If even a Lords report advises change so rapid, UK could be left behind in terms of digital capitalism. If digital technology is so embedded in people’s everyday lives, should we still be talking about “digital making”? Does the use of tech-centric language get people involved or does it turn them off?
From digital consumers to digital makers: the connected generation
For most young people digital technology is an everyday part of life. Digital making is the best way of understanding how technology works., learning about technology through making with it.
Two-thirds of parents and carers say they are interested in participating through digital making. 73% of parents encourage their children to make things with technology. Young people are somewhat more confident in their own digital making abilities than their teachers.
Many resources are already designed for non-experts to access. 65% of parents are interested in making with technology themselves.
How can we reconnect parents who have children as makers, whether through schools, after school clubs or other networks?
How can we explore how young people can support their peers in developing new skills and volunteers to support their communities? What can we learn through the infrastructure used within the gaming community to reward collaboration, be it gamer guilds or open badges?
The demand from young people is to make things that are culturally relevant to their lives.
For the young, digital is the everyday, it’s the just the way they learn & work.
What if young people helped local government, businesses and civil society how to make digital as a new form of work experience or apprenticeship?
What if they learnt together where they went back to school to make sense of the world around them?
Digital and civic literacy
There’s nothing worse than when people have different levels of understanding, confidence and resilience. Either because people in those spaces feel excluded or because the spaces feel excluded to some people, i.e. universities, town halls or agencies.
What if young people and other groups made digital in spaces out of reach by most people, i.e. old people’s homes, prisons or hospitals?
