The popular image of the "digital native" -- usually depicted as atechnically savvy and digitally empowered teen -- is based on the assumption that all young peopleare equally equipped to become innovators and entrepreneurs. Yet young people in low-incomecommunities often lack access to the learning opportunities, tools, and collaborators (at school andelsewhere) that help digital natives develop the necessary expertise. This book describes oneapproach to address this disparity: the Digital Youth Network (DYN), an ambitious project to helpeconomically disadvantaged middle-school students in Chicago develop technical, creative, andanalytical skills across a learning ecology that spans school, community, home, and online. The bookreports findings from a pioneering mixed-method three-year study of DYN and how it nurturedimaginative production, expertise with digital media tools, and the propensity to share thesecreative capacities with others. Through DYN, students, despite differing interests and identities-- the gamer, the poet, the activist -- were able to find some aspect of DYN that engaged themindividually and connected them to one another. Finally, the authors offer generative suggestionsfor designers of similar informal learning spaces.
