Where has the time gone!?!?!  I’ve known about NYA2008 for ages and been working on it for months and I’m still not done!  How come?

I got the programme information today and it looks amazing!  Some really good stuff happening about mental health and the human library sounds fascinating.

My sessions?  Well, Authenticity, Information, Privacy and Participation are our headings for an adventure in Social Media.  Sound interesting?  I hope so.

I’ll be blogging as we go along and posting on the wiki.  If you’re not coming you can follow the back-channel chat (or just backchat) on twitter.  Follow us over the weekend, or say hi!, using NYA2008 in your tweet.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about last night’s thoughts and I think my obsession with this event is about making a difference and seeing the value it has.  If not then it really is an obsession and I need help!

Now, no more of this procrastination.  Back to work!!!

Stock.xchng is a brilliant free stock photo site.  Great for high quality photos for your presentations like this…

Come to think of it, I have no idea what i’d use this photo for but I now have a strange urge to go pour a gin and tonic!

DK at Media Snackers has been on a bit of a campaign to get Youth Workers in the statutory sector to blog.  It would seem that there are very few who do (he’s found one!), which perhaps is a consequence of Local Authorities attitudes to their staff having any kind of online profile (it’s BAD).

The same is true of the church.  Rumour has it that the powers that be added Facebook to the list of blocked websites in the Church of Scotland’s offices the day before Gordon Brown (yes the Prime Minister) gave social networking a big thumbs up at the General Assembly.  Facebook was unblocked shortly after.

This seems broadly representative of local churches and even denomination’s approach to the Internet.  ‘I don’t understand it so it must be bad.’  I’ve had youth workers tell me they are not allowed to have BEBO or Facebook sites, they can’t have forums on their websites and all kinds of stuff about not being online.  The reason most given is ‘Child Protection’.  What a load of nonsense.

The online world is just as safe (or unsafe) as real life.  What we should be doing is having sensible conversations about APPROPRATE online interaction with young people.  There are lost of ways to have open and transparent contact online with young people.

It’s probably a good idea for you not to IM your youth group.  But there’s no reason you can’t have a Twitter account telling them what’s coming up this week, or reminding them what to bring.

Having a group blog also let’s young people be creative in collecting content, writing and presenting what they have been up to.  A blog would give your group a higher profile in the community.  It would allow parents and supporters to see the value of your group.  You might even get new members or more funding.

So, here’s a plea.  Just because you don’t ‘get it’ don’t think it’s bad.  There are loads of tools and opportunities around to make your youth work better.  Don’t miss out because you don’t know where to start.

If you blog about your youth work, let me know.

If you would like to know more about getting online then in the next session I’ll be doing some training to get you started.  Keep an eye out on the blog and the dates pages or get in touch from the contact page.

In the meantime check YoMo’s guide to youth work blogging HERE.

One of my photos made it into the new Edinburgh Schmap !!!  It’s this one of Murrayfield Parish Church.  Another example of the power of TAGGING!

looks like a brilliant idea.  The idea is simple.  Post what kind of people you want to meet up with and why.  Name a time and a venue.  People come.  It’s that simple.  Still not sure?  Watch this:

This seems to me like a tool we (the church) should be using lots to network children’s workers, youth workers, ministers, people…

I’ve been invited to head up a team delivering a debate stream (I’ll explain in a minute) at the Church of Scotland’s National Youth Assembly in September.

The debates have in the past followed a fairly traditional model where people would be given written information prior to the event, someone would present more information on the topic at the event and then participants would ask questions, discuss and decide what they think.

This year there will be four debate themes; The Media, Healthy Relationships, Sustainable Living and Future Church.  I’m involved with The Media one.  Each theme will have four sessions lasting 2 hours each to explore one aspect of their topic with around 60 young adults.

So, we’ve decided to take an adversarial approach setting our sessions up as discussions around the opposites like control v democracy.  We’re also going to concentrate mostly on ‘new media’.  Should be fun.

We’ve decided to use a wiki to both provide information beforehand and to post what we come up with during the event.  More on that nearer the time.

I posted last week about wordle, the cool visualiser which takes your text and makes a nice image.  Well textorizer is a whole new level!  Add in your text, pick a picture and hey presto!

Genius!  The good news is you can download textorizer for windows, linux and mac.

H.T. Jonny

Youthwork International is a new website for youth workers… who are from all over the world.  This is what the site says about itself:

Thousands of Christian youthworkers supporting each other in dozens of countries…

The best ideas for youth work at the click of a button…

A blogging community sharing ideas and resources…

Access to affordable training for volunteers, part-time and full-time youthworkers…

Regular news updates from around the world…

Resources and session ideas…

Articles written by the best thinkers in the field…

An international Youthwork Community, created by you, driven by you, working for you…

That is what YWI is all about…

An emerging community, growing organically from the roots…

If it manages to be even some of that then it will be well worth subscribing… for free.

You know that there are loads of cool new webtools around but you forget where they are, who they might suit or what situation they might be useful in?

Well college@home have a very helpful list of 100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner.

What is great about the list is the ‘every kind of learner’ bit.  The 100 tools are listed under learning preferences so you can see quickly which of your young people / group / you / whoever might enjoy using the tools.

The National Youth Agency (England) have just published an interim report from a study into Youth Worker’s attitudes to Social Networking. The project blog is here.

Not surprisingly only 35% of youth workers felt able to help young people take advantage of the opportunities of Social Networking as opposed to 53% who felt they should focus on the dangers of the Internet.

There are a huge range of opportunities to do good, creative work with young people using online tools and social networking sites. The Internet is here to stay. Let’s get busy using it positively.