CES conference June 2013; presentation by Dominique Leonard, Heather Smith Fowler, Neil Price

1. Technology and social media :
fostering youth participation in
evaluation
Dominique Leonard, Heather Smith Fowler, Neil Price
CES Conference 2013, Toronto

2. Outline
1. Raising the Grade: program description
2. Key characteristics/features of good technology, youth
engagement, evaluation
3. What do we know about the intersection of youth participation
+ technology + evaluation?
5. Retrospective on Year 1
6. Moving up the ladder of engagement: Year 2 and beyond

4. Raising the Grade: Description
 35 Boys and Girls Clubs across Canada
 Funded by Rogers Youth Fund
 Started in Oct 2012
 To date, just under 300 youth enrolled
 National program BUT focus on local flexibility to adapt
 Academics + tinkering with tech!
 http://www.raisingthegrade.ca/

5. Raising the Grade: major program components
1. Academic support
 1:1 mentorship
 Personal development plans (MyBlueprint), e-portfolios
 Engaging projects and activites (driven by youth interests)
 Access to curated, high-quality academic resources
2. Rogers Tech Centres
3. Scholarship program
4. Evaluation and continuous improvement

6. Evaluation and Continuous Improvement
 Coming together during the RFI
 Who is SRDC?
• Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC)
• Canadian non-profit research firm
• Why was SRDC selected to lead the evaluation?
– 20 years‟ experience running demonstration projects
– 10+ years testing new educational programs
– Presence across Canada
 Developmental, capacity building
 User-driven, utilization focused

7. Evaluation and Continuous Improvement
 Year 1 – laying the groundwork
• Each tool, measure mapped to relevant input, activity, output, or
outcome  UNIQUE, SPECIFIC
– Registration form
– Youth baseline and annual surveys
– Quarterly reports
– Program snapshots
– Weekly check-ins
– Interviews, focus groups
– Web analytics (Raising the Grade website, myBlueprint)

8. Features of good technology, youth engagement,
evaluation
Technology Youth engagement Evaluation
Fast Fun What are the features of
„good‟ evaluation (i.e.,
rigorous, relevant,
feasible/practical,
transferable, etc.)?
When was the last time
you had an evaluation
that encompassed many
of the characteristics of
„good‟ technology and
youth engagement?
DYNAMIC TENSION!
Reliable Empowering
Ubiquitous Relevant, meaningful
Constantly
updated/refreshed
Authentic (e.g., beyond
tokenism)
Accessible, clear Timely (at the moment)
Engaging Developmentally
appropriate
Comprehensive, multiple
features, sequenced and
layered
Flexible structure

9. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
 Principles of meaningful youth participation have been around for
decades – a lot of research on what works and doesn‟t to foster
youth participation in programs

10. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
Youth and participatory evaluation strategies (Sabo Flores,
2008):
 Training young people as interviewers
 Training young people as creative focus group facilitators
 Working with young people to develop surveys
 Using performance as a data collection strategy
 Using journaling in evaluation
 Approaching data analysis and report writing creatively

11. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
 There is an emerging
body of knowledge on
what works (and what
doesn‟t) for technology
use in evaluation (Web
1.0 – 3.0)
 The challenge as
evaluators: staying on
top of emerging tools and
technology

12. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
• Web 1.0: the “read-only” web
• Web 2.0: the “read-write” web -- users able to interact with one another or
contribute content
• Web 3.0: Existing data reconnected for other (smarter) uses

13. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
 Mobile technology platforms (from Kerry Bruce, aea365.com)
 Photovoice, Videos, Photostories
 Interactive mapping tools (e.g., DataMind, GIS)
 Webinars, YouTube

14. What do we know about the intersection of youth
participation + technology + evaluation?
 You only get 2 of the 3 covered in any one
„field‟/tools/guidance to inform how to make it work well
 Approach to evaluation in other Club Tech programs
• we‟re gonna push it one step further

15. Retrospective on Year 1
 What have we learned? What have we struggled with
 Web analytics
 Blogs
 Surveys
 Polls
 Social media
 Challenges
• Building tech capacity/know how
• complexity of program (careers, PSE, homework , Rogers, etc.)
• individualizing an experience for an incoming youth while
maintaining a structural integrity across a National program

16. Moving up the ladder of engagement: Year 2 and
beyond
 The „perfect storm‟ for innovation
 Emerging ideas
• youth reflecting on their own baseline „portrait‟
• design and development of a new interactive activity

17. THANK YOU!