digital youth network

Workshop - Graphic Design

With a background in theater and design, Niq comes to DYN with a passion for the collaborative artistic and education process. Working as the marketing chair for an educational theater company in Chicago, as well as on marketing committees for other theaters and filmmakers, Niq has learned to draft images that portray information, sell a product, and stand alone as their own art pieces.

Workshop - YouLit Magazine

Jennifer Steele is a native of Connecticut. She is a teaching artist for various organizations around the city of Chicago including Hands On Stanzas, Camp of Dreams, and Young Chicago Authors. In her previous lives she has also worked with the Hill-Stead Museum and the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, and served as co-editor for the Columbia Poetry Review 21. Her poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Caduceus, Warpland Journal, and Beltway Quarterly Online.

Workshop- Spoken Word
Event- Lyricist Loft
As a DYN mentor, Brother Mike has worked across media, from spoken word to radio to graphic design. Most notably he helped develop a multi-media arts class called “iRemix Records,” in which sixth-grade students analyze and critique the music industry while learning how to create their own music. Students take on multiple roles as producers, artists, managers, designers, and videographers, with the goal of creating a CD and presenting their work to a larger audience. Brother Mike is the creator of such projects as Change Society, which engages students in media creation with a focus on civic engagement, and Lyricist Loft, which provides a pathway for students to showcase their work to a public audience.

We are proud to be included in the recent announcement by the Gates Foundation around their funding for new digital learning tools. With Gates support, we are expanding on the iRemix Social Learning Platform developed here at DYN to include a set of 20 literacy-based trajectories that allow students to earn badges and move from novice to expert in areas like creative writing. We look forward to sharing more of the work as it progresses

Education’s Trojan Horse: “Teenage guys in America are really suffering,” Constance Steinkuehler says in a new video from the Pearson Foundation’s New Learning Institute. “And they are definitely falling out of school and disaffiliating with school at a rate that’s really alarming.” Re-Imagining Learning: One of the most engaging speakers at a panel discussion on 21st Century learning in Chicago last week was 12th-grader Shani Edmonds, who talked about her experiences learning online. She spoke as part of a panel discussion at the Spertus Institute on re-imagining learning in the 21st Century. The event also featured film clips from Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century, a new PBS documentary that also features the work of Edmonds and her peers in Chicago.