Subscribe Feed (RSS)How Will Youth Work Use The Web in 2009?…
November 27th, 2008 by mas | Comments | Filed in Innovation & TechnologyYou can see some thoughts from a few people in the slides and have a listen to DK’s hopes in the film about how Youth Work will use the web in 2009.
Thanks to Adam Sibley, Adam Fletcher, Carl Haggerty, DK and Tessy Britton for bravely putting forward their predictions/ideas/hopes. I say brave because of course in a years time we’ll be able to look back and see how close to the mark we were!
Overall there’s a sense of hope that Youth Work better embraces the web next year. I’ve slightly countered that with my more cynical prediction that still next year youth work in general will be slow to embrace the web. I started an online network for what was then the Young Movers programme in 2003, at that time internet access was a real issue for many of our young volunteers but even those without home access felt it was the best solution for being able to have a more ongoing relationship with us while back at their homes in various parts of the country. I felt then that what we were doing was maybe a couple of years ahead of the pack and that soon an online element would become normal.
Well 5 years later and things haven’t changed much! Except that young people are using the web prolifically - the social network explosion has integrated the web into young peoples normal social lives, but for all manner of reasons the services working with young people have largely been left behind.
I agree with DK’s thoughts that there needs to be so much more to developing the use of the web than trying to jump on board the social network train. For one thing the use of social networks is likely to change radically very quickly - my own prediction here is that there will be much more of a move towards open networks that allow people to take their data wherever they like and quickly move between networks instead of having all their films, photos etc. tied into facebook. If so this will provide some interesting possibilities for youth services online along with a few more challenges to overcome.
The use of twitter is mentioned a couple of times. This was something we’d considered with plans for OnTheUp - the idea of being able to get an instant evaluation from young people involved in projects is very appealing. I don’t think though that twitter is the solution to this though, at least not until mobile providers provide a free data plan as standard for mobile phones. What I can see happening is that it surely can’t be long before mobile phone services integrate sms, twitter and msn/instant messaging into one universal service - if this happens the instant evaluation idea could quickly become a reality, although there will still be the challenge of getting young people to be willing to do so (which may not be so difficult depending on how you approach it).
Despite my cynical ‘not much will change’ prediction I really hope they do - in fact I’m relying on it! I’m planning to throw myself into developing digital youth programmes in the new year and am very aware that as things stand there won’t be much of a take up. What I’m hoping is that as people like DK and Tim Davies spread the word and continue to inspire youth workers out there to explore the web I’ll be able to build on this and provide some nicely structured ideas for using the web in creative ways towards personal development and community involvement - so I really hope youth work does embrace the web next year!
So thats our thoughts - if you have your own predictions or have thoughts on other peoples please do add them in the comments.
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Tags: digital youth work, dyw, Films & Social Media, Innovation & Technology, social media, social networks, youth work 2.0
