Civic Innovation Summer

Civic Innovation Summer is a 6-week program of civics, media, and technology training for teens conducted in the summer of 2013 in Chicago, IL.

This repository contains detailed instructions on how to implement this program anywhere. It contains day-by-day/ hour-by-hour notes on logistics, links to complete curriculum for download, and descriptions of how in-the-moment engagement with the youth led to changes in the program.

##Program Components

The program is broken down into three portions, run by three different organizations and formed into one cohesive summer experience.

1. ChangeMakers: an experience that provides youth with the tools and training they need to be powerful and thoughtful citizens and leaders. This portion has 120 teens and is run by the Mikva Challenge and it runs five days a week.
2. DocuMakers: an experience that provides youth the opportunity to develop and practice skills in media and technology, as they produce engaging media stories that highlight important activities taking place amongst the youth in Chicago. This portion has 20 teens is run by Free Spirt Media and it runs five days a week.
3. OpenMakers: an experience that provides youth with concrete tools and conceptual thinking around open technology. This portion brings all 140 teens in the program together weekly on Friday mornings and is run by the Smart Chicago Collaborative.

##Setup

There are a number of pieces of software we're using to manage this program:

1. Google Groups: we use a private Google Group to manage communication among the project team
2. Github: we use Github to document how we create and implement the program. The hope is that people anywhere can fork this repository and localize it. Civics, media, and technology intersect no matter where you go. Teaching teens how to use these powerful forces to build careers and make lives better is a good idea anywhere.
3. Instagram: we use Instagram to manage the creative output of the teens. Each program participant has an Instagram account and indicates when they've completed a portion of their summer work with Instagram posts.
4. Twitter: we use Twitter as a secondary element in the creative output workflow.
5. Wufoo: we use Wufoo to create forms to manage info about the participants and use it to modify curriculum and other project elements
6. Slideshare: all final curriculum will be published as PDFs and uploaded to Slideshare
7. Cityspan: a database of information that is maintained by and for the City of Chicago about youth in all programs across the city.

##Logistics

There are three organizations running six groups of youth:

Five councils organized by the Mikva Challenge

Mayor’s Youth Council: youth working to make policy recommendations in a series of areas Education: youth working with Chicago Public School officials Health: youth working with leadership of the Chicago Department of Public Health to raise awareness of health issues Safety: youth working with the government of Cook County to address juvenille justice Aldermen: 30 youth working directly with Aldermen

Documakers: 15 youth working on media Interns: 5 youth at tech companies

##Metrics

Cityspan for demographics Wufoo for tech setup

##Workflow

Posting within councils and aggregated into a larger stream.

##Friday morning sessions

Needs to be done in the context of the overall program. We will review and be simpatico with the pedagogical system that the programs have developed.

Need to think about how much of the 4 hours is spent in large group. Will there be smaller groups?

First half hour is with prgram staff to engage the youth in some way.

How long for lunch?

How about an office hours/ coachong situation? Add more staff for consultations. Can use the guest speakers as well.