After-School Learning Center

Strategies in detail:

• Work with instructors and staff who are able to cope with various technology-related tasks and who have knowledge of project-based learning.

  "Staff should be able to at least type their ideas, make them into PDF files, communicate through e-mail, and distribute materials for outreach efforts. Ongoing trainings are necessary for staff development."

• Promote variety and energetic ideas in programming. Look for things that young people are interested in.

  "Avoid telling the participants to 'sit down' and 'learn how to type'. The computer is a tool and a means towards an end. You have to make learning fun. Their interests are the key to their engagement. Fight the 'I'm bored' mentality. Ask participants, 'Let's critique it, let's talk about it, let's e-mail your mom.' There are tons of different things that you can try in support of young people working on mastering today's skills, while helping them to become positive and creative about their learning."

• Have instructors trained in the Content Standards developed by the Department of Education.

  "Our instructors are knowledgeable about the State Content Standards. First, they choose a standard to address what they want to do formally in their clubs. They then create goals and activities around these standards. While setting the standard-specific goals, they also design learning objectives for their project clubs based on youth development and specific technology standards."

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• Make sure the space is well taken care of and the equipment is safely managed and consistently updated.

  "The school uses our equipment during the school day. We had used the school's computer lab starting in 1995 as well, before we installed our community technology center at the school in 2000. When we started our program, the computers in the lab were very outdated. We continually apply for grants to keep updating our equipment. Our school-based community technology center currently has 30 PCs, 2 Macs and a Linux server. We recently received a new mobile laptop lab with 15 laptops, a cart, projector and wireless networking."

• Make use of the Internet for participants' project-based learning.

  "We have found that our young people often use their time on the Internet to work on their projects and school homework as well as for fun. Our participants make much use of the high-speed Internet connection in our labs for research. They transport documents, store files online for use at home or other workstations, and send correspondence to Project Team members and instructors. They also use the Internet to post their digital media projects on http://www.youthspace.net (set up by the Salesforce.com Foundation) and our youth online magazine, http://www.BAMboozled.org, for publication. We allow them an hour of free time online, as a reward for their project accomplishments."

• Guide, support and coach young people so they can become better learners, both independently and in groups.

  "Youth have the capacity to learn to use any technology. We do not necessarily need to 'teach' them but just open up a door to young people in order for them to move onto the next level. A great example of this is BAMboozled.org, our web space where our afterschool participants use cutting-edge technology to offer great original works that demonstrate their knowledge of language and the visual arts. The website is developed in PHP, and includes interactive message boards in which youth from all over the world join to share their opinions, and communicate with one another. The participants develop a strong connection to the group and their projects, and often recruit their friends. In doing so they deepen and enrich this BAM culture. Our support, however, is often the key to breaking down barriers of self-doubt that might prevent a young person from getting involved. We support them by providing lots of resources that they can tap into to take their ideas forward with their peers."

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• Welcome the help of the program graduates and allow them to be teachers of the current participants. Help them belong to and build their legacy with the program.

  "High school students who are ASLC graduates come back to this program and teach younger participants how to make movies and newsletters. They want to share what they have learned with those who follow them. This helps our staff from getting stretched too thin. There is a fantastic relationship between the alums, the staff, and our participants. The graduates show a continuity of our core values. What really brings our youth back even after they graduate is their newfound ownership of the learning process (along with positive relationships and pure fun). Their energy drives new project-based learning activities and reveals how technology should be used in our program. They also keep us up to speed with newer and better technology. We encourage our young people to take advantage of the diverse offerings that we provide, and to stick with us as they and we grow together."

• Evaluate youth outcomes through a survey based on dialogues with participants. It is easier to see youth improvement once the curriculum includes content standards.

  "We conduct surveys with a focus group of youth through conversation and questions. If there is something difficult to measure, we try to concentrate on observations in the lab of how the participants demonstrate what they've learned in peer-to-peer interaction. Since our curriculum is intertwined with the state standards, we are able to see how well the content is working. We continue to develop new evaluation forms and methods to articulate our participants' literacy gains."