On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, a group of us who are in the process of launching a new version of Youth Voices met to continue the process of building the technology and the pedegogy of our work together.

Youth Voices is a school-based social network that was started in 2003 by a group of National Writing Project teachers. We merged several earlier blogging projects, preferring to bring our students together in one site that would live beyond any particular class, where it would be easier for individual students to connect with other students, comment on each others work, and create multimedia posts for each other. Further we thought it made sense for us to pool our knowledge about curriculum and digital literacies. If being part of such a community makes sense to you, we invite you to join us too. We work to embrace any teacher who is interested to have their students publish online and participate in the give and take of a social network like Youth Voices.

Youth Voices is much more than a website or a social network. It is also a welcoming community of teachers who have been planning curriculum together for many years. In addition to being active members in our local Writing Projects and the National Writing Project, many of us also count ourselves as member of the World Bridges community, and we meet regularly via Skype on a weekly webcast/podcast, Teachers Teaching Teachers, which has been going live every Wednesday evening at EdTechTalk since 2006.

All of this collaboration and talk, these years of building curriculum and working on the web together have led to to consider: What do the Youth Voices/Teachers Teaching Teachers teachers love about this work? And why do we think any kindergarten - college teacher might also find to love there too? What we think you and your students will find on Youth Voices, what we keeps us coming back, what we strive to engender, what we will never give up on (even in a school) is involving our students in “authentic conversation.”

Over the years the teachers who have been working together to grow Youth Voices have learned that as important as it is to have students publish multi-media, well-crafted products, it is at least as important to nurture, guide, and allow time for students to write comments and to develop conversations about each others discussion posts. Our mission at Youth Voices is to be a place online where students from across the nation (and globally, when possible) can engage other young people in conversations about real topics that they see happening in the world. We want our students to be immersed in lively, voiced give-and-take with their peers.

We are delighted to introduce you to Travis Powell on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Travis is a member of the Oregon Writing Project, and he teaches at a unique school that he co-founded, the Child’s Way Charter School in Oregon.

We met Travis at a gaming workshop at the National Writing Project’s annual meeting in November and at a NWP Maker workshop.

Here’s what Travis says about his school and his work there:

The charter is in its fifth year of operation. The charter's mission is to create environments that allow the students to explore and discover their strengths and weaknesses in their educational development. We have an emphasis on the implementation of technology. I am a co-founder of the charter and my role was and is the implementation of some of the theories on education put forth by Gardner, Glasser, Dewy, Maslow & Payne ... I serve a low SES population of 24 students ranging in grades from 9th -12th. Each student has a laptop with internet access along with ipad touches on loan form CATE, center for advanced technology in education, out of the University of Oregon.

The class has done some short videos on our ning.

www.cwcharter.ning.com

The ning showcases some of their individual and group projects. In "Problems have Solutions" the students learned what it takes to solve the Cube and then construct a machine to solve the cube. Another project is "Solar Hydrogen" part II.

My goal is to get the students to realize the potential. Be able to read, write, think abstractly (mathematics), apply the scientific method, and communicate effectively at a college level by the time they leave the charter. In tandem, develop a four year plan post high school (two-year, four-year college, vocational, ...) with clear objectives with feedback on accomplishing those steps....

Enjoy!

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.