Open Youth Networks operates at the leading edge of innovation in youth media education centering on an approach to using Web 2.0 technologies for democratic communication, social action, cross-cultural exchange and media justice.

Upcoming Projects

3G Summit: The Future of Girls, Gaming and Gender

When: August 4-6th, 2010

Hosted by Open Youth Networks, a program of Columbia College’s Dept of Interactive Arts and Media in partnership with the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in Arts and Media

During the 3G Summit, a diverse mix of 50 teenage girls from the greater Metropolitan area of Chicago spend three intensive days engaging in research, critical analysis and game play alongside recognized scholars/researchers in the fields of foresight, values-based game design, and gender studies. Through an inquiry based and interpretive process drawn from these disciplines, the participants generate ideas and prototype designs that harness the experiences and perspectives of girls for futuristic gender-inclusive and globally/socially-conscious gaming platforms and play environments. In particular, the girls are invited to think and write about how computer-based games designed for delivery via pda’s, mobile browsers and social networking sites could be used to educate users about local and global social issues that impact women and girls. They are also invited to consider their own roles and responsibilities in developing technologies for investigative journalism and social good with a local to global focus.

At the summit, the girls interact closely with journalists, humanities scholars and Columbia College faculty while engaging in participatory research and foresight activities. The girls also learn online journalism strategies in order to publish and disseminate their ideas through a collectively authored blog, a Facebook group and a Second Life island. The humanities scholars and girls will jointly present their future visions and 3d game prototypes at a culminating public event.

Green Games Institute, is a twelve-week curricular process for urban youth that echoes the iterative cycle of game design with an environmentally critical focus. This cycle includes the phases of: 1) research and conceptualization, 2) producing the design document, 3) generating game art and assets, 4) programming/coding, 5) play testing for beta release, 6) coding refinement 7) final release and social marketing.

The first half of the curriculum teaches ethics-based game literacy and design, environmental policy and planning and social media (viral marketing, etc.). The second half of the Institute transforms into a real live game production lab with Columbia College students joining the youth to act as student mentors and implementors of the game design document that the youth have created. During this second phase, youth are introduced to programming, game art creation, play-testing and viral marketing.

Green Games Institute will allow urban youth to design and develop Level the Playing Field! (working title), an environmental policy game that is played among friends on Facebook.

Its overall purpose as a game experience is to help young Justice Seekers design a greener city with policies of sustainability. Aided by real knowledge of Chicago communities, the Justice Seekers work to mobilize friends and family to pass green legislation, report on greedy polluters and build greener public spaces in urban neighborhoods.

When: TBA
Where: IAM Dept, Columbia College, 916 S. Wabash, Chicago

Our programs include:

YouthLABs – These incubators for the development of model curricular tools and workshops in emergent media and digital literacy target diverse groups of Chicago youth, particularly low-income and marginalized teens. Workshops feature hands-on training in digital content production, serious game design, media analysis, blogging, web development, wiki construction, interactive mapping, online video sharing, remix, copyright laws, web 2.0 organizing, media policy issues and social networking. During these workshops we also are pioneering and documenting a pedagogical learning framework of youth-centered collective authorship and digital learning. Our research is shared and disseminated to educators and youth development specialists as sets of promising practices in digitally-based education and youth development.

In 2007, we conducted YouthLAB (listening across borders) bringing 23 youth together from Barbados and Chicago in virtual space to discuss and create digital content around the legacy of slavery. Read OYN Director Mindy Faber’s article about YouthLAB curricular practices in Youth Media Reporter:
Listening Across Borders: Creating Virtual Spaces for Youth Global Exchange

In 2008, we conduct the FAIR USE REMIX INSTITUTE (FURI), to train youth to create political remix videos in a potent election year climate while understanding how remix intersects with copyright law, intellectual property, the fair use doctrine and First Amendment Free Speech rights.

YouthLAB member Lori Moody teaches one of the McCormick Tribune Fellows how to create a blog.

YouthPUBLICS – Youth participants in our program participate in public presentations, trainings, screenings, dialogues, journalism, conferences and P2P content sharings that serve to increase public awareness and understanding of youth, education and media policy issues. For example, youth may speak at public forums about how remix is a cultural right of youth protected by Fair Use and the First Amendment citing their own works as examples. Below is a picture of Open Youth Networks members addressing audience questions after their curated screening of You-Tubesized at the 24/7 DIY Video Summit at the University of Southern California. The three also published an article in the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest about the radical potential of YouTube for social change.