Tim's Blog

Today's discussions at 2gether08 brought me back again to a realisation that youth work, and wider informal education, is not on very many people’s radar.

When we talk young people and education, conversations very quickly turn into conversations about schools and colleges - capturing only a small part of young peoples education. Only 9 minutes, in fact, of every hour in young people’s waking day is spent in school (and that’s just for the young people who are actually in school...).

Not all of the remaining 51 minutes of each hour will be spent in informal education, and for many young people, access to supported informal education is really limited (statutory youth services are only resourced to support on average 30% of their local 13 - 19 year old populations) - but, supported and unsupported informal education really mustn’t be forgotten and is something that, in a web 2.0 social media world, we should be paying a lot more attention to.

Thanks to Nick Booth for a pointer to this website where you can see which of the 198 National Indicators that central government sets for Local Authorities your council has chosen to focus on. Local Authorities have each had to choose 35 priority indicators that their performance will be measured against.

As Nick points out, the site isn't anywhere near as user friendly as it could be, but it does let me link to specific indicators. So, take a look at see:

• Is your Council focusing on providing positive activities for young people? (77 are)

Update: The session has been accepted onto the schedule for the event. So if you have a youth work background and were thinking of coming along then it would be absolutely great to see you there (and to have your input). See the 2gether website for booking info on 2-day and day tickets.

[Summary: seeking youth workers and young people interested in developing ideas at 2gether 08 on an innovation lab for youth work and digital technologies]

I've just been putting together a pitch for a session at the 2gether 08 social innovation event. 2gether describes itself as:

Just a quick pointer to the Interim Report of the Youth Work and Social Networking project I've been working on with Pete Cranston over the last few months.

This turned into a far longer report and piece of work than I'd anticipated - but I hope it sets out some clear foundations for the next phase of research - working on the practical 'How To' of moving from where we now, to a place where an effective youth work perspective and practice in responding to online social networks is in place.

You can read more on the project blog over here.... and I'd really welcome any feedback or reflections through the comments or by e-mail.

I came across Andreas' work at nonformality.org when he added to the reasons why youth workers should be blogging. And now Andreas and the team at the National Youth Agency of Estonia are taking the initative to kick start even more dialogue about how the informal learning sector across Europe can get far more engaged with the web by pulling together a Networking Seminar in Tallin, May 30 - 31, 2008.

From the Seminar flyer:

The context - why?

Right now I'm working on series of strategy options for engaging young people in local democracy activities through Facebook. The two key platforms for engagement that support some level of dilogue appear to be Facebook pages, and Facebook groups. So I though I'd try and get a sense of when you would choose one over the other.

If you were looking to host a discussion between young people and local councillors on Facebook - which would you use?

Below are the notes I've drafted on the topic so far...

Groups or Pages?

There are a lot of people working on supporting young people through the internet, or supporting young people to engage with the internet.

Whilst I'm on the topic of upcoming conferences and events, two days before I'll be exploring how various speakers think we should keep young people safe online, I should be at BarCampUKGovWeb - an altogether different sort of event.

A BarCamp "an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees." Participants are encouraged to contribute short sessions to the event - and I've just been thinking about the sorts of sessions I could present.

The BarCampUKGovWeb focus is on:

With more funding that ever around for video and multi-media projects with young people, is the focus of the funding spot on, or missing a trick?

Media box has £6m of government funding to give to "creative media projects involving film, television radio, online, print and multi-media". Government is talking about these projects as ways of addressing the negative media portrayal of young people, and often we hear about how they equip young people with skills for jobs in the media. However, if we really want to support young people to challenge negative stereotypes in mainstream media, and to participate as citizens in an ever more networked world, we need to do more than to create one-off videos or to train a small group to work in media jobs. We need to focus the core of our funding on building media literacy*.

Just tidying up the final videos and content from The Youth Summit and came across this.

The hoodie is a much maligned garment. Luckily it has staunch defenders, like NYA Chief Exec Tom Wylie... and a certain group of Monks...