Final Project Materials:

LYIA Peer Training Education Wiki

LYIA Curriculum Addendum

1.Briefly summarize your project objective, obstacles, modifications/solutions:

Initially, we were tasked with creating online learning modules for LYIA’s Leadership Training Program based on an existing curriculum being taught in the classroom. After meeting with LYIA, we discovered that there was a new curriculum being developed that wouldn’t be available until the Fall and this posed our first challenge, as we had only the older curriculum to work with. With that in mind, we decided to modify our project to provide more of a foundation for LYIA to implement their curriculum online in the future, once the new curriculum was available. Our original project was to do 1) an instruction manual on how to use the main social media tools; 2) an addendum to the current curriculum to suggest social media tools that can help enhance each session; 3) a plan to integrate the curriculum on-line in the future; and 4) an in-person training session to start the process. The goal of the project was to develop tools to provide LYIA youth with new forms of interacting with each other as well as disseminate their program and information. We wanted to emphasize on the participatory nature of social media and how learning and using these tools can provide a safe, nurturing and empowering environment for self-expression as well as community building.

On further evaluation of our project direction in relation to LYIA’s needs, as well as the material to which we had access, we decided to focus the project on developing an online session prototype, including some concrete social media tools for LYIA’s immediate use that would also supplement current classroom learning. LYIA specifically mentioned that it would be helpful for youths to have a way to further review the different types of drugs they learn about in the HIV and Drugs session, as much of that information can be dense and hard to digest in one sitting. With that in mind, our group chose to make an online prototype out of the HIV and Drugs session. Given the obstacles we faced (including no current curriculum, no recorded session, no on-going session) we had to scale down on the original project.

2. Describe project progress to-date:

In the end, we created a wiki to fully integrate the curriculum on-line. We jumpstarted the process by creating an on-line complement to a session dealing with HIV and Drugs. The session’s wiki page includes a video and interactive quiz centered around the theme, as well as a multimedia “sprout” (essentially a moveable, dynamic widget that can be embedded on the LYIA website or other online platforms) that contains a description of the various drugs and their effects. The wiki is structured in a way that will make it easy for LYIA to implement the rest of the curriculum on-line in the future (once it is updated), and to do so in a participatory manner. The wiki has since qualified as an educational wiki by Wetpaint (wiki host) and all ads have been removed. In addition to serving as an example of how LYIA might implement their curriculum online in the future, the media produced will hopefully be useful to LYIA in their upcoming school year.

We did create the addendum as planned to suggest and explain social media tools that could help enhance the current curriculum, as well as different on-line sites to learn about these tools. We also decided to replace the in-person training session with a peers meeting in order to assess the effectiveness of the project and to get some feedback from LYIA youth.

3.

A) Your project may introduce a change to the way in which the nonprofit engages in outreach. In order for your project to be sustainable, what do you foresee will need to happen within the nonprofit?

Although it will depend on the objectives of the organization and access to equipment/Internet, online components to their current and future curriculum will change LYIA’s method of outreach and engagement to some degree by fostering further education outside of class sessions, allowing those who can’t make all the meetings to still participate, and offering up new types of connections and forms of engagement/expression between peers. Attention should be paid to how youths find the tools useful in their education, social marketing, and community endeavors, and appropriate measures for maintaining those forms of engagement should then be taken (for instance, perhaps integrating those uses into classroom activities – if youths enjoy sharing taking/sharing photos or keeping an online journal, having youths express themselves through a photo essay posted online or initiating a dialogue through their blogs might be something to consider).

B) How does your project leverage and create a richer learning experience that encourages positive behavioral change for your specific target population?

Adding an online component to the classroom curriculum makes it possible for youths who may not be able to participate regularly or make in-class sessions to still be involved in the program, as well as extends education outside of classroom sessions by giving them a way to review and find more information. Online components widen audience reach, so that even youths outside of the NYC area have a chance to learn from and be involved with the program. Youths who might otherwise have avoided the program because they are uncomfortable revealing their identity or want to test out the waters first, may do so anonymously through an online avatar. Social media gives youths another forum to express themselves and engage with peers and others; it also exposes them to a wider audience, should they want one for outreach, social marketing, or creative purposes. Using social media to engage in forms of online education not only creates a richer learning experience through the examples above (thus further encouraging the positive behavioral changes the curriculum imparts), but in the process it teaches youths useful and marketable online skills.