Developing a BarCampUKYouthOnline

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

Whether it's the web officers who run local and national youth websites, the people encouraging online campaigning and volunteering, the youth team at Direct Gov, the students and academics studying young peoples identity and interaction online, the youth workers working out how to support young people online, the policy makers thinking about sensible response, the developers of services targetted at young people, the consultants and bloggers thinking about what social media means, or indeed young people themselves – there are a lot of people with important perspectives and experience and questions around:

• Online information services for young people
• Supporting young people's online interaction and activity
• Researching young people and the internet/blogging/social networking etc.
• Developing online tools and platforms for young people
• Exploring online technologies in education and participation
• Young people's civic engagement online
• And a whole lot more…

Well, inspired and encouraged by the success of BarCampUKGovWeb, and after lots of conversations with folk, I though we could probably do with a BarCampUKYouthOnline to draw together some of those threads, to bring together some of the people interesting in exploring these threads, and to build some networks and ideas for action. So let's organise it.

Provisionally I've put in 17th May 2008 as the date for the event – but that's about all that is decided so far. If you're interested in attending, getting involved in planning, or just finding out more – drop me an e-mail, edit the Wiki and join the Google Group mailing list. It would be great to have you on board… 🙂

Notes:

BarCamps are self-organised dynamic conferences created by the participants. The name is misleading, they've not officially got anything to do with alcohol.

Young People as I'm thinking of the category is broadly 11 – 19 year olds – although that's not a strict boundary on what we can talk about.

Update

I'd originally proposed 3rd May 2008 as the BarCamp date – but on realising this was a bank holiday weekend – am suggesting a switch to the 17th May.

Attachment: BarCampUKYouthOnline.doc