>>Asia: This chair is for the presenter.
This is for the person who created the trailer.
You're going to say how you decided to do your trailer.
Then we'll do warm and cool feedback.
>>Narrator: In this digital storytelling class
at Carter G. Woodson Middle School on the south side of Chicago,
students are learning to express themselves using new
media technologies.
>>Student: I liked how you incorporated everything together
and made it dramatic.
>>Narrator: And learning how to critique what they see.
>>Student: Because it seemed like the sound effects took over
and you really couldn't hear yourself.
>>Narrator: Carter G. Woodson is one of four schools that make
up the Digital Youth Network or DYN, a sixth through twelfth grade program
that was created in 2003 by the University
of Chicago's Urban Education Institute.
>>Nichole: The Digital Youth Network takes up the challenge preparing kids
for the year 2020 and beyond.
And we do that in trying to create partnerships between all the spaces
where kids spend their time during the school day, in school,
after school, and after-school programming, at home through the use
of online tools and social networks,
and in the communities that surround them.
>>Akili: If you could if you know your account, log in.
>>Nichole: So we've tried to allow kids to sort of learn on demand.
>>Jared: Through Digital Youth Network and presence
of DYN classes inside the school day our students are gaining access
to software and skills that really push the envelope on what we think
or what teachers think they're capable of doing.
>>Student: What did you guys do with those pictures?
>>Student: They're all right there.
>>Narrator: During the school day DYN staff teach mandatory media
arts classes.
There students acquire basic tech literacy skills
that allow classroom teachers
to integrate digital tools into their curriculum.
>>Akili: So again, you can upload the music y'all are doing,
and you can also make blog posts and start discussion forums etcetera.
>>Narrator: After school, students can pursue their passions
in a variety of DYN classes that meet for two hours once a week.
They include digital video production.
>>Teacher: Yeah, make sure you're moving your play head
and then play from the beginning.
>>Narrator: Digital audio production, robotics,
graphic design, and game design.
>>Student: I made it based on [inaudible] game so I tried
to make it like with some type of fortress-
>>Jalen: DYN is just like one of the awesomest, sickest programs ever.
It's like technically it's just like all these awesome sick programs
like gaming all the way to poetry.
And after that we have something called Freedom Friday
and there sometimes we talk about topics that need to be talked
about around the world like global warming.
>>Teacher: We have many perspectives, not just one.
And you could add to that perspective.
>>Narrator: There's also a Digital Queendom offering just for girls.
>>Teacher: Alright, ladies, thank you.
>>Akili: Digital Queendom is an initiative
to really support gender equity.
Girls often thought that they couldn't necessarily do the work
to the same level that the boys would,
so we brought the Digital Queendom pod in giving the girls kind
of a safe space and in a more engaging kind
of context that's focused on their own issues.
>>Teacher: Think about the kind
of advertising too that you've seen before.
What is it they try to tell you to get you to-
>>Asia: We discuss and analyze and critically break down images
of females in the media, anything that has the female presence in it,
we break it down to see what is empowerment, what isn't empowerment,
and how they can create media that better reflects themselves.
>>Narrator: The DYN network is accessible 24/7
through its closed social network site called Remix World.
Students post their work, take part in critiques and discussions
and receive online mentoring
which expands learning beyond the school and program day.
>>Teacher: Did you put sound to this?
>>Student: Yeah, yes and no, I don't like it anymore.
>>Akili: If you want them to really be a sophisticated game developer
or a graphic designer or a videographer.
It's hard to do that with once a week so we use the online space
as an extension and an opportunity for the kids really on their own time
to really delve a little bit deeper into the work.
>>Student: We just talked about the presidential election.
>>Narrator: Once in high school, DYN students begin
to focus their development on an individual medium.
>>Terrence: And action.
>>Narrator: Oftentimes youth who excelled
in the middle school program are given internship opportunities
to serve as mentors for middle school students.
>>Terrence: Okay, I'm not sure if we're going to get that shot.
>>Terrence: Being a mentor you know really teaches me skills
about working in a productive environment.
You know, it teaches me how to be professional,
how to take those skills that I have already and enhance them and how
to teach another generation how to use those
and so hopefully there can be kids that I'm teaching who could wind
up being bigger and more famous than I hope to be, you know?
>>Right now I'm editing the clip shorter so that it kind of looks more
like a movie and not like just
like pictures just floating out of the air.
So I'm going to see how that works out first.
>>Jared: We know that the world is shifting and that there are a number
of new ways of thinking, new ways of learning and working
and socializing that won't go away.
It's not a fad.
It's not a trend.
And the way people connect, the way people work,
the way people learn is very different
so we think our kids need the ability to use technology
in their personal development and in their learning.
>>Hi, this is:
>>The Random Show!
>>And you are watching it on DYN TV.
>>For more information on what works
in public education go to edutopia.org