Blog Archives

Content Production

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Content Production: The ability to produce (digital) content using (digital) tools.

Many young people use digital technologies to create and share content with others online. Some youth, for example, share status updates or post videos and pictures on their social media accounts. Other youth – those on the more active end of the spectrum who have the access to digital technologies and skills to use them – engage in podcasting, blogging, coding, or other forms of multimedia production. Such forms of content creation offer young people opportunities to express themselves, develop their creativity, and make their voices heard.

Main publication:

  • Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age (Chapter 6: Creators)

Key learning resources:

These learning resources (with the exception of “Metadata”) are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

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.

Other publications:

Gasser, U., & Cortesi, S. (2017). Children’s rights and digital technologies: Introduction to the discourse and some meta-observations. In M. D. Ruck, M. Peterson-Badali & M. Freeman (Eds.), Handbook of children’s rights: Global and multidisciplinary perspectives (417-436). New York: Routledge.

Civic and Political Engagement

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Civic and Political Engagement: The ability to participate in public matters (e.g., LGBTQ rights; peace building; addressing hate speech) and advocate for issues one cares about — using digital and non-digital tools — ideally to improve the quality of life in one’s community, from micro to macro levels (Levine, 2007).

Many youth today are shifting their social activities from the offline environment to the hybrid, online-offline world. For some, such social activities include civic and political engagement. This may be expressed through traditional political campaigns. More often, however, and more importantly, over the long term, this activism is expressed through a breadth of civic activities. These expressions may range from sharing political news on social media to using Twitter to rally others around a cause a young person cares about, to leveraging hashtags to raise awareness around an issue. Moreover, as many new political organizations have shown, such as Black Lives Matter, the online is a driver of engagement and can lead to offline engagement, and vice-versa.

Main publications:

Key learning resources:

These learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.

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.

Other publications:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • November 2019: Presentation, “10 Things I Learned from Young People”, Festival of Technology, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy
  • October 2019: Panel Presentation, “Social Media and Democracy,” Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Cambridge, MA

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Artificial Intelligence (AI): The ability to understand the algorithms involved in the AI-based platforms one interacts with, and the ethical conversations happening around the development of these technologies.

Over the past several years, technologies based on AI have started changing our daily lives. Innovations are rolled out at an accelerated pace, not only in professional working environments but also at home and in schools. Thus far, there is less research on the beneficial impact of AI-based technologies specifically on adolescents. However, recent reports and studies indicate that AI is playing an increasingly important role in, for instance, the domains such as education and health and well-being.

Setting out to understand what we know and what we don’t know, the YaM team released in 2019 a flagship publication entitled Youth and Artificial Intelligence: Where We Stand. In the publication, the authors highlight some of the team’s initial learnings and exploratory questions around the ways young people may interact with and be impacted by AI technologies. The publication addresses five thematic areas: 1) Education, 2) Health and well-being, 3) Future of work, 4) Privacy and safety, and 5) Creativity and entertainment.

The publication encourages various stakeholders — including policymakers, educators, and parents and caregivers — to consider how we can empower young people to meaningfully interact with AI-based technologies to promote and bolster learning, creative expression, and well-being, while also addressing key challenges and concerns. The publication has been featured at major events like ITU’s AI for Good in Geneva and UNICEF’s Towards Global Guidance on AI and Child Rights workshop.

We have also been exploring how to translate our AI research into educational tools. We have developed several tools — co-designed with and for youth — that can be used to learn and teach about AI in group-based formal or informal learning settings. The tools focus on some of the fundamental aspects of AI systems (e.g., what is an algorithm?), while also considering the ethical considerations surrounding AI-based applications (e.g., how do algorithms shape the content one sees on their social media feed(s) and how does this impact the way one interacts with information on social media?).

Additionally, we have been developing methods to translate our insights around AI in creative and accessible ways. For example, we are working on an AI children’s book (for ages 5+) that aims to foster discussion around themes such as AI and autonomy, the interplay between gender and STEM education, and human-machine interaction. To develop this book, we brought together a multidisciplinary and diverse group of YaM team members, with individuals from backgrounds such as education, the social sciences, art, policy making, youth activism, and engineering.

We are also working on expanding our repertoire of illustrations around AI that explore various domains related to AI, such as the future of work, health and well-being, creativity, privacy and safety, and education.

Flagship publication:

Ongoing collaborations:

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.

Other publications:

Videos and Podcasts:

In the media:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • December 2019: Presentation, “Artificial Intelligence and its Impact on Young People”, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France.
  • September 2019: Presentations, Youth and Artificial Intelligence in the context of Child Protection, Revision of the OECD Recommendation on the Protection of Children Online,OECD, Paris, France.
  • November 2019: Panel, “Developing Policy Guidelines for AI and Child Rights”, Co-Hosted with UNICEF, Internet Governance Forum, Berlin, Germany
  • November 2019: Presentations, “Youth and Media: Trends and Developments” and “Youth and Artificial Intelligence”, ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Zurich, Switzerland
  • September 2019: Keynote, “Youth and AI”, Symposium on Humane Artificial Intelligence, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawai’i
  • May 2019: Keynote, “Youth and AI: Where We Stand”, AI for Good Global Summit 2018, organized by the ITU and sister United Nations agencies, Geneva, Switzerland
  • January 2019: Presentation, “Youth, Artificial Intelligence, & Psychology”, Asia Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* Asia 2019), Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • [Urs Gasser] October 2018: Presentation, “AI in Asia and the Global Context”, Conference on AI and Commercial Law: Reimagining Trust, Governance, and Private Law Rules, Singapore Management University, Centre for AI and Data Governance, Singapore
  • November 2017: Presentation, “Artificial Intelligence and Education”, (Un)Colloquium, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA
  • October 2017: Presentation, “Youth and Artificial Intelligence”, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • November 2017: Presentation, Youth and the Lives of Tomorrow, Global Symposium on Artificial Intelligence & Inclusion, Rio, Brazil.

 

Digital Citizenship +

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[Last updated: May 2020]

Digital citizenship (and related concepts such as digital literacy, media literacy, new media literacies, 21st century skills, or digital competence) has become a topic of growing importance among academics and policymakers alike, at the center of debate and theorization around the skills youth need to navigate and actively participate in our digital world. On a global level, a variety of stakeholders — including government, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academia — have adopted the term to develop and shape formal and informal learning programs that aim to help youth address the challenges and embrace the opportunities the digital environment may present.

Since 2016, the YaM team has been studying the concept of digital citizenship, aiming to answer several key questions, including:

  • Why has the concept of digital citizenship become central in discussions about youth, education, and learning in the 21st century?
  • How is the concept of digital citizenship similar to or different from other concepts, such as digital literacy, media literacy, new media literacies, 21st century skills, or digital competence?
  • Based on a mapping of 35 frameworks, what does the current digital citizenship landscape address, and to what extent are youth’s voices included in the development, implementation, and evaluation of digital citizenship initiatives?
  • What are key considerations for learning spaces and meaningful youth engagement?
  • How can we address underexplored areas, such as artificial intelligence and data?

Read Youth and Digital Citizenship+ (Plus): Understanding Skills for a Digital World to explore this topic.

Flagship publication:

Ongoing collaborations:

Key learning resources:

  • Our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform (DCPR) hosts an evolving collection of free learning experiences, visualizations, and other educational resources designed and maintained by us. Many of these learning resources are available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, for each resource, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time. 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.

Other publications:

Selected presentations:

(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)

  • [Urs Gasser] November 2019: Presentation,“The Evolving Children’s Digital Rights Discourse”, Digital Lives: Families in the Age of the Internet Conference, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law and University of Geneva, Lausanne
  • November 2019: Presentation, “The Next Generation and Digital Media”, Schmidheiny Foundation, Interlaken, Switzerland.
  • November 2019: Panel, “Youth, Education, and Digital Technology”, Festival of Technology, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy
  • September 2019: Presentation, “Youth and Digital Citizenship” in the context of Child Protection, Revision of the OECD Recommendation on the Protection of Children Online, OECD, Paris, France.
  • October 2018: Keynote, “How Children Grow Up in a Digital Environment”, Expert Consultation by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), workshop “Protection of Children in a Connected World” hosted by the University of Zurich Digital Society Initiative, with the support of the Swiss Government and co-sponsored by the Korean Government, Zurich, Switzerland
  • January 2018: Presentation, “Digital Citizenship”, University of Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica

Games

We at the Youth and Media team believe that games are fun tools for inspiring questions and discussions. As a result, one way in which we disseminate our research is through co-designing educational games that teach digital literacies in fun, interactive ways. Past games have addressed digital issues such as privacy, information quality, and safety.

Working alongside high school and college students to co-design games, we are able to create games in a participatory manner that we believe maximizes their impact on the young people who play them. By involving young people in the creative process, we seek to increase the likelihood that our games will teach the lessons that they intend to teach.

The games listed below are the most recent versions developed through our co-creation process. After playing these games, we encourage you to remix them in accordance with your interests and experiences, as well as in response to recent technological developments.. All games are posted here under a Creative Commons licenses for easy sharing, remixing, and repurposing . If you decide to remix the content, then feel free to share these new versions with us at youthandmedia[at]cyber.law.harvard.edu. Regardless of whether or not your decide to remix the content, feel free to contact us at the same email address with any comments or suggestions that you may have.

* Search Yourself

This game is useful for introducing concepts of privacy, safety, and security to middle and high school students. It can be played in groups of 3-5 in 15-30 minutes. By playing the game, participants encounter opportunities to think about online privacy and talk about the idea that once they post something online it’s there forever.

Search Yourself – PDF
Search Yourself Cards – PDF

* Information Quality: The Game

This game familiarizes participants with the different factors which are important for consideration when searching for and evaluating information. From there, participants can create promotional campaigns for their projects in order to engage in the creation process and put into action those elements which they identified as compelling during search and evaluation.

Information Quality: The Game – PDF
Information Quality: The Game – PPT

Digital Literacy Resource Platform

The Digital Literacy Resource Platform (DLRP) is a new online platform we have designed and incubated as part of the Digital Media and Learning (DML) Trust Challenge grant, in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten, New York Public Library, Press Pass TV, NuVu, the Engagement Lab, and Walnut Hill School.

DLRP is an evolving collection of freely accessible resources (e.g. infographics, curricula, guides, and papers) about online safety, privacy, creative expression, and information quality. These resources can help users navigate connected learning environments and the digital world. The platform is intended to be used by a diverse audience of teachers, school administrators, parents, and youth.

Our resources act as tools that help users make better choices online by encouraging positive uses of networked technologies and the development of successful strategies to minimize and manage online risks. These guides, lesson plans, videos, research papers, and other open educational resources empower a diverse audience of teachers, school administrators, parents, and youth with the knowledge and skills for participating, navigating, and learning in the digital world. Currently, all of the tools on the DLRP have been created by the Berkman Klein Center. We are working with our network collaborators to identify and include additional resources.

We invite you to visit the DLRP, find the tools that you need, and use them at school, home, libraries, after-school activities, and with friends. You may also remix, transform, and build upon these resources. All have Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Licenses.

While we continue working on the design of the DLRP, creating, and curating new resources, we’d be delighted to get your feedback. Please let us know if the tools and the platform are helpful to you, and why. You can contact us at youthandmedia@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

Social-Emotional Learning & Online Relationships Modules

Based on previous research efforts and Lab activities, the Youth and Media team has made great strides building a curriculum focusing on social/emotional learning, and, in particular, online relationships.

So far, the young members of the lab together with the core Youth and Media team have developed three modules about Social-Emotional Learning & Online Relationships:

1. Creativity in Online Spaces

The module considers the value of creativity both online and offline, as well as the connection between creativity and science. Participants are encouraged to reflect on the relationship between creativity in their online practices and their interests in science and technology. This can done by reflecting on who they are, what they do online, and how creativity plays a role to each of these. Finally, participants produce analog or digital media designed to motivate or inspire others to pursue science, technology, education, and math (STEM).

Creativity in Online Spaces – PDF

Creativity in Online Spaces – PPT

Creativity in Online Spaces Handouts – DOC

2. Healthy Relationships Online

For today’s youth, the intricacies of online interaction can significantly impact their relationships. This module explores the topic of healthy relationships and emotional wellbeing among youth in relation to their technology use. Additionally, this module targets youth who work as peer leaders, trainers, mentors, etc., (“youth ambassadors”), and encourages them to think critically about this topic. The participants are also encouraged to identify ways of promoting positive bystanding (or, “upstanding”) among their peers, which include actions like discouraging bullying acts, offering their peers support, and openly communicating about issues that arise in a personal and school context.

Healthy Relationships Online – PDF

Healthy Relationships Online – PPT

3. Perspective

Media can be a powerful means for presenting audiences with different perspectives. In this module, participants explore what perspective is and what influences and shapes it. In particular, they consider the roles of empathy and the ability to understand others’ perspectives in the process of creating and sharing powerful media about social or community issues.

Perspective – PDF

Perspective – PPT

If you would like to know more about our modules, please feel free to send us (youthandmedia@cyber.law.harvard.edu) an email anytime. We are happy to provide you with additional information and/or share the actual modules with you.

Information Quality & News Literacy Modules

Based on previous research efforts and Lab activities, the Youth and Media team has made great strides building a curriculum focusing on information quality, particularly in the context of online news and journalism.

So far, the young members of the lab, together with the core Youth and Media team, have developed six modules about Information Quality & News Literacy:

1. Information Quality: Research Methods

Because the internet is a vast and ever-expanding place, it can be difficult to know where to search for information, particularly for academic research purposes. And once the information is found, how can we discern how high-quality the information is? This module, which incorporates the Information Quality Game, asks participants to consider the variety of factors which make up information quality, while also engaging participants in an exploration of different potential sources for research, from the familiar (such as Google Scholar) to the new (such as Twitter).

Information Quality: Research Methods – PDF
Information Quality: Research Methods – PPT

Research Resources Handout – PDF
Research Resources Handout – DOCX

IQ Game Cards (Sample + 5 rounds)
IQ Game Card Generator

2. Information Quality: The Game

This module familiarizes participants with the different factors which are important for consideration when searching for and evaluating information. From there, participants can create promotional campaigns for their projects in order to engage in the creation process and put into action those elements which they identified as compelling during search and evaluation.

Information Quality: The Game – PDF
Information Quality: The Game – PPT

3. News Stories (Evaluating Source and Search Online)

News media is frequently filled with reports whose details are later disputed, dismissed, or proven false. Such cases are typical with stories that receive ongoing investigation or that are contingent on previously withheld information being released. On the other hand, news stories premised on entirely false information make headlines less frequently (though at the same time, perhaps more than we realize). In this workshop students stand to gain an appreciation of what is at stake when evaluating online content and they gain greater awareness of their own evaluation practices.

Evaluating Source and Search Online – PDF
Evaluating Source and Search Online – PPT

4. Same Image, Different Story

News stories can be told from different points of view highlighting or omitting certain characters and facts. This activity familiarizes students with the numerous perspectives from which any given narrative could be understood. Focusing on the specific phenomenon of a couple caught kissing on camera during the Vancouver riots of 2011, students look at different videos, pictures and news articles to explore the importance of evaluating different sources and points of view.

Same Image, Different Story – PDF
Same Image, Different Story – PPT

5. Thinking Caps (Perspectives on Personal Information)

Online personal information, especially in social networking sites (SNS), is open to interpretation. Various stories about us can emerge when personal information is evaluated from different perspectives. This activity is meant to demonstrate the role of perspective in shaping the evaluation process and to emphasize reflection on the positive and negative implications of such evaluation.

Perspectives on Personal Information – PDF
Perspectives on Personal Information – PPT

6. Headline Cut-Ups

In this activity students engage with news stories from an ongoing event and have the opportunity to discuss how stories develop over time and to recognize differences between multiple sources of information. Students discuss the importance of headlines in describing news stories and identifying key words. Furthermore, students are introduced to the concept of chronology and create a timeline in groups.

Headline Cut-Ups – PDF
Headline Cut-Ups – PPT

If you would like to know more about our modules, please feel free to send us (youthandmedia@cyber.law.harvard.edu) an email anytime. We are happy to provide you with additional information and/or share the actual modules with you.

Freshman Seminar

Workshop with Baruch College, Freshman Seminar, November, 2011, New York City, NY:

The Youth and Media Team is collaborating on a series of news literacy projects with Geanne Rosenberg, professor at Baruch College and the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center. On November 3rd and 9th, The YaM Team and Professor Rosenberg led a freshmen seminar at Baruch College in Manhattan on the topic of searching, evaluating, and sharing online news content. The seminar, a result of several months of collaborative planning between the YaM team, Professor Rosenberg, and other Baruch faculty, was delivered to the college’s entire entering class of some 400 students. Students were engaged with questions such as: What online news content do you trust and why? How can the Internet be a boon and hazard in our search for information? How can the information you share online reflect your own professional credibility?

The YaM Team and Professor Rosenberg continue to plan projects on these topics and are designing an innovative program for high school aged youth in the future. Look below for photos from our trip to Baruch College.