Connected Creatives: Young Voices Matter - Ed Tech Platform for Young People

Connected Creatives: Young Voices Matter – Ed Tech Platform for Young People

Thursday 26/05 14:00-15:30h

Outdoor Area B

Abstract

As the founder of the Connected Creatives platform, I will discuss my motivation for designing and developing the platform, launching the platform in schools in the UK and receiving endorsement from Malala Yousafzai.
Connected Creatives is an EdTech solution, developing an online, cross-media, safe publishing platform, which enables young people to share their creative writing and outputs with their teachers, family members, peer groups and the wider Connected Creatives online community. The platform supports the creativity of children and young people by encouraging them to engage with the written word (and other forms of creative work) from an early age in a safe space (all content is moderated and approved by trained professionals before published or viewed).
We received endorsement from Malala Yousafzai (Youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner and education activist) to name the first writing competition ‘the 500 Word Malala Yousafzai Competition’ which was launched on International Literacy Day (8th Sep 2020).

Needs Analysis

During this world crisis, more than ever before, we can appreciate the importance of the Connected Creatives platform. Schools and teachers have embraced Ed Tech and E-Learning, to ensure children have access to education, learning and development (nationally and internationally) at a time when schools closed and learning was disrupted.
The Solution: Connected Creatives gives young people and disadvantage groups a platform and a voice – the platform is an ambitious attempt to allow young people to express themselves through creative expression and publishing stories, poetry, journals, blogs, graphic novels, lyrics, music, where other young people can consume content submitted by their peers, while the content is moderated by teachers. This is relevant, important and current for PhD students in TEL.
The Connected Creatives: Young Voices Matter platform provides a much needed creative outlet for young people who have been struggling with the impact of COVID-19 on their education and mental health.
The Problem: Young people in the UK (along with other developed and developing countries across the world) have poor literacy levels and extensive research evidences that low levels of literacy invariably lead individuals to have poorer job prospects, an increased likelihood of health problems, difficulties with social inclusion and, in some cases, a greater likelihood of becoming involved with crime and deviant behaviour. Furthermore, young people’s voices from all backgrounds are underrepresented in nearly all walks of life and sectors e.g. the lack of representation in decision making, in publishing, in politics, in educational curriculum. Certain groups are further disadvantaged through gender disparities, ethnicity, socio-economic backgrounds, sexuality, disability etc.

Learning Objectives

• Participants will learn the benefits of the Connected Creatives platform, for young people using Ed Tech.
• Benefits of writing and creative expression using the platform
• Empowering young people to publish and creatively express on the platform
• The benefits and impact of improving mental health and wellbeing
• How to breakdown barriers for young people to creatively express using EdTech
• How to develop and enhance young people’s chances to publish using Ed Tech, given in traditional publishing most context is written by adult authors for young audiences, yet young people are extremely creative, imaginative and technologically savvy. How to harness this
• How to embed gamification in EdTech
• How to disrupt the market to allow content creation to be produce in a safe space
• How to give young people a creative voice from diverse backgrounds
• The importance of creative subjects rather than only focussing on assessment driven outcomes.

Pre-activities

I will share a short demo video with participants, so they are familiar with the Connected Creatives platform, prior to the workshop.

Session Description

This will be an interactive workshop with a short presentation and activities around understanding the use of technology to improve young people’s confidence, creativity and wellbeing using EdTech.

Post-activities

I will share all the research and evaluation of the Ed Tech platform and the notes of discussion during the workshop.