digital youth network

Learning to create and creating to learn through design-based projects: An investigation of learning processes and outcomes across settings and time

Our research to date shows that the Digital Youth Network (DYN) is an environment that fosters creative production for personal expression, subject-matter learning, entertainment, and social interaction.

All students engage in substantive projects that allow them to imagine, design, author, and remix media. Some students have become deeply engaged in production and are beginning to talk about themselves as media artists, game designers, or social activists. The creative environment at DYN is the result of the intentional design work of DYN staff in collaboration with school leaders and teachers. The longitudinal data suggest the following preliminary findings:

• By the end of sixth grade, students participating in DYN programs reported a greater diversity of technological fluency-building activities, what we call “breadth,” than a sample of middle school (grades 6-8) students in Silicon Valley who had high access to computing tools at school and home.
• When comparing experience levels from the beginning of sixth grade to the end of seventh grade, we found that all students in the DYN cohort reported an increase in the number of software tools for which they felt they possessed an expertise and competency to teach others.
• After-school participation in DYN pods, defined as participating in one year or two years of the after-school sessions, correlated with an increase in knowledge depth. Among students with pod participation, increased pod participation resulted in higher reported rates of completing 21st century learning activities by more than six times. This includes, for example, using iMovie or participating in an online forum.
• Students with greater pod participation also were more likely to report that the after-school program and their own exploration of 21st century technologies were significant learning resources for them compared with students who did not participate in pods. Students who never participated in pods saw a decline in their rating of the importance of learning on their own.
• Students with extended pod participation also rated themselves as more engaged in learning about computing than students who had not participated in pods.
• Students’ rating of the likelihood of future technological activities, including working as a computer teacher or network specialist or creating media for social change, increased with pod participation.
• Interviews with students, mentors, and parents suggest varied pathways of interest development through the middle-school years. Some students are developing specific technological interests (e.g. game development), while others are focused more on extending their capacity with other forms of expression including writing, music, publication, and graphic design. A third group is developing technological skills focused on communications, such as broadcasting social commentary and creating forums that allow other people to participate.
• Consistent with our predictions about the expansion of students' learning ecologies, we are finding that our case study students are taking their new skills outside of school to create products for family and friends, participate in other programs such as YMCA, or start social networking sites.
• Freedom Fridays, contests, Remix Dollars (virtual currency), and other DYN programmatic structures generate excitement that motivates participation. Explicit recognition of quality by the mentors and teachers frequently gets the attention of parents and students.

Our research collection and analysis continues. Current analysis relates to: the complexity of collaboration and the growth of awareness of how to structure successful collaborations; individual differences in willingness to go public with artifacts and opinions; students' strategies for carrying out research as it relates to their confidence in various sources; and the role of production in perception of media and critique. Visit the Publications page for completed and working papers.