It’s not unusual when I am presenting a talk on online engagement to encounter great enthusiasm from people who see this as the ideal way for engaging young people. There seems to be a rather naive belief, that because young people are on online and like to be online, if we just throw all relevant discussions online, they will instantly join in (or something like that). I only wish it was that easy.
The truth is the internet is such a broad and deep resource that simply putting information online will not attract anyone. Being there helps. It makes you available. But the real issue with engaging young people has always been they are not even vaguely interested in most of the issues adults want them to talk about. Or perhaps it is the way we frame those issues?
I thought it might be good to write about what might work for youth engagement and invite others to contribute to the discussion. To start this process I had a long discussion with my kids, two hours to be precise while I had them captive in the car on the long drive home from Sydney to Newcastle. The following points are what I learned about engaging young people:
continue to read Engaging Young People
