Connected Learning & Libraries: an Essential Part of the OST Ecosystem
by Linda Braun and Lance Simpson
This is the fourth in a series of blogs from the editors and authors of It Takes an Ecosystem: Understanding the People, Places, and Possibilities of Learning and Development Across Setting. A new blog highlighting a chapter or theme of the book will be posted every other week.
In this post, we offer excerpts from our chapter in It Takes an Ecosystem, “Connected Learning & Libraries: an Essential Part of the OST Ecosystem,” to support our argument for the value of Connected Learning (CL) as a framework for strengthening and sustaining the brokered connections of all community based learning ecosystems. Brokering, a means of mentors directly connecting kids and teens to relevant resources/activities/organizations to support and further engagement with their interests, is foundational to the CL framework (Widman et al, 2020).
Learning ecosystems that utilize the CL framework, and emphasize the importance of brokering opportunities, ensure that organizations, institutions, leaders, and mentors throughout the ecosystem are collaborating, are learning each other’s specialties, and are constantly making connections with each other–especially with the young people they serve. This facilitates young people moving through learning experiences in their community in ways that align to their needs, interests, and goals.
What is Connected Learning
“Foundationally, the CL framework is built around research that says young people learn best at the intersection of their own interests and passions; through relationships with adult mentors, educators, and peers; and with opportunities to continue to engage by leveling up [improving skills through scaffolded experiences] and/or ‘geeking out’ [showing excitement and passion for a particular area of interest] (Ito et al, 2020). The CL Framework provides guidance and structure for developing and maintaining responsive and creative spaces for youth across a learning ecosystem and ensures relationships with learning mentors and role models that cultivate and broker opportunities for the young people they serve. While in this chapter we primarily examine the value of facilitating CL in the spaces of out-of-school time, for an enhanced healthy learning ecosystem, connections across both formal and informal spaces of learning need to be recognized.”
Power Sharing and Educational Equity
To keep young people centered in a learning ecosystem, utilizing the CL framework means considering the power structures around learning, and how to share that power.
“The CL framework is grounded in empowering young people. When educators and mentors encourage youth to follow their interests, they shift the power dynamic between teacher and learner to acknowledge the learner’s autonomy in pursuing knowledge and understanding of a world that is meaningful, and which makes sense to them. CL acknowledges the power of young people by leveraging opportunities for controlling their own education. This highlights the role of CL in an equity agenda, as young people are infrequently in control of anything in their lives. CL acknowledges the role and responsibility of adults and institutions as holders of power. By sharing power between learning facilitators, mentors, and youth CL becomes a robust way to ensure that diverse voices are represented and heard.”
Equity through power sharing means that relationships are built and grow stronger and communities grow and thrive.
“CL is scalable, and continually reinforces itself through practice. As mentors and leaders in libraries and other allied youth fields continue to seek and find opportunities for the youth they serve, they will naturally develop relationships with other organizations and leaders, technically skilled community members, youth serving nonprofits, and formal and informal educational institutions across the community. In this way, the fundamental elements of the CL framework can be applied at a community level ensuring that youth serving organizations maintain strong relationships as a single ecosystem, and leveraging their collective power and resources to connect the interests and needs of the youth they serve with opportunities for learning and growth.”
Connected Learning and Public Libraries
Early in the history of connected learning, public libraries demonstrated their affinity to the framework.
“CL found its home in practice and design with public libraries in the late 2000s and early 2010s through support from the MacArthur Foundation. This support enabled the development of YOUmedia Chicago at Chicago Public Library, and a subsequent expansion of a network of libraries and museums through the IMLS Learning Labs in Libraries and Museums initiative (Barron et al., 2014, Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2014). These libraries and museums utilized the CL framework to design spaces and develop collaborative relationships with community partners to provide opportunities for teens to pursue play and learning through the lens of their own interests and passions. ‘It’s important that we equip them [teens] with the tools they need so they can be as good as they can be’ (Benjamin L Hooks Central Library, 2018).”
Connected Learning Across the Ecosystem
Moving beyond the public library in support of youth is essential.
“For youth to engage in CL in sustainable, and meaningful ways, they need a learning ecosystem filled with mentors, educators, and peers all working together to create opportunities for them to learn and grow in their interests. As with a natural ecosystem, a learning ecosystem is an intentional coalition that recognizes the power of relationships and mutually beneficial collaboration. When the stakeholders in a learning ecosystem work as a whole, rather than as disparate parts, they effectively leverage their own resources to support each other, and directly meet the learning needs of the youth they serve. In this chapter, through examples from public libraries, and others in allied youth fields, we look specifically at the CL framework as a tool for expanding a thriving learning ecosystem.”
We encourage you to consider how exploration of the CL framework and approach might further enhance your work with young people, and help more deeply connect you to the broader learning ecosystem in your community.
Ito, M. (2020). (rep.). The Connected Learning Network: Reflections on a Decade of EngagedScholarship. Connected Learning Alliance. Retrieved from https://clalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/CLRN_Report.pdf
Widman, S., Penuel, W., Allen, A.-R., Wortman, A., Michalchik, V., Chang-Order, J., Podkul, T., & Braun, L. (2020). Evaluating Library Programming: A practical guide to collecting and analyzing data to improve or evaluate connected learning programs for youth in libraries. Retrieved from https://clalliance.org/publications/evaluating-library-programming-a-practical-guide-to-collecting-and-analyzing-data-to-improve-or-evaluate-connected-learning-programs-for-youth-in-libraries/
