Boys & Girls Club Is Getting Viral With It
Today, I was fortunate enough to give a presentation on HTML to the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Greensboro. A number of directors from the local units came to Central Unit’s computer lab where they built their first web page by hand.
Organized by Ndesanjo Macha (not only is Ndesanjo Unit Director at Central Unit but he’s is the editor for Sub-Saharan Africa for Global Voices Online, “single-handedly built the largest blogosphere in [Swahili],” maintains a Swahili blogging guide, and a board member of The People, Yes among other things), this was step one to get everyones’ feet wet. Steps 2 through 10 will be getting a blog running for each unit, teaching the kids how to maintain it, and for those kids interested, giving them the tools to build their own.
Like Central Unit’s blog, where they share their “fun, art, and learning,” the goal is to get all of the units joining in on the blogosphere conversation. Not only do they teach the kids how to blog at Central Unit but they record and produce their own films, mix their own music, record podcasts, and are currently putting together a sound booth.
They don’t call this Blogsboro for nothing… even the kids share their voice.
John, it was great having you at our lab today. Looking for more stuff in the future (first, High Point University).
“they built their first web page by hand.”
Impressive. I use a computer.
Hahah… very funny. They built the web page with only a text editor!
[...] Ndesanjo attempted to deal with the issue, as he touched upon his work at the Boys and Girls Club, expressing the importance of teaching the youth to view the web as an opportunity to participate in an upload culture by creating media — even their own games — for distribution. It was a poignant message, but I don’t think it quite stuck as the conversation quickly moved to hit the major points of Smiley’s covenant before our student representative reported our discussion back to the entire room. [...]