Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

9.16.10 | YOUmedia is taking its successful model for 21st-century learning to more Chicago students across the city.

Children are immersed in digital worlds at home and on their own time—from social networks to online and video gaming. YOUmedia capitalizes on this interest by blending traditional and digital media in a dynamic out-of-school setting. 

Located in the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago, the YOUmedia digital space includes 100 laptops, a state-of the art recording studio, smart boards, and video cameras, coupled with all the resources of the Chicago Public Library. YOUmedia is pioneering efforts to use research and evidence to build innovative out-of-school spaces to tap interest and initiative, spark creativity, and foster collaboration.

Amy Eshleman, who oversees YOUmedia as the Chicago Public Library’s assistant commissioner for strategic planning and partnerships, says the digital space has “pushed us to redefine our mission.”

“In the past, teens came in and were consumers of information,” says Eshleman. “What we do is provide mentors that allow them to make, create and do things – to become creative users of media, not just consumers of it.”

Now, just over a year after its launch, YOUmedia is expanding to branch libraries in three underserved communities: Pilsen, Englewood and Humboldt Park. The first two locations are scheduled to open this winter, while the Humboldt Park space will be housed in a new library that will open its doors in summer 2011. (YOUmedia is also expanding nationally; read more about those plans here.)

“The current space serves primarily high school students who have the ability to travel downtown,” Eshleman says. “We are interested in seeing what the tenets and concepts of YOUmedia would look like at a neighborhood library, where we can serve middle school students as well.”

A joint venture between the Chicago Public Library and Digital Youth Network, the YOUmedia expansion is funded by federal stimulus dollars, the City of Chicago and private investment from the MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust. The launch of three new YOUmedia sites is being done in conjunction with the City of Chicago’s Smart Communities Program, whose aim is to provide digital access in several neighborhoods.

“It’s a great opportunity to reach some kids we haven’t reached before,” says Eshleman. 

Mike Hawkins, YOUmedia’s lead mentor, says the space will be important to any neighborhood because it gives students a safe and productive place to spend their out-of-school time.

“The most important part of a place like YOUmedia is the fact that it is something they [students] can truly own,” Hawkins says. “YOUmedia will be key to opening these doors which for so long have been limited and sometimes closed in various undeserved communities.”

The program will mix curriculum and learning workshops with the individual interests of each child. Trained mentors at each branch will be available after school and on Saturdays to guide the students and help create a context for the content they create.

A current project, for example, builds on Toni Morrison’s book “A Mercy,” a One Book, One Chicago program pick. Working with themes from the book, YOUmedia students create discussions, debates and online groups where students can critique one another’s work. For a past One Book project—“The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City” by Carl Smith—teens at the downtown location interviewed community artists, transformed empty lots into virtual gardens, and laid down tracks of spoken word and music in a project to update Burnham’s original urban plan.

“It’s not just kids creating. We provide an overall framework,” Eshleman says. “They are making things, but they are doing it in a context that connects them with other students in the rest of the city.”

The programs also recognize another important reality today.

“School should be just one node in a network of learning,” Eshleman says. “Learning can happen any place and at any time.”

Photos courtesy of YOUMedia @ Chicago Public Library.