Imagined Communities is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to use emerging technologies to redefine cognitive education through the use of design-based, learner-centered educational initiatives.
The Future of Change
For many youth, walking to school means stepping over broken bottles or used condoms, weaving through abandoned lots, and passing graffiti-littered storefronts. For the city, this kind of neighborhood is a problem. For the youth, its home.
We asked the question: What if that could change?
Imagined Communities is our response. Imagined Communities is an innovative program designed to equip disadvantaged and underserved youth with the technical, cognitive, and emotional tools they need to envision and realize change for themselves and their communities. It begins with a series of workshops. Each workshop trains small groups of students to use specific design solutions to render their neighborhoods in a virtual 3-D online environment. Subsequent workshops bring life to this virtual neighborhood. Students use digital storytelling and an array of audio/visual tools to add narratives, photographs, and information such as local history and walking tours. By researching their communities, students create multi-generational, digital narratives that encourage increased civic engagement and community identity.
As their competence grows, the youth then use their 3D rendering skills to re-envision areas based on community priorities; an abandoned lot becomes a community garden, a basketball court, or a park. Community participation in a competition to select a winning design leads to real improvements through the help of outside partners and resources. The process of implementation teaches students necessary real-world skills as a project manager and as an agent for change in the community. It is one thing to learn to design a community garden online, but it’s quite another to bring people together and budget, plan, and build a real project in response to community needs.
Further linking the virtual and real worlds, the community narratives and information created by the students are made available in the real world using augmented reality technologies. The entire project will then be accessible by any Internet-equipped computer and mobile phone to anyone in the world. Social media technologies further link the community to virtual and digitally enriched physical resources, such as volunteers, mentors, jobs, and social support.
The workshops are delivered in series. The initial series involves four teams, totaling approximately 50 students plus a technical resource. These teams render and augment a minimum of 16 blocks within their community. With this experience, team members become resources for the community in two important ways. First, they serve as mentors for the next generation of design teams. This insures that the virtual community continues to grow, extending cognitive learning from one group of students to the next. Second, the teams become part of the production talent pool able to apply the tools and techniques to community assets, virtual museums, and other location based information as paid employees. A partnership with a local museum or design asset provides in-project employment opportunities as the now-trained youth are placed on teams to help create a virtual version of the museum as they did with their community, and help develop museum programs for an interactive web platform.
Technical training is essential for youth to succeed in 21st century jobs. However, Imagined Communities has a more prominent mission. At its core, Imagined Communities is about enabling kids in disadvantaged communities to re-envision their communities and themselves and create opportunities for their future.
Program Impact:
- Highlights cognitive education by encouraging problem-solving and information synthesis
- Imaginatively addresses the Obama administration’s STEM initiative through 3-D rendering and visualization
- Engages youth in civic participation by learning about and interacting with their communities
- Changes cognitive maps of participating youth, a necessary component for future success
- Develops collaborative and leadership skills as students identify and re-design areas based on their community’s needs and priorities
- Provides hands-on experience in bringing the virtual re-designs to life through student participation in the implementation of partner-based, outside resources
- Links disadvantaged and under-served youth with dynamic innovations in technology that lay the foundation for future career skills and offer direct in-project employment opportunities
