Sharing learning from the Plings project…

[Summary: I’m going to be blogging for the Plings project – exploring new ways of collecting and sharing positive activity information for young people]

The Plings project has been one to watch for a while. Exploring new ways of collecting, processing and sharing information for on positive activities for young people.

Local authorities are under a duty to provide information on the out-of-school activities in a local area  young people can get involved with – but collecting and disseminating all that information is a big challenge.

Plings, built by research cooperative Substance, is an open source project that has been seeking to pilot and explore ways of semantically aggregating and then distributing that data, through XML feeds, iCal widgets and other mash-ups. Now that Substance has won the contract to lead the DCSF funded Information and Signposting Project, they’re going to be accelerating the development of the Plings project, and working with 20 local authorities to generate stacks of shared learning about collecting, processing and sharing positive activity information. This week has already seen the data from Plings made available via DigiTV, and I’m in the midst of scoping how positive activity information could be shared through Social Network Sites.

And if I can keep up with all the learning being generated, I’ll hopefully be blogging as much of it as possible over on the Plings blog.

So, if you’re interested in public sector mash-ups, promoting positive activities to young people, or just exploring new ways of innovating in the youth sector, please do subscribe to the Plings blog and throw in your thoughts and reflections to the comments there as the project moves forward…

(Disclosure: My blogging for the Plings project is part of a paid contract with Substance. I’m sharing news of it here as I think the learning from the ISP/Plings project will be of interest to a lot of readers of this blog.)

Participle’s Peggy – intergenerational interaction

[Summary: new application to send real snail-mail postcards from Facebook – interesting way to explore intergenerational interaction with young people]

Picture 3.pngI’ve long been interested in how the explosion of amazing networking and interactivity on the social web can bridge to the offline world of paper and pens. Well, thanks to a tweet from Alberto I just came across a great Beta project exploring exactly that.

Send with Peggy is a facebook application from Participle (put together by the fantastic MakeMode) that makes it easy to create and mail a real postcard direct from within Facebook.

Participle take the message typed on screen, and then get a postcard with the message, and with a pre-prepared reply envelope, delivered to the person of your choice. The Facebook generation can type, whilst the paper generation can write.

This probably falls into the class of one of those positive aspects of social network site to explore with young people…

(BTW – if you find this project interesting, you may want to keep an eye on some of the other things Particle is exploring around youth engagement. The fantastic Sarah Schulman has just started working with Particle to head up a new youth programme there… so I’m expecting exciting innovations to be emerging soon…)

A social media game without an evening lost laminating

cardimages.jpg[Summary: Using Moo.com to make workshop resources]

(This post is mainly for those who have spent far too long laminating little bits of card late at night in preparation for a workshop the next day…)

I’ve used variations on the Social Media Game in workshops before. The game, which works by setting scenarios, and getting workshop participants to explore how they would use different tools or approaches to respond to those scenarios is a really effective way to encourage knowledge sharing and practical learning in a session.

However, preparing the game cards for a workshop always turns into one of those nightmare jobs. Simply printing them on paper or card isn’t enough – they’re too flimsy – and it’s always surprising how much the quality of a resource affects people’s interaction with. So, up until now – that’s always meant an evening of laminating little bits of printed paper to create good quality cards. And I know I’m not the only one who suffers this small but significant laminating challenge – @davebriggswife has rendered great services to social media in this country through laminating little bits of social media game card.

So, this time, as I started putting together the ‘Social Network Game’ for the Federation of Detached Youth Workers’ conference next Friday I though I’d try something different. And this morning a set of wonderful ‘Social Network Game’ postcards arrived on my doormat courtesy of Moo.com.


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All I needed to do was to create each of the cards as an image, upload them to Moo, pay a few quid, and ta-da – high quality postcard-size workshop resources ready to go.

Why bother blogging this?

Well, asides from trying to save others who loose evenings to the laminating machine – I’m really interested by the potential that Print on Demand solutions like that of Moo.com can offer for:

  • Creating high quality resources – I’ve always been struck by how having good quality resources for workshops affects people’s responses. But often getting things professionally printed for a one-off workshop just isn’t viable… but can be with Print on Demand.
  • Resource sharing – Using the Moo.com API I could provide an easy way for anyone else to order a set of the Social Network Game cards I’ve designed. (In fact, once I’ve tested them out in a workshop I might try and create a set for others to get hold of…)
  • Promoting positive activities – Could the Information and Signposting project make use of the positive activities data and multi-media it’s collecting to make it really cheap and easy for activity providers to order promotional postcards to hand out?

Definitely something I’m keen to explore more. Would be great to hear about any other ideas or experience that you have…

That’s too risky – but for who?

[Summary: things local authorities might say… and why they need to think again]

You might have heard a local authority or organisation you work with say something like this:

riskcartoon.jpg“We can’t engage with young people through social networking sites – it’s just too risky.”

To which my reply is generally ‘Risky to who?’.

Engaging with social network sites may present risks to organisations. Risks of not understanding what’s going on; Risks of hearing negative feedback from young people about what the organisation is doing; and risks of being associated with negative news stories about social network sites.

And leaping into SNS without preparing staff and having policies and support in place for practitioners also creates risks of mistakes being made.

But when organisations and authorities, who have a duty to promote the safety of children and young people don’t engage – it’s young people who are put at risk.

If Social Network Sites are blocked at school, and young people encounter unsuitable content or contact that worries them whilst they are circumventing the school filters, they are less likely to raise a concern with teachers or other adults because they may worry about getting into trouble for circumventing the blocks.

If staff don’t gain an understanding of social network sites through using them then they won’t be able to support young people to engage with them safely, or to respond to potential risks proactively.

But if staff are engaged with social network sites they can identify risks before they become harms; they can become approachable adults who young people will talk to about their worries; they can help young people develop their online communities into pro-social positive spaces.

WISE Kids Webcast: a tale of four youth workers

[Summary: watch a webcast of the Youth Work and Social Networking research]

If you prefer listening to a presentation over reading a report (PDF) – then you can catch some of the key learning from the Youth Work and Social Networking project in this video from Tim speaking at the Wise Kids conference in Swansea during October.


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You can find the Video here. Choose ‘Workshop B’ from the Playlist, and then select the presentation labelled ‘Tim Davies’ to watch.

This video also introduces a new way of looking at the workforce development aspect of the Youth Work and Social Networking final report – exploring different youth work responses to Social Network Sites through the stories of four different youth workers.

Plus – whilst you’re looking at the webcast – you can enjoy many other presentations from the Wise Kids conference – including a great Key Note by John Davitt about new media tools for education and learning during the morning sessions.

Video Change one page guides: youtube, vodpod and video making

I’ve been meaning to post these for a while: six ‘one page guides’ (ok, so actually one of them has two pages..) that I created for the Video Change project with Oxfam.

These are slightly different from the usual ‘one page guides‘ – but hopefully they may prove useful to others running in person or online training around the basics of making video for the web, or about using online video in activism and campaigning.

1) Six Steps to Online Video

An overview guide created to step participants in the course through capture, transfering, editing and uploading their video content.

Step 5 of the guide is specific to Video Change – so would need changing for any other use.

Download the PDF here, or get the original Word Document for editing here.

2) Collecting videos with VodPod

Whilst we had some problems with getting the VodPod widgets to work properly we did use it in Week 2 of the Video Change course to invite participants to collect and share their favorite videos. There is definitely potential for VodPod as a tool for use by Youth Services and websites to clip and display some of the best positive video clips on the web direct to their websites and blogs.

Again, this guide includes some Video Change specific bits in the ‘challenge’ box – so you download the VodPod PDF here, or download the original word document to update this guide for your own settings.

3) Finding and using Stock Footage

This guide should be generic and ready to do without adaptation and includes five sites to search for creative commons and public domain footage.

So if you regularly try and explain to people how they can use stock footage in their video making you might find it handy and it is ready for download as a PDF here. Of course, you may want to download the MS Word file original and change the list of stock video sources to point to your own favourites.

4) Sharing Videos on YouTube

This one page guide includes tips for upload a video to YouTube and for getting it seen by careful naming of the video and using the playlist, favourite and sharing features.

You can download the PDF here, or get the world file to edit from here.

5) Six approaches to Video Change

As part of the Video Change course we explored different ways in which campaigners could add online video their the campaigning toolbox. This guide outlines six different ways in which video can be used in activism – from video petitions through to video reporting and using video conversation tools like Seesmic.

Get the PDF here, or download the word file for editing and creating your own version.

6) Creating a Sisters on the Planet clip

The final module of Video Change invited participants to create their own Sisters on the Planet video clips. If you’re running a video making course you could do worse than to set creating a Sisters on the Planet video making challenge to your students – and I’m sure Oxfam would be happy to feature and use some of the resulting clips. This guide is also available to adapt for other video making challenges.

Get the PDF to use it as it is, and download the word file if you want to play around with it for your own projects.

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As with all the one page guides these are all licensed under a Creative Commons license to allow them to be adapted and re-used. However, please do note the request for these guides in particular that if you do find them useful that you credit Oxfam.org.uk and consider making a donation or taking a campaign action from here in return for getting the resources for free.

Climate change, poverty and empowerment

Today is Blog Action Day. And I’ve spent most of the day up at the Oxfam offices in Oxford working on the website for a new campaign project aiming to really raise the positive debate about Climate Change in the media when world leaders meet in Poland this December.

Why, you may ask, when this year’s Blog Action Day is asking people to write about the gross injustice of widespread Poverty in our world, am I starting a post about Climate Change? Surely I’m a year late. And, what’s more, some people might (indeed do) say, ‘Why is Oxfam working on a Climate Change campaign website? Oxfam is about alleviating poverty not about stopping Climate Change!’.

Well – I was a first curious, when, as a member of Oxfam’s Youth Board I discovered the charity was putting a large amount of it’s campaigning effort into climate change – but then I saw the Sister’s on the Planet films – and the whole thing became a lot clearer.

The challenges of alleviating global poverty are compounded by climate change. Climate change hits the poorest first and hardest. And those in poverty are the least empowered to act. Which is why we have to understand the global issues we face as connected. But the connections between poverty, disempowerment and climate change also offer us space for change and space for action. And action has never been more urgent.

00256299.jpgBTW: that last link is to a new book out from Oxfam – ‘The Urgency of Now’ – based on Duncan Green’s masterpiece ‘From Poverty to Power‘. You can read it online, or order in hard copy for £4 or so – but if you’d like a free copy, drop me a line and I should be able to get one or two copies to you…

Reflecting on social reporting or enabling social reporters

Picture 25.png[Summary: A personal learning reflection on digital reporting from events – enable people to report, don’t report on their behalf…]

I’ve facilitated young people as ‘roving reporter‘ and ‘digital journalists’, or even, in the terminology David Wilcox is developing, ‘social reporters‘, at events before – and I’ve acted directly as the digital reporter at a few events in the past.

However, trying to blog and digitally report from the annual conference of the Association of Principal Youth and Community Officers on Monday I found it surprisingly challenging to tap into the buzz of the event and build up a coherent blog record of what was going on. That’s not to say we haven’t managed to provide a good foundation for online discussion and networking between APYCO members in the future – but it did get me reflecting on the difference between being the reporter and facilitating the reporting process.

Supporting young people to be the digital reporters at events about young people has always made sense. Given the skills to operate video cameras and update the blog – young people are then able to go out into a conference or event and use their insights into the issues that affect them to ask the right questions. Holding the camera or the Dictaphone, and being in control of the blog, alters the usual balance of power between young people and adults in the conference setting – and generally produces great results.

So why didn’t I work with APYCO to equip a number of the youth service managers there to be the social reporters – to go out an interview their colleagues and to talk about the issues that affect them? Time & resources perhaps. And also not having yet had the experience of digital reporting from a managers event to reflect on. But I’ll certainly make sure I take the enabling others to report approach in the future rather than taking on the reporting role directly.

Reflections on Video Change project

Picture 9.pngEarlier this year I facilitated a pilot online course for Oxfam GB called Video Change. The course, which in the end ran over 8 weeks, sought to equip existing Oxfam activists with the skills for making video for the web.

The course itself didn’t quite produce the level of activity and video making that we had hoped for, but it has produced a lot of learning which will feed into future work by the Activist Support & Campaigns teams in Oxfam GB to provide online learning and support opportunities for activists and campaigners.

Below you can find a few assorted reflections and key shared learning from the course content and process of running the course:

What makes a great campaigning video?

In Week 2 of Video Change I invited participants to pick 5 or so videos that they thought were great examples of online video and video for campaigning.

Of course, we didn’t expect there would be consensus on what makes a good campaigning video – but we were struck by just how diverse the selections that were made were – ranging from 15 minute documentaries through to 30 second clips from the TV.

You can see some of the videos that were selected below or in this VodPod:

And here some some of the participants reflections on the online campaigning videos they chose:

“With the volume of videos on the web if it doesn’t grab me within 5 secs and hold my attention i’m going to switch off. The most popular clips are almost always funny so 4 out of the 5 videos here are funny.”

“It had a non-intuitive approach to the issue, which should hopefully be engaging to people who “get” environmental issues, but who don’t want to spend a lot of time being preached to – so the video is short, and leaves you waiting for the punchline. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that a good video is quite a lot like a good stand-up comedy gag!”

“What I like about this is, that it’s about a simple activity that anyone can do to make a difference for people living in poverty.To my mind, this is very empowering. It’s simple in style too, although I suspect the editing wasn’t as straightforward as it looks. No frills: the presenter believes what she is saying, and says it. Brilliant.”

“I felt the ‘call to action’ at the end was a bit weak. It needed something to really tell me what I can do next.”

What does all this mean for those creating campaign videos?

Whilst the participants in Video Change were a very specific group of already engaged online video consumers – there is some value in reflecting upon their choices of video and what it could mean for campaigners and NGOs seeking to use video as part of their activist work. In particular, we found:

  • There is no one format or style of video that will appeal to everyone – obvious of course – but it does have interesting implications for NGOs. A number of videos participants chose during the course were remixes of other videos – or were video memes. Instead of trying to create a catch all video with wide appeal it may turn out best for NGOs to create clips which can be remixed by volunteers and supporters to appeal to different audiences.
  • Most videos benefit from a clear call to action – Some of the videos were valued as inspiring in their own right – but many failed to provide a clear sense of how someone could respond to what they had just seen. Simple, down to earth, suggestions of how to respond to a video on the last few seconds can increase impact.
  • Get attention and then get the message across (in that order) – Videos that focussed on getting people’s attention first, and then getting their message across second, seemed to be more popular than those which put their message up front. The most popular videos tended to take people on a journey, even if only a 30 second journey.
  • Activity packed edits got more attention – When videos were reporting on a recent campaigning event or activity then including lively music and regularly changing camera angles (using B-roll footage) kept people’s attention for longer.

If you’ve got other tips for creating campaign videos – do share those in the comments below.

Running an open or closed course

Picture 13.pngWhilst my original pitch for the course was to run an open learning project, in the end we decided to try and closed pilot – working with existing Oxfam activists. Part of the thinking was that this way we could focus on the video campaigning skills, rather than spending time exploring the issues Oxfam campaigns on as well.

Clearly open courses, like the Work Literacy social media course currently running, have a lot more potential for attracting large numbers of participants and vibrant discussions. However, it’s worth noting that these open courses are very much about learning to apply to one’s individual life and work – rather than to apply in support or a campaigning organisation.

Our conclusion from Video Change was that the benefit of running more open courses in the future outweighs the risk of some participants using their new skills to go ‘off message’ – but it’s worth recognising that many big NGOs are still only starting on the path of understanding that they need to let go of a degree of control over message in order to see greater returns of action and engagement.

On a technical level – facilitating the course using Ning set to be a private network was a little tricky – as you loose access to the open RSS feeds which can make it a lot easier to follow what is going on across the network.

Online training or online learning

The idea which inspired me to suggest an online course to the Oxfam team was my participation in the 31 days to a better blog challenge in 2007. In hindsight it is clear that that was an ‘online learning’ project, rather than an ‘online training’ project – and Video Change ended up being a slightly confused combination of the two.

Working in a closed pilot with participants, most of whom didn’t have their own established social media spaces online (blogs, twitter etc) and many of whom were not familiar with reflective learning online, meant that I ended up in a teaching role rather than the learning facilitator role I had hoped for. Being clear about whether a project is about online teaching (needs a classroom style online environment, set inputs and clear plans) or learning (needs a network and reflective environment, inputs and resources which respond to participants needs).

Screen-casts are a great tool
Picture 11.png
Each week of the course had one or two video inputs (perhaps one was a presentation) and a one-page guide introducing that weeks activities and challenges (I’ll share some of the Guides here soon…). However, I quickly found myself making extensive use of Jing to create screen-casts to explain particular steps involved in creating, sharing or promoting a video – and these narrated screen casts were really well received.

With the ease of creating Screen-casts with a tool like Jing they are something I’ll be aiming to add more often to my training toolkit.

The future of a Video Change model?

As a pilot Video Change taught us a lot. It’s unlikely to run in the same format again – but hopefully we’ll soon be able to share many of the course resources more widely – and the idea of online learning for activists and campaigners will emerge in a slightly different form in Oxfam soon.

A round up from the Youth Work Web

Since UK Youth Online unConference two new youth blogs have made it onto the scene. Welcome to:

Tom and John join a growing number of youth work bloggers – and I’m hoping after the 2008 APYCO (Association of Principle Youth and Community Officers) conference we’ll be able to tell of a number of youth service leads also joining the youth work blogosphere. It’s great to be able to see so many conversations emerging between fired up informal educators and participation people.

In other interesting posts from the Youth Work web:

I’m sure there has been loads more going on that I’ve missed. But I’ll leave you with this clip recorded by Katie Bacon about running a Social Network Site in a youth service.

It’s not a polished recording – just five minutes of fantastic shared learning on informal education – and the sort of quick video it would be great to see a lot more of.


Find more videos like this on UK Youth Online