away the pain and suffering so they bully someone.

I made this video a while ago and posted it for all the ImmaTeen fans to see, Its called "Stop The Tears and End The Fears". It's a video featuring people who had been victimized by bullies. Some of these kids and teens have been so close to committing suicide because of these people. The main way I have chosen to help these teens is by using the Internet.

This is why I want to start a program at my school to stop cyber, verbal, and physical bullying. Today is the day you can help someone who's been bullied. This is your time to make a change.

Media Speaks! So use it!

Also, check out this page: Stop The Tears and End The Fear! Its a great page and they're very helpful on there!

-Zoë, Youth Correspondant/contributing writer

Have you been bullied? Share your story with Zoë at Media Speak! or on ImmaTeen Facebook page.

Image source