[didi] Update on the Cool Kids
You might not have heard about the Cool Kids project for awhile on this blog but we're still up and running! We had a bit of a transition in the group to a new group of teens due some of the former one's turning 18, going home from the facility, or other reasons. This photo is from our initial meeting on the island last week as we got familiar with the basic guidelines of the island and introduced ourselves.
The community issues identified by the Cool Kids last week included: homelessness, neighborhood violence and crime, drug awareness, lack of healthy activities for youth and their interests are: athletics, basketball, eating, and rapping (all interestingly similar to the first group!). The enthusiasm for the group is very high and it's great to have all five participate. They also see each other more as a group during the day, which will help them have time to brainstorm ideas with each other for their venture.
One thing that I noticed last week in regards to the conversation that went on in real life was their awareness of their communication. When one of the guys misspelled something incorrectly, another one joked that his spelling was going to be ruined for life, having been exposed to words that are not spelled right. They also often ask each other before typing how to spell something.
I find this really interesting in how the way they communicate through spelling becomes more a part of representing who they are since it takes part more in a public way than just writing a paper and turning it into the teacher for a class.
I try to make a distinction for them between correct spelling when IM'ing which isn't a big deal as long as the other person understands what they're saying because it's a quick and informal way of communicating compared to something like making a blog entry. If people aren't used to IM'ing and being represented as an avatar, it's interesting to see where the emphasis on how they represent themselves is focused. In Linda Braun's book, Teens, Technology, and Literacy; or, Why Bad Grammar Isn't Always Bad (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), she writes, "When the writing becomes meaningful in a larger context the care and commitment to that writing becomes greater."
I also think it's interesting to see how the representation of themselves is more of a shared activity in that they ask each other for assistance. Again, if one is writing a paper and handing it to the teacher, it's more rare that they would ask one of their peers to look over it before it's handed in part since the perceived audience is just one person. Give them a real time situation where communication through text and representation through an avatar is everything, then it becomes more of a group effort in participation.
