“How Can I Make That?” Teens Helping Teens Use Technology Within a Public Library Program

• In Event: Bright Stars: Technology-Mediated Settings as Pathways for the Engaged Learning of Urban Youth

Abstract

Objective & Significance:
Located at the intersections of adolescents, technology, and learning, this research seeks to understand settings that promote engagement in learning for low-income youth in urban communities. Engagement has been identified as one of the most significant predictors of learning (National Research Council, 2004; Yazzie-Mintz, 2010). Promising evidence indicates that opportunities to create content using technology motivates young people to engage in learning (e.g., Barron, 2010; Hull, Stornaiuolo, & Sahni, 2010). Given persistent achievement and opportunity gaps, there is an urgent need to understand settings that promote engagement in learning for urban youth.

Our research focuses on the three primary settings where youth can acquire pathways for learning (schools, libraries, and community-based organizations), addressing a gap in the literature by comparing features across settings that foster engagement in learning (Erstad, et al., 2009; Shernoff, 2013). How do library settings position youth as engaged learners through the use of technologies?

Frameworks:
This research is grounded in the scholarship of “participatory culture,” Activity Theory (AT), and research on engagement in learning. Scholars view “participatory culture” (Jenkins, 2009; Rheingold, 2012) as key to successful 21st century learning, civic engagement, and communication. Features associated with participatory culture include “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and … informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (Jenkins, 2009, p. 3).

Activity Theory (AT) addresses the elements of human action in context. AT views human activity as goal-oriented and mediated by symbolic and concrete tools that have social, cultural, and historical uses within systems of activity (Engestrom, 1999). The elements of activity systems interact in ways that must be understood in order to arrive at a nuanced understanding of engagement as a multi-dimensional (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004), dynamic process with links to learning.

Methods:
A qualitative multi-case study design was employed in three learning settings. Activity system analysis and ethnographic methods were used followed by two stages of case analysis: within-case and cross-case.

Case Description & Findings
This public library program consisted of one adult facilitator and three teens employed in this program. There were 24 observations between December 2012 - May 2013 resulting in 145+ pages of fieldnotes and Activity Theory analyses, four interviews, and 25 short video clips capturing key moments. The learning was focused on the use of the technology tools themselves. The team assisted other teens that dropped in for workshops to learn tools including GarageBand and iMovie. The youth were engaged in learning when they (1) felt at ease and comfortable with one another despite the diverse makeup of the participants and the library staff, (2) trusted and safe to freely experiment with technology, (3) when there was an equitable division of labor where the adults did not hold the exclusive role of expert, and (4) could control the direction of their learning based on their own interests.

Authors

• Cassandra Scharber, University of Minnesota

• Kris Isaacson, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities