6. Emerging Technologies and Innovation

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] discussion regarding emerging Technologies and Innovation my name is Michaela di Paolo I will be your host for the day and together with me of course there is the Fantastic theme of the digital Transformers initiative brought together by Santo participation inclusion and Salto diversity and I'm going to introduce now the two voices from these Salto centers Eric Chavez and Kadri maripu which are here with us and we're going to start the day which is giving us our last final discussion in this long ride of uh moments of exploring different dimensions and different perspective in the digital transformation of youth work so Kadri Enrique gives to you okay thank you Michele and hi everyone so once again here's a Vic from Salt inclusion University and I'm very excited to welcome you all on behalf of the organizing team of the digital Transformers project so you re-reach the sixth and last final discussion in our webinar series this has been a wonderful eye-opening Journey where we have been looking at digital inclusion and digital participation from many perspectives and topics some of them not so present in the field of international youth work uh so today we look at the emerging Technologies uh which is quite big Hot Topic quite uh new and next unexplored Topic in our Fields um for us this is something that uh when it comes to digital with the sorry with emerging Technologies it's something that comes with a lot of possibilities but also with a lot of implications uh we see that in one hand on one hand these Technologies are giving possibilities to reach out to certain young people that wouldn't normally take part in face-to-face activities when you think about rural youth for example or The Gamers community but on the other hand um some of these environments are not designed for learning or specifically not designed to Target marginalized young people so we'd like also to hear what are the implications and how this revolution is affecting Notions such as personal Identity or participation citizenship and what's the role of youth work in that so I'm really looking forward to learning more about these issues from our speakers today but before I would like to give the floor to my dear colleague Thank You Enrique and from my side as well uh welcome to everyone to this last session where we discuss the emerging Technologies and as Enrique mentioned this has been a long journey just before the panel started we remembered that on the first session we called in from Armenia and now in three weeks we also end this project because it's also accompanied by a training to youth workers we will also end it in Armenia so the cycle is is full and if you would like to if you're new to this uh this panel then you can also explore the previous sessions in in the Facebook and YouTube of South topi and South to inclusion and diversity where we can also discuss more on rights and and ethics and sustainability and inclusion and participation in more focus and today we are focusing more on the emerging Technologies and the inspiration of them what could be used in in youth work and it is very exciting topic for me as well because uh in 2021 and 2022 we did a research a mapping and gapping exercise in resources and tools available for digital transformation in in European youth field and we realized that the emerging Technologies or the resources that are covering emerging Technologies are the most lacking so there's the biggest Gap so really really excited to hear now for from our panelists as well on what they have done what they see but also from you so do please share and with this last panel we are also giving a torch fully over to Salto digital and you have is also joining uh this panel discussion and introducing their plans for the future in the end of this panel so keep yourself involved and you can see what they have planned for the future in developing this topic further and uh in any case I hope you will enjoy and back to Michaela thank you Cadre thank you Rick I also want to mention the rest of the team which is here behind the curtain taking care of all the technical aspects and the connection with our audience so Maya drobner and uh limous and also we have as usual a graphic recording in process and with us we also have our graphic recorder for the day Darcy Anderson so that's it hello and welcome back your iPad is ready so we are also ready to see what is going to uh be the graphic recording of the discussion and in the end we get we will get back at you to have a sneak peek uh of your production uh before then of course sharing the final and full recording through our digital channels we from our side are going to discuss this with with a very uh interesting group of people which I'm now going to introduce one by one starting from Irina buso Irina is passionate about Information Technology Innovation art and artificial intelligence uh she's pursuing her PhD research in international law with our focus on AI policies and regulation she's part of the European AI Alliance and she's a fellow at the center for artificial intelligence and digital policy and an emerging Tech fellow at uh in RuPaul's where she make studies about section between algorithmic decision making ethics and public policy aiming to understand and explore the functioning of the technology that enables automated algorithmic decision making and how such technology shape our world view and influence our decision together with Irina we will have yuha kimine uh yoga is a digital youth work and digital education expert currently working as senior advisor in the newly formed Salto digital Resource Center uh you guys also professional in this happy place whenever policy and practice need bridging and enjoys advocating for better strategies policies support and practice for all things digital in the field whenever he's not working is probably in his workshop tinkering with technology and crafting with leather or spoiling his cat and also we will have with us Barry hohi the founder of hologen Barry is a digital artist an educator with over 20 years working in the UK in Irish education and youth work sectors throughout his career he was he has worked with a diverse range of harder to reach young people striving to incorporate digital learning and future skills into his programs over the past four years Barry has been exploring and incorporating immersive Technologies such as virtual reality VR into his educational and network practice using a range of multi-user multi-user platforms welcome three of you uh and uh as usually I would start with the first round sharing the same question for for the three of you so we are we are here discussing emerging Technology Innovation with an eye and a perspective on the youth field I would like to ask you first of all uh how would you define the innovation in the youth field and what it had or has to do with emerging Technologies of any kind I would say I would leave the floor as a starter for the discussion maybe to you the way I see it is we often in the youth field we do not innovate actual technology but rather we we innovate and reinvent you to a practice constantly often based on a new and emerging technology um now you're emerging for the Youth field is maybe something different often than for society um or or especially the Technology field Which is far ahead from from the youth field in terms of innovation um I would say an emerging technology from the youth point field of view is something that is not used yet at least in a widely adopted way in the field I mean it might be QR course or NFC chip which is something already existing for quite a while or it might be AI that's really making a breakthrough in the mainstream but whatever kind of prompts the reinvigoration and reinvention of use field and youth work practiced and that could for me be this innovation in the youth field thank you very much I want now to ask Irina to come in and to help us widen this definition of course for starting from her perspectives yeah thank you mikhaily and I would like well basically to Second everything that you has just said but also to me I guess the the intersection between emerging Tech Innovation and how that gathers around youth work can be defined as sort of like the integration of cutting-edge Technologies or like Tech tools and practices aimed to enhance and transform youth work in ways that would get that would Foster Innovative outcomes uh and here I think about emerging texts such as AI or VR that we're going to talk about today AR also blockchain iot and all of these basically have the potential to sort of revolutionize the way youth work is done they can be used to engage young people facilitate learning and skills development they can also enhance social and emotional well-being and basically like this is how all of these three areas interact to me thank you very much now let's get to Barry do you agree Barry do you want to add something do we have your own definition and perspective on uh the relationship between Innovation emerging technology and youth work we are curious please let us know absolutely and thank you for the opportunity today good afternoon to everyone um for me I think um it's it's kind of looking at where young people are and matching it to where we are in terms of this digital Revolution that we've spoken about already um it doesn't take it doesn't take too much to understand that some of the digital platforms that we might talk about today are gathering millions of users every single day um so when when we look at it from a youth working context I suppose it for me it's a very fundamental question around where are the young people and are we there um so you know that would kind of underpin a lot of my work over the last few years is kind of looking at the Digital Trends with young people who I would have been working from face youth working with and maybe kind of align myself a little of it to look slightly ahead of the curve and that's perhaps where where immersive technology such as VR comes into the conversation so I think it's a it's very a very quickly evolving area for sure more we will be perhaps in a year two three years is going to be very different than where we are now but I do think um for me a very easy way to continue that evolution is to look at Digital Trends and where young people are at the current time thank you very much also thanks to Milan who is sharing in the comment another example of interesting practice of connecting voluntary events to uh vouchers for certain gifts through digital platforms to as a way to create a circulation between voluntary engagement in the community and giving back from the community to the volunteers and that's of course also including badging systems which are another interesting elements to be spoken about in terms of innovation in a in the field also another comment stepping in by Sergio is mentioning augmented reality so AR to Foster immersive and engaging learning environments uh so very interesting but then after a while the platform simply disappeared because the company behind it decided to discontinue it so that's another part of the discussion so we are relying on tools and platforms which are offering us interesting services but then we are putting ourselves in their hands and the system sometimes stops to work just when we found the interest and the way to make it useful for for our practices but talking about practices I would like now to move a step forward and to go a bit more into your your different uh areas of expertise and asking you a bit more direct and precise questions from that from that point of view I'll start from Irina we heard about your interest and commitment to exploring artificial intelligence AI so honestly in the previous panel we already spent quite some time discussing ai ai issued connected with digital rights and analytics at that time but I think many of us could agree that artificial intelligence so-called artificial intelligence is one of the emerging Technologies these days since you've been active on this topic since quite a while how do you feel this could bring a real innovation in the youth field and not focusing on the fact that we are using AI because it's now the Talk of the Town okay but try to focus on what of this technology how this technology could doing a real innovation in the field I would be very curious to hear some hints and descriptions or ideas or practices from you regarding this topic so I'll give the floor to it I mean artificial intelligence is already here we use it every day whether we are conscious of using it or whether we aren't conscious enough uh just a basic basic example would be having our phones which are embedded with a bunch of AI algorithms some of them collect various various types of data we use them to basically make our lives easier starting with calculating and searching on the internet for or having a specific tailored feed in on the social media taylor-specific to uh specifically to our needs but um largely when kind of thinking about the youth work and how artificial intelligence can be used in this field I think there's a bunch of ways in which ai ai tools or AI power tools can be used to support and enhance work done with young people and the the youth sector one potential use would be to um use Ai and youth work in order to personalize learning and to support young people especially those who come from marginalized groups this would work by analyzing uh like a Young Person's interests their learning style their progress and in this way an algorithm and AI algorithm can suggest uh Taylor tailored learning activities resources and various kind of interventions that would match that person's individual needs other examples of how AI can be used to enhance the the field of youth work uh would be to um kind of help youth workers to better understand the needs and experiences of young people again by analyzing the very large data sets of demographic data behavioral and also social data this could inform the youth worker on the development and uh of policies and of interventions that are more responsive to the needs of young people however as you've also mentioned it is very important to note that while um AI of course has the potential to enhance and transform Youth Work practices it should always be used in an ethical and responsible way with the focus on maximizing the benefits of young people while minimizing the potential risks associated with that and therefore it is very crucial to ensure that AI best based interventions are developed in collaboration with young people with the strong focus on transparency privacy and user control but also here I would like to add that uh if you tailored these AI to sorry these AI tools to uh to the youth work sector it is also very important to involve in the in the process of development deployment and training the AIL algorithms not just the young people but also the youth workers because they aren't usually one of the stakeholders who is invited to the table and whenever you have this process of development training and deployment you have to to have a multi-stakeholder approach to each step of the way of the AI cycle so I believe that if we had used young people and youth workers involved throughout the entire cycle we would be able to develop as a society as a global Society more inclusive and also better tailored AI tools that could help also marginalized groups young people with special Necessities as well as young people who maybe don't have enough access to technology and in this way artificial intelligence power tools could be used in a more ethical but also in a more meaningful way especially in the youth field if I may just quickly jump on one thing you mentioned so the the thing that systems like artificial intelligence should be developed also hearing the voice of the youth field this is something which has been already proposed somewhere and discussed in in a few circuits and the big question there is always how to get there where these processes are happening so I would like maybe if possible to quickly ask you to share some hints to give us all to how to get there where this kind of decisions are taken and how we could make our voice heard at that level well the the easiest way to do is to participate in public consultations when whenever some policy documents or draft proposals for legislative amendments are made either by the European commission or the European Parliament uh for example all of those are published on the official uh of the official institutions web pages so and you can also click and I think on the European commission website there is a a button that allows you to get notification notified whenever a new proposal is put forward for public consultation so this would be a way to to also follow but also be able to contribute to the the uh policy and Regulatory proposals that the European member states have in terms of artificial intelligence also another way to to do that would be to kind of go way round and to build communities of Youth workers who would have policy proposals and then have that document put forward to either the European commission or other regulatory bodies for them to be able to kind of see that there is an initiative coming in from the sector and then they would include the secretary the secretary Representatives at the negotiations table or the consultation stable whenever that happens thank you very much so the scale is European at least so keep an eye on the process of open consultation that the commission starts from time to time as you know mentioned but also from the field there are possible initiatives before going on with the questions I see that of course this topic is very inspiring and so there's a lot of insight to share I guess also you have some recommendation or hints anyway to share about this very thing so I'll briefly pass the floor to him before going on with the questions to you all you have please the your partnership between the Council of Europe and and the and epeu is running a research project on artificial intelligence and the youth field and there one of the research papers is exactly confirming this that you two organizations are not really participating in this regulatory processes whether it's um issue of capacity whether it's an issue of not being invited or whether it's an issue of not just being interested I don't know which is the case but in any case it would be very important to get more used voices out there into all of these processes as well thank you very much uh now let's go on to explore the different practices and how the different Technologies you are using are bringing innovation in your practices of of youth work I'm now moving to Barry uh where you spend quite some time experiencing VR and immersive Technologies which to me is for sure another of the big things happening right now or maybe waiting to happen because there's been a lot of developing in in this sector for a long time so let's try to jump a little bit in the near future Guided by you and to ask you how this kind of Technology affect you to work in the upcoming time indeed it's an exciting time for youth work and emerging technology and and certainly uh my research and experience in immersive environments and youth work to date has been very encouraging in terms of what we can do um as a as a wide region and and use uh virtual reality and other Technologies like virtual reality for youth participation I'll go back a little bit really and and kind of talk a little bit about what exactly VR is just for those who might just be fully aware and so I'm talking about multi-user platforms and multi-user platforms that are under underpinned by three kind of guiding questions for youth work one that they're multi-user two that you can create private events within those multi-user experiences and three that they're appropriate so the the good news there is at the moment we probably have about 16 to 20 multi-user platforms that are are kind of Road tested for youth work at the moment um I would say in the next 18 months to two years we're probably going to have double that and I think going forward it's just going to Triple as well very very easily so multi-user platforms what is that what can we do there so when I when I use the term multi-user platform in immersive technology such as VR it comes with a lot of different um it titles a lot of different um activities everything from learning how to DJ uh graffiti uh multi-user graffiti experiences via um sculpting and VR and indeed creating um immersive VR youth spaces where um young people who are not physically in the same location can drop into a youth hosted a youth work hosted environment where very very quickly what I've experienced is those groups become connected to a youth worker or youth workers and their peers and it feels very real to a real youth club that might be happening or a real youth conversation that might be happening in a physical space so going forward um I think it's a really exciting time and what we could start to do and incorporate into youth work would be pan EU events we can also look at um events where um we could have different countries for example different young people different panels hosting different conversations all within a multi-user their platform or Lobby learning Lobby whatever you might want to call it so it's it's kind of looking at where where the technology is now and how we can kind of evolve with that as youth workers going forward and that's what's already started to happen um so there would be a little bit of work around staff onboarding and upskilling for sure and but I can I can um I can promise you once we get um to a certain point in proficiency as a youth worker or an educator in VR your your skill set flips very very easily into that environment and you become very natural and and that's kind of where the where the magic happens I suppose in many ways and so going forward I suppose things to think about is where firstly young people are I'm going to use an example of Roblox which is coming to VR this year and Roblox at the moment has 53 million daily users and that's that's globally um and I think it's got over 250 million accounts that are regularly used that is just one platform that is popular with young people at the moment if we audit in all of the other popular platforms I think it doesn't really it doesn't really bear talking about where we need to be or where we need to be thinking about being um in in the coming years in addition to that I think we're at a very exciting Junction as well where where young people could be actually building their youth spaces their virtual youth spaces and youth workers will be the the guests to those faces I think that's a really exciting place that we are on the cusp of being able to prototype in the coming I I would say in the coming year we could prototype that the last thing I would really point to is is looking at kind of historically overlooked regions and young people who would be placed and living and residing in those places I think immersive technology now offers the huge opportunity to look back and and bring in young people who have been left out of the conversation for reasons because of where they live or an additional challenge in their lives I think this technology when we get to the point where we have a pan-eu network of skilled Educators and youth workers that can use it proficiently we can start to really bring in a proper um gradient and demographic of all young people from all regions across this wide region thank you very much Barry um yeah there's a lot of things which are part of the ongoing conversation regarding you know youth work and Digital Youth Work and Innovation and digital transformation in youth work in what you said and what was heard also before so the idea of going where young people are uh so this last news about Roberts going VR it's very interesting news for a lot of people using also for instance video games as an educational tools uh and so on so my last uh step now in this part of our discussion will be approaching Johan and uh and asking him uh a direct and personal question we've been experiencing experimenting in experiences uh youth work and Technology connections uh yeah since a long time [Music] you had a publication regarding the markers makers perspective in youth works and many more now you are as we heard before the senior advisor of the new Salto digital so of course uh I can't help joining these two identities of you together and asking you to help us connecting the dots between these two Dimensions so how all these Innovative experimentations attempts practices and so on could become something more structured something which help develop policies models and also on the other side how we could support this process um as I mentioned in my in my uh presentation of myself that I I'm happy my happy place is between policy and practice and and that's kind of where this this kind of uh State my statements will lie as well I'll start from the top I'll start from policy even if like Barry said the practice is where the magic happens but there are a lot of things that need to happen before the magic can happen so to speak yeah so I I feel like there needs to be a lot of policy and a lot of strategic thinking around re-innovating youth of practice before it can really become become commonplace and become uh the part of the daily youth curriculum there is already a lot of I think really interesting stuff and interesting kind of culture shift happening around this experience experimentational culture in you work but it's not always very strategic in the sense that we are experimenting with cool Technologies we are experimenting with interesting approaches but we really struggle uh with how to move that in into uh long-term practice in youth work um an interesting example of a policy framework like this is the digital education action plan now someone from the youth field is wincing a bit in the audience this is indeed for the Youth field as well even if it's called education and I know that a lot of us don't feel that the identity of Educators is for us but I think we are indeed non-formal Educators in the youth field as well so it's very much relevant for us as well and it contains these kind of interesting things that help us also Foster this culture of innovation for example it calls for better infrastructure that it needs to be there and some some technological approaches just simply need that infrastructure as well also the digital education action plan as well as many other policy initiatives they contain funding instruments which are crucial for actually developing Youth Work practice which often happens in projects and these policies and these programs have those instruments in place as well um I mentioned the digital education action plan but also the council conclusions on digital yield work are good starting point they give a really good framework of of how how the solute work can be approached now the other thing when going down the ladder is of course this organizational culture um like does our actual working environment really allow us to experiment or not and that really comes from what the policy is calling for then that is what the organizations will in a way Implement not directly of course there are local considerations and and context to consider but but it all trickles down from the policy yeah so we need to figure out within our own organizations how do we Foster the kind of culture that really um encourages this kind of strategic experimentation so that we develop better practice that really can go into the organizational practice in the long run so we are not in the situation that when someone someone like Barry for example decides to change jobs all the good VR practice goes for them because no one else is doing it's just this one guy whether whether it's barrier in Army Kelly or myself yeah so it needs to be really in the day-to-day bread and butter of the things and one tool for that is there are several guidelines out there for organizations there are newer Frameworks there are older ones like from my previous employer as I really look at how how the organizational structures and strategies and cultures can can be developed so that it really Fosters this kind of innovation well of course to experiment we need to kind of know what we're doing not all the way experimentation is always about really jumping into the unknown as well but it's it can be helped a lot by having having the competences to kind of have the grasp of the big picture what we are experimenting on and the snack on digital unit work which has been a initiative of 16 different European States has come up with a part of part of the output of that project is by our our lovely Estonian colleagues um has been a framework of digital competences in youth work as well so there will be tools and and kind of Frameworks to evaluate do we have the competences to figure out a new exciting practice or not but finally is yeah it's about where the magic happens so it's about the practice um it's um I believe it's a question of whether we can really examine uh critically what we are doing if we are open to actually actually Reinventing and innovating it and and do we really have that shared understanding of of uh what it is that we are doing I think partially Kobe showed that even if we felt that we know what we are doing in our daily youth or practice often the case might be that we thought we have a shared understanding that all the practitioners around that practice kind of had a different idea of what it is that we're doing and likewise when transferring practice to a digital environment and an online environment the question that came up often was well what are your actual goals that you're trying to do and figuring that out gives us a much better starting point at all this experimentation when when we are clear on on the goals and values that we have now a really good again shout out to my former employee verke a really good material for innovating practices in a box that is a free free and open source material for really kind of ripping apart your lovely Youth Work practice and and figuring out how to do something cool with it I I highly do recommend that now finally I must mention research because research should be around all these kind of steps along the way and looking at practice also impact evaluation and proper research on the topic so that that can in turn inform policies or we can start the cycle again thank you very much starting maybe from you about I'm very interested in hearing also from the rest of you Damian says a lot of different educational platforms or any way practices including emerging Technologies and Innovation are implemented for instance through European funding or european projects and this is something we also discussed inside our training course digital Transformers uh and sometimes these projects have very bad let's say sustainability because at the end of the funding at the end of the project is the end of the practice so this could be an interesting question also to bring up and to ask the three of you how these Innovation experimentation could find a way to being developed and kept alive uh when when the funding is over when a project Arc is going to conclusion uh so how to bring on what we are doing in terms of emerging Technologies and innovation in youth work this is the question I'm picking up from Damian and maybe making a bit wider and asking back to the three of you uh maybe as I said I will ask you how to start umbilical is about also what Irina and Barry can then add to the answer please I think said it that when the project ends the practice is over but this really shouldn't be the case I mean project environments are where where often new UT work practice develop not only in Digital Youth work but in other Youth Work approaches as well and this is in a way unfortunate like there are no sustainable funding streams I wish I had an answer I guess you can apply for this and then all will be better but I would Advocate more for focusing on practice I mean the way I see it is that project environments are really good for testing out new things for experimenting and for figuring out if a new practice is viable but even if the funding goes away and and let's say in a digital sense if that platformer technology goes away the practice shouldn't disappear so I have a feeling that at least part of the reason is that if the practice goes poof every time projects ends then we're actually been focusing on the technology instead of usual practice and it's maybe a question also of how do we build projects um like instead of focus on a singular singular approach it should be more about this metal level what the what are the implications for youth work practice and how it can be implemented differently in case we don't have a funding model in place again I wish there would be a sustainable funding model in place it would be handy but but I don't have an answer for that thank you yeah I know of course it's a tricky question that's also why I wanted to hear from the three of you how things can anyway be brought forward standing this situation so I don't know if Barry or hirina have other yeah Arena please ideas to share yeah I mean I work in Project implementation every single day so to me the fact that certain platforms disappear once that the funding is over is sometimes an indicator that the either the project wasn't very well thought of I mean at the point when you start to develop a product you have to think about that obviously if this is a European fund it won't last forever so we have to think how this product is going to be viable after the final finalization of the implementation of the project itself and one good idea to do is to as the as our name as Damon has said is to implement a a small business model within the product so this is a platform some of the services that the platform offers could be made for uh for money uh users could pay even a symbolic fee like for one dollar one Euro or whatever just in order to be able to sustain the viability of the platform itself after the fundings uh funding of the project is over and another very good idea is what you have said is to have practices that complement the product itself practices to use that product and if the funding is over then the practices are still there in place people are it's like a tot people are using the practice to spread it to other people who might be might find it useful and that's how the platform remains alive throughout the throughout and even outside the cycle of the funding of the project so yeah that would be my input for this thank you very much Irina maybe everybody wants to add something sure I would just I suppose add to that as well and kind of look at um I suppose being multi-faceted in terms of how many platforms that are being used perhaps um if one if one kind of um ceases to exist for example there are other options and the learning and the skill set and the work and everything that has been done can carry over to other platforms going forward um so I suppose just just placing everything on one platform is maybe not a good way to begin a project and I suppose in addition to that I think I think it should be underpinned by uh I suppose a core of of Digital Youth Work should be able to kind of pivot and adapt and evolve into other platforms and if one does cease to exist or indeed it might become less popular um I I think it's it's something that should be at the Forefront of of any uh project before it begins thank you very much thank you very much also thank you very much the three of you for this like uh on spot answers which are somehow highlighting a kind of a red treat a red thread going through also the previous discussions that we had in other funnels tackling topics like sustainability which also was a part of the training course we are also realizing under the big title digital Transformers it's uh it seems that uh yeah part of the the way to grow Innovation and keep track of emerging Technologies in newtour is actually doing things in a proper way and think forward also in terms of sustainability and inclusion and diffusion of practices which is something that should always be part of youth work and it proves once again that we are still anyway talking you to work when we talk about the digital transformation and talking about youth work there is a comment and a question by Francesca which was already at least partially answered that I want anyway to pick it up she was asking uh how can I become a technological educator what I have to study to experiment to start so the answer we provided already was of course to dive into the materials of Salto toolbox and the training calendar offering any sort of trainings for youth workers and trainers and look at the resources in the participation pool regarding emerging Technologies and so on but uh let's also open up the question to the three of you so what should uh youth worker willing to do a first step or the first steps into this field of becoming a technological educator which is a very wide and vague definition we maybe use the technical definition of Digital Youth worker which has been more like established in the European discussion about this but still which could be the approach the the background to build the first steps to uh to take to to start this path uh also maybe sharing or which were your first steps and which was your background to get where you are now and to get doing what you are doing now uh I see Barry nodding a lot so I would maybe seem to start answering and then receive other participants have more answers to share please thank you um I suppose for for me uh the journey happened as an artist I I you know tried a VR headset maybe four and a half years ago and my mind as an artist was was completely blown at this fully immersive um 3D environment and immediately after that excitement it sort of died a little bit I I got excited re-excited as a youth worker an educator because I was thinking already about how this could work because if it was a multi a multi-user experience and that's where the the kind of the spark happens so for for youth workers that are out there who might be interested in in finding that spark I suppose with immersive technology there's already a growing range of different activities that you could incorporate into your own learning and upscaling I'm going to use photography for example so finding something that you're interested in and then incorporate incorporating it into VR is something that could be a really good starting point because you need that kind of interest to be able to use the technology and want to go back and kind of learn this maybe a little bit of your own time and so using photography and 360 camera you can import some of these images and some of this this footage into uh into fully immersive experiences which um as a photographer filmmaker is really exciting but if this was a project with young people I think it could be really really interesting and and been able to kind of showcase work um in in a virtual space with other participants and so for me I think the first steps in getting started would be maybe to access some equipment I understand now libraries all across Europe would have access and be able to alone and VR equipment I'm not sure if you can actually bring it home with you but I think a good stepping stone really before you actually purchase equipment would be maybe check in with your local library seeing if you can have a go or a demo and then I just go in from there I think investing in a headset or two and would be something as a next step and I suppose just align yourself as a professional just to get familiar with the equipment the basics how to put it on um a different different kind of kinds of experiences some are like um 3D VR movies but some actually you're you're interacting as an avatar so there's a whole growing range of different experiences but I suppose what I would the takeaway really would be allow yourself a little bit of time to get familiar with being an immersive environment that can be it could be a few weeks it could be more than a month just using the equipment little and often and that's even before we're thinking that's before we put our youth work or hat on you know so yeah there's a little bit of time investment find something that might be additional of Interest such as for example photography sculpting um we can learn how to DJ for example I mentioned before there's a growing list of really cool really exciting really fun educational and youth focused activities that we can now do using fully virtual um like you know we physically could be a very different spaces so uh that would be my my take on that thank you very much Barry um also including having fun which I think it's also a big driver for this motivation that you were mentioning uh and talking about this I would also like to ask if Irina maybe wants to share her uh first step to to what you're doing now please sure I mean to me I feel like I sort of can relate to not being a tech educator but being a tech lawyer having the same prefects uh I mean to me moving from a traditional legal practice to a more technical legal practice involved a lot of uh staying curious and wanting to to learn new things and to me the first step was literacy AI literacy in my specific case and for this I would very much suggest there is a free resource it's called elements of AI this is a platform that has a series of free online courses created by the University of Helsinki in collaboration with a startup I think it's called Mina learn and what they would what what they do they want to encourage a uh a broad group of people as much as possible to learn what AI is what can and cannot be done with artificial intelligence and how to start creating AI methods it's a both theoretical and practical course so I would really really recommend to start from there if if everyone is curious to you to learn about artificial intelligence and to kind of dip their toe into this whole thing and other than that so you kind of go from there once you are literate enough you and if you stay curious enough you want to learn more and then you start practicing going in from theoretical to practical if you want to narrow it down to a specific domain that you practice in this case being youth work you start researching for tools that are specifically tailored for youth work in my case would be for for lawyers and so on and that's how you kind of move from a traditional standard of your profession to a technical upgrade of your profession I guess thank you very much Irina because we are now approaching this this question that came by from they came from Francesca and this is showing us that uh there are elements that we should always remember that are maybe more in the background so following your own interest or trying to uh follow some online learning processes or courses and so on then I'm asking also uh to Yuka either which were your first steps I'm very curious about this but also again some help to connecting the dots and uh to make it more visible how indeed uh dealing with emerging Technologies and Innovation inute work and in Digital Youth Work even more it's very much about uh don't quit your own maybe strange or geeky interest and find a way to make them work uh for for a good of young people you're working for or as a way to address your practice so more young people as we were mentioning in the beginning which are already using these practices on their own and maybe they can also take some value by having some educational figure closer to them but I'm curious from you in your perspective you are yeah for me personally it was always a no-brainer to get into digital youth work in the sense that I've always been a huge geek and a huge nerd um but that can also feel like an exclusive thing I get it that distributor can sometimes feel like something that's only for this like boys nerd club uh or even girls nerd club and if I'm not a nerd and I I never will be included because I'm not interested personally in technology but we are interested in a lot of things like you know a bit of blackberry and Irina both said that um to quote I believe Charles bukowskeep the famous quote goes find what you love and let it kill you of course don't let work kill you uh in any any sense but find what you love is I think resonating here in the sense that so many things can be connected to Digital Youth Work practice whether it's music or arts or uh if you're really interested in human rights issues or or safe spaces for advocacy all of this can be kind of a starting point for a digital practice so for for someone asking like how can I become a digital educator just take the thing that you're passionate about in your work on your daily life and connect start connecting that with uh Digital Youth Work the way I got kind of started in my path to where I am now in a way is uh the thing that I always say to students asking the same question is find the people that are doing cool stuff and play with them as much as you can this includes a lot of people in this panel potentially as well but uh includes include for me as for example nationally my ex colleagues in Berkeley so I worked with them a lot in my previous positions even when I wasn't still a part of the stuff because hey they're doing cool stuff so I want to learn from them and I want to kind of interface with what they are doing and develop my own competence from there um one thing I would add maybe is to really consciously develop a mindset that goes back to this experimentation as well um that um apart from organization having to allow us to experiment we also have to allow ourselves to experiment and we have to allow ourselves to fail because we have this kind of mentality sometimes that we have to be experts before we can even try but I I always quote have a quote from the snowboarding world if you're not falling down you're not trying hard enough so the only way the practice and our personal competence will develop is that we push the limits we push the boundary and keep experimenting even if we set ourselves up to fail I've said also that there should be a European maybe this is a connecting adult but there is a European fund for semi-controlled failure so if uh if like a project fund where if you fail but you can show why you failed and what you learned you would get more funding on the next round so something like this would really kind of foster a culture of experimentation and failure so those are my not two cents but few cents yes thank you very much um we are now moving towards the end of our discussion we are already like anticipating uh some elements of what I wanted to ask you as a final question um which is indeed uh to share ways tips recommendation attitudes behaviors and everything can help us to build a confidence toward Innovation and using of emerging Technologies in Youth Work practices so uh as I said uh is not for the sake of showing off New Gear uh itself or having the last Gadget or geeky stuff but indeed how Innovation through emerging Technologies in it work can from one hand be become a part of what you do and we already had a few in from you on that side and so if you have more please feel free to share more and on the other hand uh how these uh approach of using emerging Technologies to improve the experiences we are offering to to young people could then become to uh General transformation of the sector so uh how this could become somehow a way to to Showcase a possibility to make your own way towards new practices which maybe now are even yet to be invented but can come because of these attitudes of these approaches that you are developing step by step so any recommendation hints advice on that level would be probably very valuable from the three of you and we are really all ears I would maybe ask Irina to start and then we can follow on with the rest of you uh well apart from what we've already said about trying to experiment with online learning tools such that would help you first of all get literate with the new technologies and the emerging Technologies when I'm thinking about specifically AI powered tools targeted or tailored for it for the Youth sector and the youth workers I would think about the kind of tools that resemble like chatbots or virtual assistants they could kind of Provide support for example to young people 24 7 in relation to various uh situations that it might that they might encounter uh also uh youth workers could use adaptive learning platforms and these platforms what they are they basically these are platforms that are powered by Al algorithms and that can personalize learning activities and resources to specific specifically targeted Young People based on their individual needs and learning styles uh also uh the the basic would be to use data analytics tools as I've said in the beginning like these are tools that can by default analyze very large data sets of demographical Behavioral social data and some examples that I've tested and that I could recommend are squirrel AI this is a adaptive learning platform that uses algorithms to personalize those learning activities to young people uh it can it has some features that are free of costs and others that are uh that you have to pay for but the personalization aspect of the platform is really really cool and I would suggest to at least try to test it to see how that could be used to tailor your work another one would be AI for all and this uh is an uh as an organ this is an organization and they aim to increase diversity and inclusion in the field of artificial intelligence uh they was curious about them is that they provide AI education and mentorship programs uh to young people from underrepresented backgrounds helping them to sort of develop the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the AI industry so this is an interesting platform to use especially if someone either comes from an underrepresented background or they live in a remote region and they but they are curious and they want to have the magic happen and this would be a tool for them to use to try to get a mentorship program from someone who is already skilled and experienced in the field and another platform that I would recommend is cogni uh this is an also an a um kind of powers platform that provides uh interactive and personalized learning experiences for young people I live in Moldova and this platform is very much used here by youth workers and Educators who try to do Alternative Learning it's very interesting how the platform generates various tools for uh to enhance learning experiences for the various youth groups age groups uh social groups and so on and so forth so if any of those three would be useful to anyone who is listening to us today I would very much encourage you to use those yeah and stay curious as always thank you thank you very much let's go on sharing ideas recommendations hints and tips maybe it's time again to go to Barry and hear from him it's a really it's a really nice part of this conversation I can kind of share some of the existing activities that have been incorporated into youth work here in Ireland and indeed with some of my more recent work with them with the youth groups I'm working within the Olan region of Finland shout out to everybody over there uh it's really it's a great pleasure to work with everyone in that jurisdiction but what I've found in the last few years is is looking at how we can use fully immersive events so no one is it physically in the same space open a multi-user event and we can start kind of looking at how young people can shape and build their own worlds another another huge interesting um area within young people of the groups that I've been hosting over the last few years is building and creating and designing their own avatars and which we find which is a really um it's a really vibrant part of the conversation that you will find actually in a 30 40 minute call or a meet-up sorry in VR you might find that young people and to change their Avatar several times which as a youth worker it can be quite challenging to keep track of who is who and who is uh what character at any given time but again it's it's the way we of the world at the minute and uncertainty it's how young people are choosing to to kind of communicate and interact with each other and it's really exciting so looking at World building Virtual World building you know again I mentioned Roblox but we also know that Minecraft is hugely uh hugely popular and I do hear um that Minecraft may be coming to VR experiences in the near future also but looking at also the gamification you know how we can be digital citizens in VR and how we can interact and what I've also found here in Ireland is that young people who may not perhaps invest in a youth activity in a physical space maybe a little bit open to something like mindfulness within VR context which again within within boys for example I think there's a huge uh a huge value to that where you know we're looking at a growing demographic of young people who are online but who are maybe more open to the idea of a five-minute mindfulness kind of routine and focusing on breathing I think there could be something there that would be a huge value going forward in addition to that I think it could be a really good idea to look at kind of regions in different countries and look at kind of regional contests at show and tells you know we could be looking at incorporating business opportunities in terms of the you know young people pitching ideas and sustainable kind of solutions to issues that's happening within the environment and and again I think there's also a conversation in how we could look at immersive Technologies such as VR and and intertwine that with existing EU um programs such as youth exchanges where perhaps of a youth two youth groups were going to to spend some time together in in person in in the summer we could kind of have a lead in time where their meeting in VR as avatars in the lead up to that where you know icebreakers name games all of that really nice kind of important thing uh material can be done in the lead up to an actual in-person event so there's lots of ideas um there will be even more ideas as this technology evolves and the the tapestry of different experiences and apps can be increased for youth work at the minute as I mentioned we have about 12 or 14 apps that are ready to go um I think with that it's going to get more interesting in terms of of how we can incorporate immersive Tech into youth work on an eu-wide scale thank you very much Barry and uh let's hear also from yuha some recommendation ideas advices how to you know bring emerging technology more to to youth work um I'll go from top to bottom to save the best for last to get to go last with the practice side of things um I think societally and and policy wise uh the youth field and all Youth Work organizations and all youth workers simply need to engage more whether it's on on a discussion about immersion Technologies like artificial intelligence or whether it's a new policy initiative on a EU level or or on a national level uh we we really need to be more there in the discussions and around the tables I believe that if we aren't invited if we ask to be included then we will be included because youth work is so valued around Europe as well and that'll help us to also shape the policy in a way that that will help us really experiment as far as new practice developing in in projects goals and we practice developing in general goals we really need to be better in assessment we need to be able to better show what the impact of our new approaches is or or what what we learned from from experimenting with a single singular technology a single approach not just saying that we think it was okay but rather we need to be able to show how it was yeah and when we go to the level of singular practitioners what keeps popping up over the years time and time and time again the only way that we can future proof ourselves for for the next emerging piece of technology is changing our mindset so Irina said we say curious and that's really in the core of it we need to stay curious we need to be aware of our own thinking we need to be aware of our own attitudes and competences and skills and all of this stuff to kind of build a mindset that is constantly open for for experimenting with new technology and the most concrete thing I can say about YouTube practice is that that it's easy to be worried about whether whether we are able to use use the new technologies to the full potential or not but I would say to every single practitioner out there that you are already Superstars uh my example comes from Mozilla Festival which is a huge Tech event in London and once I mentioned that I come from the youth field I work with young people with digital devices they stop talking about their wonderful wonderful interesting pieces of technology and they want to know more about youth work because there is really a need for youth work that is happening and we know what we are doing in the field in terms of youth work so even if we struggle a bit with the technology piece it doesn't matter because it will be golden anyway because we have the core the important bits of the youth work is already there so don't fret just experiment with whatever comes our way and have fun yeah thank you very much thank you all actually and I also want to share one comment coming from Milan in uh in our platform saying that also don't be afraid to ask young people to help you out when it comes to digital tools especially when it comes to Media where they already are as Barry was mentioning from the very beginning of our discussion so social media Discord gaming platforms whatever could be a way to Innovative practice also including your target group together with you um yeah thank you again the three of you it was really really uh a super interesting discussion and I would like to I mean go discussing these topics for a couple of days more but indeed our time is running out um so it's about time to show uh at least have a sneak peek to the graphic recording of the discussion a lot of elements were shared a lot of issues a lot of topics so we have our boxes and in our boxes talking about how emerging technology and Innovation can have an impact on youth work we can see apart from your three faces also some elements uh which were mentioned uh during your different answers maybe we can make it a bit bigger so so we

2023-09-02 14:51

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