Ideabook: Libraries for Families

The IDEABOOK is a research-based framework to guide and broaden family engagement in libraries.The framework helps libraries move beyond thinking of family engagement as random, individual activities or programs, but rather as a system where library leadership, activities, and resources that are linked to goals. The framework represents a theory of change that begins with a set of elements—leadership, engagement, and support services—that build a pathway for meaningful family engagement beginning in the early childhood years and extending through young adulthood.This IDEABOOK was developed for anyone who works in a library setting—from library directors and children's and youth librarians, to volunteers and support staff—and shares many innovative ways that libraries support and guide families in children's learning and development

Who you’re gonna call? The development of university digital leaders

In our hyper-connected digitised educational world, university tutors are interested in capitalising on affordances of digital trends in teaching and learning. Students, under the alias of preservice- teachers, walk among them equipped with digital skills in areas of their interest. How can we encourage collaboration between tutors and students that can promote the use of the digital force wisely, support the development of students’ professional identities further and extend tutors’ digital competences? The story of nine tutors and eleven undergraduate pre-service-teachers working together on digital partnerships is set against discussions around digital leadership and citizenship. This case study aims to highlight how universities can respond to technology-driven change by engaging students further and support their awareness of digital citizenship. The overall results showed that the informal learning that students have capitalised outside the classroom can be used to scaffold their development of digital citizenship through offline community engagement. It demonstrates the advantage of using such opportunities as a means to encourage citizenship practices among university student communities and the positive impact that such synergies can have on all the participants

Intergenerational learning practices:digital leaders in schools

This paper explores the management and outcomes of a specific model of intergenerational learning, concerned with student digital leader support in a number of secondary schools in England. A local educational partnership set up a student digital leader project late in 2011, which aimed to develop a range of skills and outcomes for both the digital leaders themselves and for a potentially wider variety of personnel within the schools. Five schools were involved in the project. The student digital leaders shared their digital technology expertise with others with less developed skills, including teachers and managers in these schools. The study reported in this paper explored ways that the digital leader initiative was implemented, identifying and analysing outcomes and issues arising. Evidence from informants and from the analysis of benefits arising indicates that the student digital leader initiative led to a variety of positive outcomes. A key finding and conclusion is that this form of initiative has involved some students who tend not to be involved in other leadership or school-wide activities. The initiative enables these students to contribute to the community, rather than just receiving from it; students become active contributors to, as well as receivers from, the educational system

Intergenerational Education for Social Inclusion and Solidarity: The Case Study of the EU Funded Project "Connecting Generations"

This paper reflects on lessons learned from a validated model of international collaboration based on research and practice. During the European Year for Active Ageing, a partnership of seven organizations from the European Union plus Turkey implemented the Lifelong Learning Programme partnership “Connecting Generations‘ which involved universities, non-governmental organizations, third age Universities and municipalities in collaboration with local communities. Reckoning that Europe has dramatically changed in its demographic composition and is facing brand new challenges regarding intergenerational and intercultural solidarity, each partner formulated and tested innovative and creative practices that could enhance better collaboration and mutual understanding between youth and senior citizens, toward a more inclusive Europe for all. Several innovative local practices have experimented, attentively systematized and peer-valuated among the partners. On the basis of a shared theoretical framework coherent with EU and Europe and Training 2020 Strategy, an action-research approach was adopted throughout the project in order to understand common features that have been replicated and scaled up since today

Stories for Change

This compendium of nearly 50 best practices showcases the notable strategies that increase access to arts and culture for older adult and immigrant populations. Newcomers and older adults (65 +) are two of the fastest growing populations -- communities across the country are grappling with a demographic makeup that is increasingly diverse and proportionally older than in the past. Arts and cultural organizations have the opportunity to reach-out, to increase resources in the community, and to engage populations that are at risk for being overlooked."Stories for Change" is a compelling collection, brimming with new ideas brought to fruition by many types of organizations including: museums, libraries, community development organizations, theaters, orchestras, dance ensembles, area agencies on aging, transportation bureaus, parks, botanic gardens, universities, and more. Organizations that hope to enhance the lives of their older and immigrant residents can find approaches portrayed in these Stories that can be adapted to meet the needs of their communities.Best practices include the well-known Alzheimer's Project of the Museum of Modern Art, which has been adapted to museums around the country, and Circle of Care, a unique ride share program that partners young people with older adults to attend free arts performances in Boulder, Colorado. Stories are located in rural, mid-size, and metropolitan settings; many can be easily implemented, and do not require a major overhaul of staffing, operations, or an organization's mission

The Right to Dream: Promising Practices Improve Odds for Latino Men and Boys

This report is organized around five experiences that define social and economic equity for men and boys of color, which in turn highlight nine priorities that require our attention and investments in order to remove structural barriers to success and allow young Latino men to see a clear path toward a positive future

Mixing the Digital, Social, and Cultural: Learning, Identity, and Agency in Youth Participation

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital MediaHow do youth use media and technology as they learn to be participants in civic and democratic practices? We share two case studies -- one from a media arts production organization and one from a school board youth group -- that revolve around youth-adult interactions in learning environments that offer youth real opportunities to be influential in their respective communities. The cases feature youth and their involvements with digital media, pedagogical approaches, and engagements that enhance their participatory capacities. There are multiple channels through which these interactions happen, some with and facilitated by adults and others created and negotiated by youth. We describe how youth and adults establish learning environments for each other, negotiate the grounds for participation, and explore the possibilities and limitations of social and digital technologies in these processes, supporting the idea that this learning is something that young people do as agents in their development

African Centered Education, The Maji Shujaa Online Academy: A Descriptive Case Study

The purpose of this descriptive case study framed by African centered theory, is to advance the knowledge about the online African centered educational programming, Maji Shujaa Academy. The researcher is the Chief Executive Officer( CEO) and lead teacher/lead developer of online educational media for the Academy. Considerable private African-centered educators with enterprenueural spirit have advanced and created online African centered global educational programming for the students of Africa and African Diaspora population groups today. Yet the available literature is shallow with regard to the workings of online African centered educational programming. This study explores in which the online Academy makes use of technology enhanced programming within an African centered cultural and ideological context aimed at social/cultural transformation and reconstruction. The study aims to describe how African centered educational parental involvement, intergenerational community bridges, social capital, and the building of information capital, make use of web based social networking and social media in an African Centered platform. This social networking and media have been utilized to understand the ways in which the Maji Shajuaa Academy incorporates a dialectical and dialogical stance. Such stance will counteract Eurocentric cultural hegemony and facilitate self-determined, critical- creative examination, and discovery. All in all with a commitment towards cultural self reflection through an incorporation of personal experience of students, parents, and community in an online African centered Academy were included

Assessment of co-creativity in the process of game design

We consider game design as a sociocultural and knowledge modelling activity, engaging participants in the design of a scenario and a game universe based on a real or imaginary socio-historical context, where characters can introduce life narratives and interaction that display either known social realities or entirely new ones. In this research, participants of the co-creation activity are Malaysian students who were working in groups to design game-based learning resources for rural school children. After the co-creativity activity, the students were invited to answer the co-creativity scale, an adapted version of the Assessment Scale of Creative Collaboration (ASCC), combining both the co-creativity factors and learners’ experiences on their interests, and difficulties they faced during the co-creativity process. The preliminary results showed a high diversity on the participants’ attitudes towards collaboration, especially related to their preferences towards individual or collaborative work