[Last updated: May 2020]
Data: The ability to be aware of, create, collect, represent, evaluate, interpret, and analyze data from digital and non-digital sources.
The area of life around data — which entails the technical ability and critical thinking skills needed to create, collect, represent, evaluate, interpret, and analyze data from digital and non-digital sources — is becoming increasingly important for youth in today’s data-driven society. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2018 report indicates that data analysts will be one of the most in-demand job areas over the next several years. Additionally, this report indicates that a vast majority of employers will expect skills around data science and analytics from prospective applicants by 2021. While the formal educational setting and informal learning environments are increasingly aiming to address digital skills around data, there is a need for more initiatives that involve youth themselves in the development of educational resources around data creation, collection, representation, and analysis.
Looking ahead, we hope to facilitate more opportunities to co-design with youth educational resources around environmental conservation in the context of data (literacy). By co-designing educational resources with young people, we seek to cultivate skills key to academic and career readiness around a critical global issue in an engaging manner.
This is a slightly nascent area for the YaM team. While we are currently not working on a concrete publication in this space, we have spoken about the importance of data at various events and have examined ways this area can be further integrated in initiatives that aim to help equip youth with the skills to thrive in our digital world.
Against this backdrop, we would be delighted to explore possible collaborations around data; please don’t hesitate to email us if you would be interested in exploring this space further together.
Flagship publication:
- Youth and Digital Citizenship+ (Plus): Understanding Skills for a Digital World
- [Pages 42-43] Offers best practices in terms of assessing the efficacy of digital citizenship initiatives.
- [Pages 44-45] Provides an overview in terms of ways the data (literacy) area can be further incorporated into digital citizenship efforts.
Key learning resources:
To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.