[Air-L] Query on supportive teen online affinity groups

Sun Jun 2 07:59:08 PDT 2019

Mimi, Cecilia, and AoIR,

Thanks for sharing your great research on teen online affinity networks.
Looking forward to staying in touch about this in many ways.

Thank you, Scott

- Scott MacLeod - Founder & President
- http://worlduniversityandschool.org
- https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch
- https://twitter.com/WUaSPress
- World University and School - like Wikipedia with best STEM-centric
OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in
California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational
organization, both effective April 2010.

On 6/1/19 4:52 PM, Scott MacLeod wrote:
> Hi Mimi (Cecilia, and AoIR),
> 
> Thanks for your great research focus on teen online affinity networks.
> 
> I'm wondering if you might like to focus on questions of exploring
> 'building out' youth online communities to promote positive social support
> and mental wellness through digital channels. World Univ & Sch seeks to
> build online high school degree communities (potentially International
> Baccalaureate-centric - e.g.
> https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/WUaS_International_Baccalaureate_Diploma_and_Programme
> ) first in the US in English and then also in each of ~200 countries'
> official / main languages, and as we eventually license (BPPE) and accredit
> too. And as a wiki, World University and School is also seeking to explore
> related questions with regards to online teen 'Universitian' (wiki-editors,
> teachers and learners) at World University and School, in all kinds of wiki
> subjects - e.g. https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Subjects -
> again for wiki-open teaching and learning. (I don't know the teen Wikipedia
> communities in these regards). So, teens in African countries, for example,
> would be central to this in some years, after the English-speaking (MIT
> OCW-centric online High School - https://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/ - again
> potentially I.B.) begins to grow. Conceptually, such teen groups and
> channels would be in something like Google Education, and even Google +
> Plus (if it was re-vamped for this, for example).
> 
> I think these would areas that address both of your questions:
> 
> Two questions:
> • Do you know of online groups, communities, networks, or influencers who
> serve these groups of teens, and who might be possible partners for this
> kind of effort?
> • Are there channels and forms of teen online participation that might be
> fruitful avenues for reaching vulnerable teens? For example, young women of
> color in college might form GroupMe or FB groups for social support, but
> I’m not certain if a similar practice exists at the high school level.
> 
> World University and School is seeking in particular to study academically
> questions of online mental wellness for teens, - e.g.
> https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Psychotherapy (again in
> potentially all countries' main languages) and with regards too to young
> women of color in high school.
> 
> And, further, World University and School is seeking to create a realistic
> virtual earth with avatar bots (am thinking Second Life in Google
> Streetview so where 10-person Google Hangouts' participants could become
> realistic avatar bots of teens, and in a 'digital gaming' like way too).
> I'm not yet clear how the digital teen space in such a single realistic
> virtual earth (think Google Streetview / Maps / Earth / Tensorflow with
> avatar bots / Translate) will be different from the adult space here, and
> even re my related actual-virtual comparative ethnographic research on
> Harbin Hot Springs, and in planning for a realistic virtual Harbin at the
> cellular and atomic levels too (~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~
> https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook ~).
> 
> Thank you so much, Mimi, for digging in on this, and looking forward in
> many ways to communicating further about teen online affinity networks ...
> to promote positive social support and mental wellness through digital
> channels.
> 
> Best, Scott
> 
> - Scott MacLeod - Founder & President
> - http://worlduniversityandschool.org
> - https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch
> - World University and School - like Wikipedia with best STEM-centric
> OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in
> California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization,
> both effective April 2010.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:48 PM Cecilia Aragon <aragon at uw.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Mimi,
>>
>> I have a suggestion for your second question but not your first. Over the
>> last five years, my colleague Katie Davis and I, along with our students,
>> have been researching a group of millions of overwhelmingly female and
>> nonbinary teens who contribute to online fanfiction repositories, often
>> rewriting mainstream stories to reflect their own lived experience. In the
>> process, these frequently marginalized teens develop identity, improve
>> their writing skills, and find community and support.
>>
>> The numbers involved are staggering. On one fanfiction site alone, young
>> people with a median age of 16 have published over 61.5 billion words of
>> fiction in the past twenty years. For contrast, the Google Books English
>> fiction corpus, covering the past five centuries, contains 80 billion
>> words.
>>
>> But what's even more interesting is how these young people are both
>> teaching and learning from each other, via a process facilitated by
>> networked publics that we've come to call *distributed mentoring*.
>>
>> Fanfiction has frequently not been taken seriously, but Katie and I believe
>> it's become a crucially important outlet for marginalized teens in
>> particular. If this is interesting to you, we have a webpage
>> <https://depts.washington.edu/hdsl/research/distributed-mentoring/> on our
>> research and a book
>> <http://ceciliaaragonauthor.com/writers-in-the-secret-garden/>, *Writers
>> in
>> the Secret Garden*, coming out from MIT Press in August.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Cecilia
>>
>> --
>> Cecilia R. Aragon, Professor
>> Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of
>> Washington, Seattle
>> http://faculty.washington.edu/aragon | @craragon
>> <https://twitter.com/craragon>
>> New book *Writers in the Secret Garden
>> <http://ceciliaaragonauthor.com/writers-in-the-secret-garden/>* available
>> for preorder <http://amzn.com/026253780X> from MIT Press
>>
>> On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 9:19 AM Mizuko Ito <mito at itofisher.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear AoIR colleagues,
>>>
>>> I am seeking to expand my knowledge of teen online affinity networks for
>> a
>>> new project I am scoping out, and was hoping to tap your wisdom.
>>>
>>> We are looking to partner with youth online community organizers and
>>> influencers to promote positive social support and mental wellness
>> through
>>> digital channels. The goal is to work with networks involving teens (ages
>>> 13-18) who experience disproportionate amounts of  discrimination,
>> trauma,
>>> and stress, and are not currently well-served by more conventional mental
>>> health services. We’re particularly interested in serving girls of color
>>> and subgroups (eg. immigrant, Latinx, and Muslim teens), and LGBTQIA+
>>> teens.
>>>
>>> Two questions:
>>>         • Do you know of online groups, communities, networks, or
>>> influencers who serve these groups of teens, and who might be possible
>>> partners for this kind of effort?
>>>         • Are there channels and forms of teen online participation that
>>> might be fruitful avenues for reaching vulnerable teens? For example,
>> young
>>> women of color in college might form GroupMe or FB groups for social
>>> support, but I’m not certain if a similar practice exists at the high
>>> school level.
>>>
>>> The project is U.S. focused but I’d be interested in examples from
>> outside
>>> the U.S. as well.
>>>
>>> I would be super grateful for any suggestions and advice, including
>>> literature to read and general feedback. Thanks so much for considering.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Mimi Ito
>>> Professor | UC Irvine @mizuko
>>> Director | Connected Learning Lab
>>> CEO | @connectedcamps
>>> http://www.itofisher.com/mito
>>>
>>> New Book!
>>> Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning <
>>> https://nyupress.org/9781479852758/affinity-online/>
>>>
>>>
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> 
> 
> 

-- 
- Scott MacLeod - Founder & President
- http://worlduniversityandschool.org
- 415 480 4577
- PO Box 442, (86 Ridgecrest Road), Canyon, CA 94516
- World University and School - like Wikipedia with best STEM-centric
OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in
California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational
organization, both effective April 2010.