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All too often, young people feel they don’t have the power to fix problems in their communities.
How can books inspire students to take action and become engaged citizens?
Earlier this year, First Book, along with our partners the American Federation of Teachers and the Albert Shanker Institute, presented educators nationwide with a challenge: identify an issue and a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community. We then asked for proposals on how, with the support of books and resources from First Book, could their students take action to address that issue and show their students that they have a voice and the ability to make positive changes happen.
We called this challenge The Citizen Power Project. Funded by the Aspen Institute’s Pluribus Project, 15 proposals – five each from elementary, middle and high schools – would be chosen to receive a collection of special resources to help them implement their projects and a $500 grant for use on the First Book Marketplace.
More than 920 proposals were received.
The 15 classroom projects that stood out and won the challenge addressed a wide range of issues, such as:
Learning about global cultural perspectives as a way to build compassion,
Planning a community garden to promote healthy eating,
Combating bullying,
Learning American Sign Language and
Building a health and wellness library.
We believe these projects, and the books and resources First Book will provide to help them flourish, will help these educators and the young leaders they teach to advance the causes they are so passionate about. And, by sharing stories about the successes of these projects, we hope to inspire others around the country to be change makers, themselves.
With our partners, we’ll be checking in with the inspiring projects through the end of the year to update you on their progress toward creating innovative learning environments, and the impact of the projects on their respective communities.
All too often, young people feel they don’t have the power to fix problems in their communities.
How can books inspire students to take action and become engaged citizens?
Earlier this year, First Book, along with our partners the American Federation of Teachers and the Albert Shanker Institute, presented educators nationwide with a challenge: identify an issue and a civic engagement project important to their students, school or community. We then asked for proposals on how, with the support of books and resources from First Book, could their students take action to address that issue and show their students that they have a voice and the ability to make positive changes happen.
We called this challenge The Citizen Power Project. Funded by the Aspen Institute’s Pluribus Project, 15 proposals – five each from elementary, middle and high schools – would be chosen to receive a collection of special resources to help them implement their projects and a $500 grant for use on the First Book Marketplace.
More than 920 proposals were received.
The 15 classroom projects that stood out and won the challenge addressed a wide range of issues, such as:
Learning about global cultural perspectives as a way to build compassion,
Planning a community garden to promote healthy eating,
Combating bullying,
Learning American Sign Language and
Building a health and wellness library.
We believe these projects, and the books and resources First Book will provide to help them flourish, will help these educators and the young leaders they teach to advance the causes they are so passionate about. And, by sharing stories about the successes of these projects, we hope to inspire others around the country to be change makers, themselves.
With our partners, we’ll be checking in with the inspiring projects through the end of the year to update you on their progress toward creating innovative learning environments, and the impact of the projects on their respective communities.
What do you expect to happen when you shut 25 teens in a room for an entire rainy Saturday? I wasn't sure when I arrived at Skokie Public Library at 9:00am on May 30 for their first ever Community Appathon, even though I'd attended several planning meetings. The event was inspired by the National Day of Civic Hacking and spurred into being by a library patron (Maker Mom Kim Moldofsky) and her teenage son. A skilled coder, he'd attended an adult-oriented hackathon and found that a 36-hour event doesn't mix well with curfew. The goal of the appathon was to gather teens interested in developing, designing, and civic service to prototype apps to meet the community's needs.
The event ran from 9:00am to (slightly after) 6:00pm. We began the day with a State of Skokie talk that addressed many of the issues highlighted at a recent series of town hall meetings, followed by a brainstorming session to develop ideas to address those issues. Highlighted issues include safety, connectivity, diversity, environmental sustainability, the difficulty in finding information about local events, the need for an image makeover, and a need to be more pedestrian friendly. The teens then broke out into teams of five to create their apps. Three library staff and Kim acted as facilitators throughout the day: keeping everyone on schedule, serving food (bagels, fruit, pizza, popcorn and cookies), and offering assistance as needed. At the end of the day, each team presented their app to the whole group. All the teens (plus a last-minute group of teen volunteers) voted on the best one.
I came in with very little knowledge of coding. I've played with programs Scratch and App Inventor and prototyping software Fluid Ui enough to be able to talk about them. The self-identified teen coders were way beyond App Inventor. A few of the teens knew less than I did, but had design or other relevant skills. Skokie Public Library's webmaster was on hand to mentor them with coding issues, and several advanced teens helped the others periodically throughout the day, as well. SPL's teen librarian introduced teens to the art of the elevator pitch to help with their final presentations. My roles were to conduct a brief presentation on team selection, assist with user testing and design questions, and find answers to the inevitable, "Do you have an extension cord?" type questions.
The turnout, 25 teens, made the event a success. Coverage in the local paper may have boosted participation. Promotion at the local schools and word of mouth most definitely did. We were also able to entice them by offering a treasure trove of donated prizes. Local restaurants like Meatheads and tech companies like GitHub and Lenovo were eager to participate. Google even donated two chromebooks. One was awarded to the MVP of the day, as chosen by the teens, and the other was put into a random drawing along with the stickers, magnets, USB extenders, and other goodies. Each team also received a set of five matching prizes, so that no one went home empty-handed.
Participants were highly engaged and seemed to enjoy themselves. They worked independently of the staff for much of the day. One group took the initiative to send some of its members out into the community to talk with nearby business owners to gauge their interest and get their feedback on their app. In the end, all five teams completed working prototypes of their apps.
A few basic supplies were necessary to keep the program running. While most teens brought their own computers, we had several on hand for those that may not have their own. All of them ended up getting used. In addition to laptops, we also made sure to have plenty of power strips and extension cords. These also all got used as the teens' laptop batteries began to fade. For brainstorming and planning we had lots of pens, post-its, poster pads and markers. Various apple and android devices were on-hand for user testing, but didn't get used.
We identified a few areas to improve for future appathons. Several groups focused on similar problems like connectivity, image and finding information about local events, while no one worked on diversity, environmental sustainability, safety or pedestrian-friendliness. To remedy this, we might have participants vote on the top issues or ideas, and then form groups based on the top 5. Since the event also ended up running over its allotted time, it might work to extend it through dinner (more pizza!) or limit presentations to just 1 or 2 minutes, then time them to make sure they don't run long.
Like its corollary clicktivism, slacktivism is a term that unites entrenched technosceptics and romantic revolutionaries from a pre-Internet or, more precisely, a pre-social media age as they admonish younger generations for their lack of commitment to “real” social change or willingness to do “what it takes” to make the world around them a better place.
This perception is based on drawing a corollary between the mounting evidence that people are spending more and more time online and the perception that political and social movements are no longer what they were. I would agree with both observations.
I would not agree, however, with this widely held assumption that online forms of sociopolitical mobilization, information-exchange, or community-building are either inferior or less genuine to offline varieties. There are good, bad, and indifferent forms of online political engagement just as there are in the offline world, e.g. going on a demonstration or signing a paper petition are not in themselves signs of above-average mobilization. In this sense then slacktivism, defined as actions in “support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement,” existed long before the Internet came of age in the 1990s with the world wide web. And slacktivism, according to this part of the definition, will exist long after the social media platforms that dominate the internet of today have made way for the next generation of goods and services. Disapproval at the way any given generation makes use — or not — of the media and communications of their time will also continue long after the target of this pejorative term, so-called digital natives, have grown up and started to lament the way their children seem to have become disengaged from the social and political problems of their time in turn. Half-hearted or short-lived forms of political action, empty rhetoric, or fleeting movements for change are neither reducible to, nor are they synonymous with any particular technological artefact or system, even a transformative and complex one such as the Internet. This held true for the Internet’s socio-technological precursors such as television, the telephone, radio, and even the printing press.
My taking distance from this easy dismissal of the way people use the Internet to call to account power abuses at home and abroad, or to share information and get organized by going online, arises from a longstanding concern I have about the way that media pundits — and some parts of academe — look for easy ways to generate headlines or sell books by drawing such false dichotomies between our online and our offline lives. This preference for the simple either/or tends to overlook more pressing questions about the changing face and nature of sociopolitical engagement in a domain that is being squeezed from all sides by incumbent political and economic interests. It is tempting, and comforting to treat online mobilization as suspicious by default, but to do so, as astute observers (not) so long ago have already noted (Walter Benjamin and Donna Haraway for instance) does a disservice to critical analyses of how society and technological change collide and collude with one another, and in complex, over-determined ways. But I would go further here to argue that tarring all forms of online activism as slacktivism is a form of myopic thinking that would condemn the ways in which today’s generation’s communicate their concerns about the injustices of the world in which they live online. It also underestimates the politicizing effect that recent revelations about way in which the internet, the medium and means in which they find out about their world is being excessively if not illegally data-mined and surveilled by vested — governmental and commercial — interests.
Assuming that the Internet, admittedly a harbinger of major shifts in the way people access information, communicate with one another, and organize, is the main cause for the supposedly declining levels of civic engagement of the younger generation is to succumb to the triple perils of technological determinism, older-generational myopia, and sloppy thinking. It also overlooks, indeed ignores, the fact that organizing online is a time-consuming, energy-draining, and expensive undertaking. This holds true even if many of the tools and applications people can draw on are offered “free” or are, arguably, relatively easy to use. Sustaining a blog, a website, a social media account, getting people to sign an e-petition, or deploying email to good effect are activities that require know-how, want-to, and wherewithal. Moreover, mounting any sort of campaign or community project in order to address a social injustice at home let alone around the world, cannot be done these days without recourse to the internet.
What has changed, like it or not, is that in Internet-dependent contexts, any sort of serious political or social form of action now has to include an online dimension, and a sustained one at that. This means that additional energies need to be devoted to developing multi-sited and multi-skilled forms of strategic thinking, deployment of human resources, and ways to make those qualities that can inspire and mobilize people to get involved work for the online environment (e.g. how to use micro-blogging idioms well), on the ground (e.g. face-to-face meetings), and in non-digital formats (e.g. in written or physical forms). It is a sign of our age that sociopolitical action needs to know how to combine age-old, pre-digital age techniques to mobilize others with those that can speak in the 24/7, mobile, and user-generated idioms of online solidarity that can engage people close to home as well as those living far away. Huge sociocultural and political power differentials aside, given that people and communities access and use the Internet in many ways at any one time around the world, the effort and commitment required of pre-Internet forms of organizing pale in comparison to those called for in an Internet age.
This has been one of those weeks in which everything I’m reading seems related and is clicking for me. It’s got my mind churning, and I’m still not sure what to think of it all.
The first is from Will Richardson and is titled The End of Books (At Least, For Me?), a provocative statement to be sure. Don’t panic — it’s not really about the end of books, just print books for his own use.
“Turns out my iPad Kindle app syncs up all of my highlights and notes to my Amazon account. Who knew? When I finally got to the page Ted pointed me to in my own account, the page that listed every highlight and every note that I had taken on my Kindle version of John Seely Brown’s new book Pull, I could only think two words:
Game. Changer.
All of a sudden, by reading the book electronically as opposed to in print, I now have:
all of the most relevant, thought-provoking passages from the book listed on one web page, as in my own condensed version of just the best pieces
all of my notes and reflections attached to those individual notes
the ability to copy and paste all of those notes and highlights into Evernote which makes them searchable, editable, organizable, connectable and remixable
the ability to access my book notes and highlights from anywhere I have an Internet connection.
Game. Changer.
I keep thinking, what if I had every note and highlight that I had ever taken in a paper book available to search through, to connect with other similar ideas from other books, to synthesize electronically?…”
Honestly, I didn’t know about this, either, and I’m now seriously considering going back to reading nonfiction on my Kindle, something I had stopped doing when I couldn’t get at my highlights and free them. As far as I was concerned, they were bricked text. But I logged in at http://kindle.amazon.com and sure enough, there were the highlights from the three nonfiction books I’d read on my Kindle.
On the one hand, this is incredibly appealing, to have all of the excerpts I’ve highlighted as interesting to me accessible, searchable, and remixable. Really appealing, and the fact that I can now get text out of Kindle books makes it a platform I may be more willing to deal with again, although the inability to share a book with a friend is still causing some hesitation.
As I began contemplating this, I read Steven Johnson’s recent post, The Glass Box and Commonplace Book. It really resonated with me on a number of levels. First, Johnson revives the idea of the “commonplace book.”
“Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters—just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. In its most customary form, ‘commonplacing,’ as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. It was a kind of solitary version of the original web logs: an archive of interesting tidbits that one encountered during one’s textual browsing.”
He then goes on to talk about a major problem with the iPad, the way it locks down text (including public domain works) in a way that prevents users from creating their own commonplace books.
“[when you try to copy a paragraph of text] …you get the familiar iPhone-style clipping handles, and you get two options ‘Highlight’ and’“Bookmark.’ But you can’t actually copy the text, to paste it into your own private commonplace book, or ema
This is a fantastic post, and I’ll be sharing it far and wide. Thank you! You’ve given me, as usual, a lot to think about. I keep re-reading
Jason said, on 4/30/2010 10:59:00 AM
I was just able to , using Stanza, copy and email a text clipping from a Project Gutenberg edition of Flatland on my iPhone. It’s not the OS. It may be the app, or it may be the DRM attached to individual items.
jenny said, on 4/30/2010 12:37:00 PM
Thanks, Jen!
Jason, Stanza does have a little more flexibility on the iPhone (it would be interesting to know how it works on the iPad), but I’m also referring to Apple’s overall approach, which is completely closed. Have you been able to add any software to your iPhone that wasn’t pre-approved by Apple and didn’t come through iTunes? If your iPhone works for you, great, but I don’t want my online experiences shaped only by Apple. YMMV.
| A font of useless information said, on 4/30/2010 12:43:00 PM
[…] Posted on April 30, 2010 by mkschoen Lots, lots lots to think about here: The Shifted Librarian->Broken Boxes […]
Vanessa said, on 4/30/2010 5:08:00 PM
As an information management student I found this post very thought provoking and am looking forward to following up some of the links/books you mentioned
Jodi Schneider said, on 4/30/2010 5:09:00 PM
Wow! Making me think, as always–and opening up new connections to things I haddn’t read. Thanks, Jenny!
As for getting software on the iPhone that wasn’t pre-approved by Apple and didn’t come through iTunes, sure! HTML 5 can do this–and already does. For example, Ibis Reader, http://ibisreader.com/, is a great webapp which you can install by bookmarking the page; since it uses HTML 5, you can then use it offline, too.
Lily said, on 4/30/2010 7:27:00 PM
I would say it’s one of the best article I have ever read this year!
CarisseB said, on 4/30/2010 9:11:00 PM
Thank you for taking the time to construct an extended, and very interesting, text today.
gregor said, on 5/1/2010 1:49:00 AM
Great post; thanks. Yes, apple locks down the apps available through iTunes, but web apps are getting more and more interesting; and they are pushing what’s possible for web apps in a very open way through their support of webkit and HTML 5.
Andrew B. Watt said, on 5/1/2010 2:36:00 AM
Commonplace Books either feed into or grow out of the Renaissance interest in magic and Hermeticism and alchemy. There was a common belief that the act of writing out a quotation from a book helped fix that idea in your spirit and mind. You are right to compare Will’s insight to the commonplace book, but a digital commonplace book is at least one step less effective than a paper one (and I built a rolling “bamboo book” out of embroidery thread and Popsicle sticks once) because the handwriting carries the idea from eye through brain to hand to paper.
I’ll continue to keep my CP books on paper for the moment eventh though iBooks, Stanza and the Kindle app all help me read more.
Another exercise for those who keep CP books is to choose 7 sentences, and transfer them again to index cards. Then use each sentence as a subject of meditation for a day, for a week. It helps ideas to percolate deeply… Something the Internet does not teach us to do well.
jenny said, on 5/1/2010 7:16:00 AM
Thanks for the comments, everyone. The HTML 5 angle is a great one, but it’s almost incidental to Apple. The good news is that it will finally open up the iPhone, but compare that approach with Palm’s where I have two icons on my phone and a Java program on my laptop just for downloading apps from unofficial catalogs that Palm hasn’t approved (but condones). I also have 39 non-Palm patches from those catalogs that make my phone better than it is out of the box. Personally, I’ll take the latter, open approach over the “we know what’s best for you” one every time.
Andrew, I like the 7-sentence idea. Amazon has an interesting “daily refresh” feature for Kindle owners that could help with that process. I need to post about that, too. Thanks for adding more details about CP books.
One of the points I tried to emphasize in my talk about libraries and civic engagement (PDF) at last month’s Allen County Public Library’s Library Camp is that this isn’t a new role for us. The easy, soundbite way to explain this is to note that at the turn of the previous century, one of our major roles was to help immigrants assimilate into American society and learn how to be U.S. citizens. At the turn of the current century, there’s a similar need for us to do the same thing for digital immigrants, in no small part because there really isn’t anyone else to help those folks who are past high school age.
I’ve been gravitating towards this topic lately because I see so much potential, for both libraries and society, and the following idea makes total sense to me.
“David Nordfors, who runs the innovation journalism program at Stanford, stays studens are moving towards a journalisatic method of learning – finding knowledge, assesing it, and then connecting the dots to build a story.”
Sadly, like the 2006 MacArthur report about participatory culture, the 2020 effort includes libraries in that future only as afterthoughts, no more than potential support resources, rather than central, driving figures. While I applaud efforts like MacArthur’s digital learning in education initiative and the 2020 Forecast, I remain convinced that as a society, we’ll have a much greater impact on civic life for a greater range of people by focusing on libraries as the primary change agent, not schools.
We’re already well-positioned in our communities to be the conveners for this type of activity, we have a library ecosystem for lifelong learning that includes adults (not just K-12 students), we have supporting resources (not just technology, but context), we teach how to navigate information, and we’re the last, safe, non-commercial space that’s open to anyone without any barriers. In fact, quite a few sections of the 2020 sitescream “libraries” to me, and I encourage you to read through the various sections.
So while I’m intrigued by and fully support the idea of schools encouraging “innovation journalists,” those programs won’t reach their full potential – nor will the students – without libraries to support them. And when those students get out into the real world, libraries can facilitate their non-school efforts. And we can bring them together with the rest of the community to put those new civic literacies into practice for everyone.
And don’t get me started on the participatory divide….
Public education is the only solution for preserving a constitutional democracy
Have to start with our young people; knowledge is not handed down through the gene pool
We have some work to do to get them educated
Only a little more than 1/3 can even name the three branches of government, let alone tell us what they do
It’s not only through rallies or marches
Young people are beginning to get engaged in public life through the internet – email, blogging, facebook
Young people can take leadership roles in these spaces
This is a start in the political campaign world, but much more can be done
Have to get them engaged first and show them that government does have an impact on their lives and vice versa
We need to use the medium they’re comfortable with – a computer screen
Give them ownership and tools to use
Partnering with arizona state and Georgetown law school – “our courts” website is free to all users
will allow students to engage in real issues and problems and enable them to find solutions to real problems
lets them step into the shoes of a judge, etc.
encourages young people to make their voices heard in their communities
Two intentions for this project
Curriculum to be used in classrooms around the nation
one consequence of No Child Left Behind is that civics education has been squeezed out because there’s not testing or funding for it
leaves a huge gap
can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America is to produce knowledgeable citizens who have the skills and knowledge to sustain our nation and form of government
must also stimulate real thinking and debate, as well as a commitment to civic engagement
will exceed state standards
Primarily for young people to use on their own time
kids spend more time with media than at school or with parents
can we get them to spend just a little of that time on civic engagement
young people are interested in fairness and justice
Jim Gee is helping to create a truly immersive learning experience
will have them arguing real legal issues against the computer and against each other
we must ensure that tomorrow’s leaders are informed and engaged in rich debate that leads to wise decision-making
The more we can populate the medium available to young people with these social justice pieces, the more informed they’ll be
Q&A
Reuters: what videogames have you played before?
SDoC: I don’t play videogames – sorry
Reuters: some say games promote violence and are dangerously addictive for kids – does that worry you?
SDoC: certainly, but that’s not the kind of game we’re going to produce
NY Times: can you give examples of issues in the game and when will it be available?
SDoC: we hope by next fall to have the fundamentals on the website; resources for teachers will be up in September; Jim Gee’s work will be available by the end of September; first interactive part will be a t-shirt with a logo on it for high school students to wear – something that would raise a first amendment issue; she would love to put up something for students about the 2nd amendment (what does it mean – is it a personal right or not?); these are things students can learn to be engaged in; can provide them with precedents, the Constitution – let them make arguments for both sides
Q: Why do games & interactive technology better serve your mission?
SDoC: I’ve observed my own children and grandchildren; she’s illiterate as a computer user, but her grandchildren can do anything on there in minutes; they’ll sit in front of the screen for a long time and remain engaged; tells her that this is a good tool for this purpose; she believes that when we learn something by doing it (by having it happen to us), when you make an argument, etc. – you remember and understand it better, moreso than reading a textbook or listening to a lecture; her sense is that when we read something and learn it, there is a part of the brain that will receive it; but if we learn it by doing it, a different part of the brain will also light up (the emotional part – the “a-ha” moment); will ignite a different part of the brain; so things learned in this fashion stick with us longer; that’s what she thinks will be proven in the future
Q: what long-term outcomes do you hope to achieve with this project? Ideal place in 5 years?
SDoC: to know that classrooms all across the country are using this program and exposing children to civics education; will be easier for teachers to plug students into this curriculum – they don’t have to learn it themselves :-p
Q: what advice would you give to those who are trying this for the first time?
SDoC: there are so many subjects that people in this room are working on – all kinds of great programs; there will be as many programs as there are fertile imaginations, and we have a lot of those
This is a fantastic post, and I’ll be sharing it far and wide. Thank you! You’ve given me, as usual, a lot to think about. I keep re-reading
I was just able to , using Stanza, copy and email a text clipping from a Project Gutenberg edition of Flatland on my iPhone. It’s not the OS. It may be the app, or it may be the DRM attached to individual items.
Thanks, Jen!
Jason, Stanza does have a little more flexibility on the iPhone (it would be interesting to know how it works on the iPad), but I’m also referring to Apple’s overall approach, which is completely closed. Have you been able to add any software to your iPhone that wasn’t pre-approved by Apple and didn’t come through iTunes? If your iPhone works for you, great, but I don’t want my online experiences shaped only by Apple. YMMV.
[…] Posted on April 30, 2010 by mkschoen Lots, lots lots to think about here: The Shifted Librarian->Broken Boxes […]
As an information management student I found this post very thought provoking and am looking forward to following up some of the links/books you mentioned
Wow! Making me think, as always–and opening up new connections to things I haddn’t read. Thanks, Jenny!
As for getting software on the iPhone that wasn’t pre-approved by Apple and didn’t come through iTunes, sure! HTML 5 can do this–and already does. For example, Ibis Reader, http://ibisreader.com/, is a great webapp which you can install by bookmarking the page; since it uses HTML 5, you can then use it offline, too.
I would say it’s one of the best article I have ever read this year!
Thank you for taking the time to construct an extended, and very interesting, text today.
Great post; thanks. Yes, apple locks down the apps available through iTunes, but web apps are getting more and more interesting; and they are pushing what’s possible for web apps in a very open way through their support of webkit and HTML 5.
Commonplace Books either feed into or grow out of the Renaissance interest in magic and Hermeticism and alchemy. There was a common belief that the act of writing out a quotation from a book helped fix that idea in your spirit and mind. You are right to compare Will’s insight to the commonplace book, but a digital commonplace book is at least one step less effective than a paper one (and I built a rolling “bamboo book” out of embroidery thread and Popsicle sticks once) because the handwriting carries the idea from eye through brain to hand to paper.
I’ll continue to keep my CP books on paper for the moment eventh though iBooks, Stanza and the Kindle app all help me read more.
Another exercise for those who keep CP books is to choose 7 sentences, and transfer them again to index cards. Then use each sentence as a subject of meditation for a day, for a week. It helps ideas to percolate deeply… Something the Internet does not teach us to do well.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. The HTML 5 angle is a great one, but it’s almost incidental to Apple. The good news is that it will finally open up the iPhone, but compare that approach with Palm’s where I have two icons on my phone and a Java program on my laptop just for downloading apps from unofficial catalogs that Palm hasn’t approved (but condones). I also have 39 non-Palm patches from those catalogs that make my phone better than it is out of the box. Personally, I’ll take the latter, open approach over the “we know what’s best for you” one every time.
Andrew, I like the 7-sentence idea. Amazon has an interesting “daily refresh” feature for Kindle owners that could help with that process. I need to post about that, too. Thanks for adding more details about CP books.