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Youth for Change Initiative

If we want to bring sound changes to the future, we better engage the youth now, since they are the future of this world!

As Walt Disney once said: "Curiosity keeps leading us down new paths". It is exactly this rationale that inspired me to come up with this idea for an initiative that would involve those whom all the innovations promoted by HundrED, are actually directed to – the young learners, or the prospective beneficiaries of the amazing innovations from all around the world shared through HundrED’s network.

Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Web presence

2018

Established

1K

Children

2

Countries
Target group
All
Updated
December 2018
Curiosity is the starting point to every innovation. It is where the ignition takes place that sparks a beacon of light to show the way to those who seek!

About the innovation

Which HundrED innovations would you like to have in your school?

Rationale

There are many educators who are willing to make changes in their immediate educational settings, but they are constrained by many factors, for instance, the educational system that lacks incentive or resources to implement changes in the learning process. Sometimes, it is simply a lack of motivation or willingness to move forward! In such a setting, formal education turns into a confinement for teachers who complain of the educational system’s inability to provide the necessary resources and training for them to meet their students’ needs and expectations, which leaves students isolated from the constructive vision that educational innovation can offer.

The curiosity of the young minds cannot be subdued, since it is divergent! If young learners are not enabled to gain the necessary life skills through innovative and ethical guidance provided by skilled educators, they will accede to ‘alternative’ ways of gaining skills, often in directions that could jeopardise the development of the whole society.
Instead of constraining the vision for the young curious minds, we can involve them in promoting feasible innovations within their educational settings, by igniting that necessary spark of motivation, first among their peers, and then among their parents and educators. If young learners recognise an innovation as useful and feasible, and start implementing it, then everyone will listen, and everyone will follow.

Which is why I believe that the Youth for Change Initiative could reach a massive scale if implemented in a step-by-step process that would bring innovations home to the young learners, who are, after all, the ones to benefit from them.

So why not ask them directly: Which innovations would you like to have in your school?

Youth for Change Initiative's Goals:

1. Student Involvement - The main goal of this initiative is to introduce young learners at a local level with the latest global educational innovations, and encourage them to get involved in their further promotion and prospective implementation within their educational settings, in cooperation with their teachers and parents.

2. Bottom-Up Educational Development - The second goal would be to motivate educators/parents to take an active part in the educational development of their young learners/children, and to encourage them to take a personalised bottom-up approach in stimulating innovation within the formal educational systems of the country they live in.

3. Global Impact - The third goal would be to encourageother HundrED Ambassadors and members of theHundrED organisation to take similar initiatives withintheir communities of young learners, educators andparents, in order to promote the innovative educationalsolutions represented within this network on a much largerscale.

Scalability

Since this is an initiative that is inspired by HundrED’s mission to promote innovation in K12 education, other schools with similar scope, which have joined the HundrED community, could also be invited to join the initiative and organise similar events within their school environments.

In this way, we could initiate a wave of initiatives across the globe, where young learners will be engaged in promoting, or even implementing the innovations they find useful, and applicable in their schools.

If we want to bring sound changes to the future, we better engage the youth now! Since they are the future of this world, and we, as educators, are merely helping them reach it in a soundest possible way.

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2017 was 'Youthquake'.

The noun, 'youthquake', is defined as a ‘significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people’.

With proper guidance in a sound educational setting, youth can become a powerful force in bringing a sound future to this world!

I believe that the Youth for Change Initiative is the right way to put this powerful noun into action!

The initiative's motto is:

Let’s Youthquake the World!

Implementation steps

Selection of Innovations

In cooperation with the HundrED team, educators can work together to select 10-20 innovations related to the educational areas that are within the scope of their school’s activities.

For instance, at Pegasus ELS we selected innovations related to the following educational areas: digital literacy programs, social and environmental impact initiatives, entrepreneurship skills for young learners, sustainable development projects for schools, and other creative educational solutions.

Preparation of Presentations

At Pegasus ELS we use Edmodo as our Virtual Learning Platform.

Edmodo is a perfect tool for exchanging digital contents between teachers and students.

Therefore, young learners were all invited to join the Edmodo Youth for Change Initiative's group, and were given two assignments:

1. A Review of a HundrED Innovation - students were instructed to write a review of their favourite innovation, which they would later present to their peers, teachers, and parents. Students' reviews were edited and corrected by their teacher, and then returned to the students, to practice presenting them.

2. A Screencast Video of a HundrED Innovation - students were instructed to record a screencast video of their favourite innovation, using the review they prepared earlier. The screencast videos would prospectively be attached to their HundrED profile pages to enable a greater impact in promoting their innovations to the global community.

*This stage can be implemented using various resources available at the school implementing the Youth for Change Initiative.

Presentation of Innovations

Pegasus ELS organised two events in cooperation with one primary and one secondary school in our local community.

Youth for Change Initiative members, together with their teacher(s), prepared posters for each innovation, and presented them to their peers, teachers, and parents in the respective schools, using the information from the reviews they prepared as part of their Edmodo assignments.

Youth Ambassadors Profiles on HundrED (optional)

Privacy laws around the world dictate that if you collect personal information from your website visitors, then you need to have a Privacy Policy posted to your site, particularly when it comes to young people.

Therefore, after meeting the Privacy Policy requirements, and in cooperation with the HundrED team, teachers can assist Youth Ambassadors for HUndrED in setting up their profiles on HundrED, where they can promote their favourite innovations.

At Pegasus ELS, we used Edmodo to give another assignment to our students:

- My HundrED Profile Page Info - students were given specific questions to answer related to their prospective HundrED profiles, which were then edited and corrected for mistakes by their teacher.

Follow-up

After publishing the reviews and screencast videos of their favourite HundrED innovations, and promoting them both within their local communities and online, students can repeat the same procedure with different innovations from HundrED Collections.

Each time they promote new innovations, students will prepare reviews, posters, and screencast videos of their favourite HundrED innovations, and publish them to their HundrED profile pages.

In this way, young people can have a huge impact in promoting HundrED innovations not only to their local communities, but to the global community of educators, learners, and parents.

With this approach, young people are empowered to take an active role in promoting change in education worldwide.

Spread of the innovation

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